Maria Ramos

Big four bank Absa is redeploying all 1 600 staff members in its group IT division, telling them to reapply for positions across the company’s operations as it reorganises the department.

Absa, a majority-owned subsidiary of UK-based Barclays Bank, employs 36 535 permanent staff. It turned over R45.8 billion in the year to December and reported R9.7 billion in headline earnings.

Staff costs increased 9%, although the number of employees declined by 1 570, because of attrition and a “continued focus on automation and efficiency initiatives,” notes Absa’s results booklet for the period. Finance union Sasbo, which is embroiled in a wage dispute with the bank, says Absa’s reorganisation of its entire IT department affects all 1 600 staff, who have to reapply for their posts. Sasbo assistant general secretary Comfort Dube says the bank has been in consultation with the union for the past few weeks, but it has guaranteed that no one would lose their jobs. He says no employees have been retrenched yet, but should that happen, Sasbo will take Absa head on. Dube anticipates that the reorganisation will take about three months.

The bank says IT staff are being reassigned and given an opportunity to apply for positions within the group and on the continent. The re-application for jobs is in line with its “programme of integration with the rest of Africa and the efficiencies that derive from this process,” it says.

Absa says the process “does not amount to retrenchments, as affected employees are given the opportunity to apply for positions across the group”. It says “through developments in technology and processes, we continuously seek to improve output while reducing duplication”.

In the results booklet for the year to December, CE Maria Ramos said efficiency was an ongoing priority and that the bank had kept cost growth in single digits.

The bank says it has consulted all “interested parties” and it strives to “ensure that our employees remain a key focus for the group”.