Lloyds says ‘unnecessarily vivid’ term should not be used and warns against referring to ‘guinea pigs’ to be ‘inclusive of vegans’
Staff at the bank that owns Scottish Widows have been urged not to say “widows” because it can trigger upsetting memories.
Lloyds, which owns the insurance company, has produced new guidance on “inclusive language” for its 57,000 employees that raises concern about several traditional words and phrases.
It says the term “widow”, to describe a partner of someone who has died, is “unnecessarily vivid” and may “trigger unwarranted personal memories of trauma and upsetting situations”, so staff should say “separated” instead.
Critics pointed out that Lloyds owns Scottish Widows – a life insurance and pensions firm that manages almost £200 billion in assets – yet there are no plans to change its name.
The guide, first reported by the Mail on Sunday, lists words “that have strong negative associations” and can create “barriers based on... social mobility, education, religion, accessibility, race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation” if used.
The words in the non-compulsory guide were submitted voluntarily by Lloyds staff in a whiteboard-like interactive document after the bank’s inclusion team came up with the idea for a discussion about language, The Telegraph understands.
Other phrases that staff are advised against using include “guinea pigs” because this “may not be inclusive of vegan colleagues” by evoking images of cruel laboratory experiments.
Guinea pigs are sometimes used in conversations to describe someone being the first to test out a new idea, but it is unclear whether the advice also applies to staff mentioning their pets.
Another phrase included in the document is saying something is like a “headless chicken”, as it is linked to a slaughter method where farmers behead a chicken and it continues running around for a moment.
The guide also lists the phrase “sold down the river”, given its historical connections to slavery in the US, and “penetration testing”, a cyber security term for testing IT systems, that may “conjure up an unwarranted and intrusive bodily image or may be triggering”.
Staff are advised that “you may agree with some terms and disagree with others – that’s OK! You don’t have to adopt alternatives, though do explore why we recommend doing so and the urgency with which they are suggested”.
Scottish Widows was founded in 1815 to take care of women and children who lost their fathers, brothers and husbands in the Napoleonic Wars, and has six million customers. It was launched with an aim to be “a general fund for securing provisions to widows, sisters and other females”.
A Lloyds Banking Group spokesman said: “We continually look for ways to enable our colleagues to engage, debate and be collaborative.
“The voluntary inclusivity tool is designed to be a self-moderated way for colleagues to explore how people may feel about different words and phrases. As is par for the course when crowdsourcing for ideas, some are better than others.”
The bank said it had no plans to change the name of Scottish Widows. A source said: “We are reviewing the tool to ensure that the phrases and words included are helpful to our colleagues.”
