Day 181 - 01 Nov 95 - Page 56
1
2 Q. Lynne Mead, and it is a document E3.
3 A. Can you tell me the heading?
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is on the page after the one you were
6 looking at a little while ago. It has "current employees
7 by length of service for the company" on it.
8 A. Yes.
9
10 MR. MORRIS: Yes. Mr. Rampton referred to this document?
11 A. Yes.
12
13 Q. This shows the length of service of current employees as of
14 those particular dates specified -- if we just look at the
15 first column, for convenience. If, for all 28,000
16 employees, this is the length of service at any one time of
17 current employees, what does that tell you about the
18 turnover in the Company ---
19 A. I am afraid -----
20
21 Q. -- of people that leave and how long they may have stayed
22 with the Company?
23 A. It is very difficult, is it not, to work out actual
24 turnover figures from length of service figures? You can
25 only -- because turnover figures are always annualised, and
26 these service figures cover up to 120 months. So, you
27 know, you have not got proper turnover figures here. But,
28 nevertheless, you can see from the proportion that had been
29 working for the Company for less than six months, which is,
30 you know, getting on for 35 per cent, 30 per cent -----
31
32 Q. In fact, in the previous quarter, which is less than six
33 months, it is about 40 odd per cent?
34 A. Yes. So that begins to suggest, you know, a high
35 turnover figure. Certainly, yesterday we talked about the
36 industry average, 35.6 or 36.4, or something, one of those
37 two -- 36.4.
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you look at the figures, the ones who fall
40 in the brackets up to six month come out at 39.2 per cent.
41 A. Yes.
42
43 Q. There are 56.25 per cent in the total of the brackets up to
44 12 months, and there are 74.61 per cent in the total in the
45 brackets up to four months.
46 A. Yes. I mean, it is slightly surprising to me that the
47 actual annualised turnover figures -- perhaps they have
48 been made available, but -- are not provided for this
49 current period, because it must be possible to get them
50 from the same data that provides -- the same database --
51 the same database that provides these data, this printout,
52 should be able to generate quite a lot of other profiles,
53 including annual turnover.
54
55 MR. MORRIS: I think we have got the annual turnover. OK. All
56 I am saying is -- it may be a slightly leading question
57 and, fair enough, but I do not mind if it is given no
58 weight; I am just trying to say what I am trying to say --
59 if something like between 13 and 20 per cent in the Company
60 have worked with the Company less than two months on those
