An initiative by Allianz coined as a way to drive technology innovation has been exposed to be an excuse for shifting staff overseas and culling local numbers, as exposed in a new ruling.
Allianz Tech’s Speed2Value initiative, which was announced in 2023, was positioned publicly by the company as a way of achieving “innovation and operational excellence” and “transformation” for the tech and IT services branch of Allianz Group.
However, an unfair dismissal lawsuit has ruled that the initiative was an excuse for redundancy, framed as a growth opportunity for the business.
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“The Speed2Value initiative is an ongoing, global initiative focused on transitioning certain in-house roles and functions out of high-cost jurisdictions and into an offshore or outsourced model,” the decision reads, as seen by itnews.
“This includes engaging services through offshore or onshore third-party professional services firms, and, in some cases, offshore Allianz group entities engaging employees in lower cost jurisdictions outside of Australia.”
This has impacted not just the one person in the lawsuit, but has reduced local staff numbers from 515 in March 2023 to 329 in March this year.
However, despite the inaccurate framing of the initiative, the lawsuit outlined above was unsuccessful by the ex-staffer, who was frustrated by the termination as they had moved for the role.
The analyst programmer told the company in a letter that the redundancy was not valid as the team he was part of was “very busy” and that offshore skills and resources were not at the same level.
"I understand the offshore team will take over my projects. However, they lack the capability to create [document] templates from scratch," he wrote.
"They have only been able to maintain and modify templates created by myself and other ... team members."
He also said that he had spent time learning a niche tool for the Allianz Tech business and passed on other career paths for Allianz.
While the Fair Work commission said it was “understandable” that the individual “felt very aggrieved” at the decision, they determined that the redundancy was genuine as the position was no longer required by the company.
“AzTech submitted that it no longer required [the] job to be performed by anyone because of changes in the operational requirements of its enterprise arising from the Speed2Value initiative,” the decision states.
“AzTech submitted that as part of that initiative, [the] role was eliminated and has not been replaced within Aztech’s enterprise.
“AzTech submitted that to the extent the functions associated with [the] role are still required, they have been wholly outsourced to an offshore contractor, HCLTech, a third-party contractor providing document management services for the Allianz group, based in India.”
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Daniel Croft
Author
Born in the heart of Western Sydney, Daniel Croft is a passionate journalist with an understanding for and experience writing in the technology space. Having studied at Macquarie University, he joined Momentum Media in 2022, writing across a number of publications including Australian Aviation, Cyber Security Connect and Defence Connect. Outside of writing, Daniel has a keen interest in music, and spends his time playing in bands around Sydney.