LTB 021/18 – OPENREACH – Senior Engineer Role
No. 021/2018
Ref: DB/ML
Date: 12 January 2018
TO ALL BRANCHES WITH MEMBERS IN BT
Dear Colleague
OPENREACH – Senior Engineer Role
Branches have received reports previously on discussions with Openreach regarding Career Pathways and specifically the creation of a new ‘Senior Engineer’ role. The role was piloted in the North East Region across all three of the business units. Whilst the technical requirements for each role differ (please see the attached job description) the purpose and scope of the roles are identical.
The role was assessed using the normal protocols and was mapped to TMNE3. As previously reported due to pay coding issues the role will be advertised as TMNE9 with a pay point of £30k and a 10% OTB bonus. This bonus will be paid in the same way as those in the TMNE2 roles. Those individuals who took part in the pilot will receive backdated payments of the difference between the new overall remuneration (£33k) and the cover payments made during the pilot.
It is also important to note that on appointment to the senior engineer role, individuals’ terms and conditions will not change and they will remain on their current NewGrid or WF2020 terms e.g. hours, annual leave etc.
The national rollout will begin on 15th January 2018 with adverts for the roles placed in Job News and these are attached. The appointments process will take some time but all the roles will be filled by the end of the financial year. Individuals will be permitted to apply for up to 3 roles (total) across the business units. This is principally to manage the process following lessons learnt from the pilot.
Also attached are a set of slides which sets out the selection process and mandatory requirements for managers involved in the process. Following the experiences of previous exercises the National Team (NT) have sought to ensure that the process is as transparent and fair as is possible and will be monitoring the progress of the exercise jointly with Openreach as part of our ongoing consultation regarding career pathways.
Due to the differing size of teams and skill mix there may be up to two senior engineer roles per OM. We will be provided with a definitive list of how many by OM patch and the intention will be to share that with SPOCs and Branches (separately), in order that you can assist the NT monitor the progress of filling the roles at a local level and ensure backfill when individuals move to another role or leave Openreach in the future. This issue should be discussed at the regular meetings with GMs in the same manner as Performance Management has recently.
This has been a successful exercise from the Union’s point of view which will result in circa 1600 individuals being promoted into the new roles. It has been a long-standing ambition to create meaningful career progression in the Field environment and the NT intend to build on this success in the near future. It is also the intention to jointly monitor applications and appointments with regard to gender, ethnicity and the grade group from which people originate. Further information will be shared with Branches in due course and will be discussed at the Openreach Briefing Committee on 15th February 2018.
Any enquiries from Branches regarding this LTB should be referred to my office in the first instance.
Yours sincerely
Davie Bowman
Assistant Secretary