Timing of NAB redundancies problematic
It is no secret that National Australia Bank (NAB) is making a number of staff cuts across its business lines, but there are claims the timing could result in an unfair outcome for workers.
It has been recently reported that the bank had cut close to 600 jobs across its IT, administration and wealth management divisions so far this year, with the Finance Sector Union (FSU) having been told another 100 positions were under threat.
However, an anonymous letter sent to Money Management claims a number of employees were being retrenched before the end of the bank's financial year end — 30 September.
"Unfortunately, if an employee is not at work on the 30 September, they are not eligible for any entitled short-term incentive or bonus [payments]," the letter alleged.
The FSU told Money Management it was currently seeking clarification regarding some of the details around NAB's redundancy policy and had requested it be provided by Friday this week. The union said it would not be able to comment as to the fairness of the bank's redundancy payouts until then.
However, Money Management understands moves are underway to ensure the payouts reflect employees' pay packages.
In March this year, NAB announced a strategy update detailing changes to its senior management team and the structure of the organisation, which included the departure of MLC chief Steve Tucker.
"Where there have been changes to some teams as a result, NAB works with impacted employees to identify any appropriate internal redeployment opportunities," NAB said in a statement.
"We continue to be mindful of costs and changes that occur to overall staff numbers will be largely as a result of natural attrition."
Upon announcing a restructure in its wealth division earlier this year, NAB chief executive officer Cameron Clyne said the bank would not be engaging in "large-scale" job cuts.
"We expect the staff numbers will change; they've been changing over the last couple of years but by and large we've achieved the bulk of that through attrition and we're looking for a sensible way to achieve it," he said at the time.
"We've got a workforce of some 26,000 — there's a lot of change that goes on in any one unit, we've achieved it in a fairly low-key fashion in the past and there's no suggestion we can't do that in the future."
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