FX head sues after boss’s ‘transformation strategy’ doubles workload

afr.com:

A London executive earning £1 million ($1.9 million) a year is suing his investment firm, claiming it gave him such an unreasonable amount of work he fell into a deep depression and has been unable to work for three years.

State Street’s Global FX trade head Jeremy Armitage. The (UK) Telegraph

Jeremy Armitage, 58, joined State Street Bank and Trust in 1992 and rose through the ranks to become global head of FX trading.

But he blamed a new strategy at the firm prioritising a “do-more-for-less” culture for triggering a bout of depression that forced him to take more than three years off work, according to a UK High Court claim.

Ron O’Hanley, CEO and president, implemented a transformation strategy after his arrival in 2019 that Mr Armitage said effectively doubled his responsibilities with no extra pay or staff.

Mr O’Hanley had worked for strategy consultant McKinsey and brought with him a “do-more-for-less” culture, also known as the “transformation strategy”.

The scheme involved “ranking staff performance and terminating lower performers while passing on their workload to the highest performers”, as well as enforcing “draconian measures” to monitor activity in the workplace, the court documents allege.

Mr Armitage said he became increasingly stressed, as he could not see how to meet what he claimed were excessive performance expectations, regardless of how hard or how many hours he worked.

He claimed he repeatedly told his line managers about his excessive workload and unrealistic deadlines – part of which involved managing around 120 staff across nine countries – saying he could not cope, but nothing was done and bosses rejected his pleas for extra staff, citing a hiring freeze.

His doctor noted serious concerns about