HR jobs are under threat following the takeover of NatWest by the Royal Bank
of Scotland, finance union Unifi has warned.
The takeover bid, due to be ratified at an extraordinary general meeting of
the Royal Bank of Scotland in March, has been predicted to result in up to
18,000 job losses. Unifi says HR positions could be among them.
Dai Davis, the union’s director of communications, said that although plans
for integrating the banks are sketchy, replicating positions across the group
could put HR jobs in the spotlight.
"The head office functions, of which HR is a big part, will be affected
considerably. HR in London are very concerned," he said.
Davis said that there was also a question mark over what would happen to
training programmes run by NatWest as the bank had been planning a complete
restructure of training before the takeover bid. It put its Haythrop Park
training centre up for sale at the end of last year.
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But he said in the short-term HR positions should be maintained to deal with
retraining and the outflow of many staff.
