Antonio Horta-Osorio, chief executive of the Lloyds Banking Group, broke the mould this week by refusing his annual bonus worth £2.4 million. Some say this is just a very clever PR stunt, and oh, coincidentally, he is just back from a much-talked about two month hiatus. The news of Osorio rejecting his bonus comes just days before it was announced that RBS chief executive Stephen Hester was more than happy to receive his annual bonus of £1 million, at a time when 3,600 members of staff are being made redundant at RBS.
But the naive, truth-seeking little girl in me wants to hope that he refused it on genuine compassionate grounds - guilt. While I'm normally the first person to leer and revel at a rich man's misfortunes (shadenfreude actually suits me quite well sometimes), Osorio seems to be in real, human suffering.
Yes, those words and the word "banker" don't technically fit well into the same sentence, but after being signed off for two months due to insomnia and health issues, I do think it's acceptable to feel a marginal amount of pity for the guy. Even if his annual salary does come up to £1.6 million I will never, ever get to see in my lifetime. Ever.
The truth of the matter is, (again I stress this bearing in mind the amount of positive publicity he is gaining for Lloyds) it makes him seem more human, less infallible. He reminds us that sometimes, it's OK to admit we're not OK, and that he can't always get it right. And on those grounds, he refuses to be rewarded for it.
This is a simple human instinct, and one which I applaud him for embracing. After two months off from the banking industry, it would be nice to think that he's become a little bit more empathetic towards the average minimum wage earner, and his mindset as a millionaire banker has been diluted.
While it's easy to feel very little compassion for someone who most of us cannot relate to, I do believe that just saying no to a bonus which is larger than your annual salary might be hard. He was offered it, and he refused it. In the same position, would I have done the same? Probably not.
Sometimes it's easy to dehumanise people when it suits our needs, and particularly when the media helps us along our way. Osorio is showing initiative by taking the lead, and saying "No, I don't deserve this," before any other bank has done so.
Having said all this, Osorio has hit the headlines during a time when Lloyds' share prices are dipping - hmmm... Maybe I won't be going into banking any time soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment