GUEST COMMENT: A perspective from deep within the BarCap 'infrastructure' department
Yesterday, it happened. Impromptu meetings were held across the BarCap infrastructure teams following the launch of the UK collective consultation over potential redundancies.
In my experience, the spiel was delivered as a one-way-only 5 minute conference call with no opportunities for anything in the way of Q&A.
It went a little something like this: "Barclays is doing well as a whole. Growth is strong as reflected in the recent half-year results announcement, but...costs are too high relative to revenues."
Hence, we had the proposal to streamline some areas within infrastructure to help cut costs. No numbers have yet been announced internally, but there's been an affirmation that all projects will continue as planned, existing initiatives won't be cut back and strategic hires planned for my team will be going ahead.
We were all reassured that we're doing a "fantastic job" and that this little glitch shouldn't stop us from continuing to deliver at the high standards we have been achieving of late.
Am I reassured? Not really. From where I sit, it looks like management are trying to make us look as good as possible on paper at the expense of us all slogging ourselves to death. Despite building the foundations for the front office to do well, infrastructure are definitely the lowest common denominators here. This is just a reminder of that.
