There's one argument left that never fails

'Great news, team,' I say at our Monday morning meeting, 'the bank wants us all to take extra time off this year.' Nobody smiles. Those members of my team who survived the redundancies are not silly. They know very well that there is no silver lining in banking that is not attached to a large dark cloud.

'It's completely voluntary,' I continue, 'so it's up to you to decide whether or not you would like to have the extra time off, but you should appreciate that this is unpaid leave, not normal annual leave.'

'What do you mean by voluntary? Can we just ignore this?' asks Dan, still unhappy about receiving his smallest ever bonus a couple of months ago.

'Well, the management can't force you to take unpaid leave, but we would strongly encourage you to do so.' This is part of the cost-savings process. When companies are done making people redundant, workers are offered voluntary unpaid leave, then pressured to do so and, if that doesn't work, forced to take voluntary unpaid leave.

'So what happens if we don't volunteer for this voluntary unpaid leave?'

'Well, how can I put this,' I replied, 'if you don't take the recommended days of unpaid leave, management will be disappointed with you. And I don't think that in these times you want management to be disappointed with you.'

'Uh-huh. So you're saying that if we don't take unpaid leave, we'll get laid off?' says Dan.

This is what we're not allowed to say. Instructions from the legal department are that we are not to say that this is compulsory, but we all of course know that it is. 'Not necessarily. You might get laid off anyway, we all might. It's difficult to say nowadays. What I can say is that if there are more lay-offs, then whether or not you took unpaid leave might be taken into account.'

This was clearly not a morale-boosting thing to say, as I can tell by the sullen faces around me. You tell bankers that they are taking unpaid leave and all they hear is 'pay cut'. Stay home for one day a week and you end up with a 20 per cent pay cut or don't come to the office for a month and it's an 8 per cent pay cut.

I don't want this to be the last thing in my team's mind when I end the meeting, so in the hope that I can end on a more positive note, I decide to take another tact.

'What's more important about all this is that we are trying to avoid making anyone else redundant. We need to pull together and find a way to reduce costs, so that we can return to profitability as soon as possible. If everyone takes a few days of unpaid leave as a group, then hopefully we can save enough that no individual has to be laid off. We need to look at this as if we are one big team.'

It is hard for anyone to argue with this sentiment. But even as I am saying it, I cannot believe my ears. How much has the banking model changed that I can say this and not be laughed out of the room. Competitiveness, the desire to maximise our own bonuses, getting a leg-up on the other guy - that used to be the driving force of our business. And it really did seem to be working, until about 18 months ago.

Now that banks are not making money and we bankers find ourselves slightly surprised to still be employed and getting bonuses, a change in attitude was, I suppose, inevitable. Not so for everyone.

'What is this,' says Dan when he comes by my office after the meeting is over, 'first you fire half the staff, then you cut our bonuses, and now you want us to take unpaid leave?'

I try the argument about the bank's performance: 'We lost untold billions last year and we don't know how much more we'll lose in the US before it's over. And the government has purchased huge chunks of our equity to keep us afloat. You can't expect under these circumstances to maintain the level of compensation you were used to.'

He is unmoved: 'Those problems weren't anything to do with me. I didn't buy any subprime mortgages or credit default swaps. Our equity business here in Asia is profitable and we haven't made any bad bets. Why shouldn't we be properly compensated for the revenue we've generated?'

I try another version of the collective responsibility argument: 'That's true Dan, but those problems are there and we have to work out a way for the bank to move forward. We can't go ask those guys who bought subprime mortgages to give us back the billions of dollars we've lost. Unfortunately the burden now lies on all of us and we have no choice but to make a few sacrifices for the good of the bank.'

Still no sympathy from Dan: 'So what happens next year? No matter how well I perform, if some other guy screws up again I still get a pay cut?' Nothing left to do but fall back on the one argument that I know still works: 'Stop complaining, would you. At least you've still got a job.'

Contact Alan Alanson at [email protected]