Seven West Media has moved to again beef up its senior female ranks with the appointment of Katie McGrath as its head of HR for the culturally beleaguered group.

McGrath joins the company at what would no doubt be a very interesting time in the human resources offices of Kerry Stokes' Seven.

The company has been racked with a spate of staff-driven scandals including alleged rampant credit card spending, alleged inappropriate affairs, as well as an alleged fraud and also strenuously denied claims staff have a case of "white line fever" on the weekends.

The most high-profile scandal was the nasty fall out of chief executive Tim Worner's affair with junior staffer Amber Harrison, accused of inappropriately spending hundreds of thousands on the company credit card.

Allegations she mainly disputes and had said, prior to a gag order being placed on her, were grossly inflated after settlement negotiations between her and the company fell over.

And don't forget the Perth newsreader Talitha Cummins who alleges she was sacked on maternity leave and sued. There's also Amy Taeuber a former reporter for the network in Adelaide, who recently settled a bullying case with the company after a direct manager insisted that because she was a triplet she must be a lesbian because one in three women are.

Stay classy, as Anchorman's Ron Burgundy would say.

McGrath, who will will report to Worner, replaces Seven's former head of HR Melanie Allibon. Allibon left the company before Christmas – just days ahead of Harrison dropping the public bomb on Seven.  

McGrath comes armed with a long HR background, a commerce degree and a psychology degree – possibly the best weapon in dealing with the morass of poor behaviour at the media house.

And McGrath is no stranger to dealing with serious corporate issues.

Before joining Seven she was head of HR for ASX-listed Enero Group – a little group that might be better remembered as the highly diversified media "player" Photon Group.

McGrath joined Enero's turnaround team and is considered to have been vital in changing Photon from being Australia's worst conglomerate into a slim-lined, boutique media manager.

Her appointment comes a day after the company's appointment of former iiNet executive Maryna Fewster as director of operations for Seven West Media in WA.

Bank incentives

Some interesting stats and facts have come out of the big banks' answers to questions on notice from the parliamentary committee charged with bashing our banks (albeit sometimes with a wet lettuce).

Brian Hartzer's Westpac has told our pollies  in response to questions on notice from Labor MP Matt Thistlethwaite that it did pay incentives to staff in its super switching call centre at BT.

BT's campaign to switch Westpac customers into BT super accounts is currently subject to civil action by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. In that case the regulator alleges the program was a breach of new bank rules that advisers must act in their clients' best interests. According to Westpac, "both revenue and sales quality components" are taken into consideration along with other measures. It's a hell of an admission considering the bank paying incentives to staff is a key plank of ASIC's case. Westpac told CBD it had nothing to add to its answers when we called.

And of course, Westpac is not alone. If you ever get the feeling your NAB teller is trying to sell you something, rest easy, you're not crazy.

Andrew Thorburn's NAB has responded to questions on notice to the same inquiry and according to the other red bank a staggering 78 per cent of their customer-facing staff are able to participate in the company's group short-term incentive program. The bank includes the "financial" performance of staff as well as a range of other more friendly measures to determine whether to give staff members a bonus. By the count of those numbers, it appears only the branch security guard and the cleaner are the only ones not able to get a bonus. 

A spokeswoman for NAB told CBD all NAB tellers "have a balanced scorecard, and financial measures in the scorecard are equally weighted among other measures, such as customer advocacy and risk management".  "We consider not just what is achieved, but how it is achieved," the spokeswoman added. If a staff member does not demonstrate NAB's values (like "passion for customers" and "doing the right thing") they not only risk losing their bonus, but can face disciplinary actions.