Barclays bank’s high street arm has slashed 20 of the 90 jobs in
its communications team. The move is part of an extensive reorganisation
of the department, initiated by the division’s communications director
Paul Barber when he joined the bank last year.
Barber heads Barclays’ largest communications division. When he joined
the high street arm it employed 115 people in communications, but Barber
has been streamlining the department to make it more cost-effective.
In May, Barclays announced that it was to cut a number of jobs around
the country. Barber said: ’We are trying to significantly upgrade the
communications function. We needed to reorganise to make better use of
the people we have got. These changes are part of the restructuring we
announced in May. Having looked at the way we were organised we realised
there were lots of opportunities to cut costs.’
It is understood that most cuts will come from the employee
communications team.
As well as scrapping 20 jobs, Barclays has created 28 new ones within
the division, which means until February, when the new structure is
expected to be in place, up to 50 people in communications will be
applying for new jobs.
Barber’s 70 remaining staff will work across media relations, employee
communications, communications planning, event management and electronic
communications.
Barclays employs PR teams in its four other divisions: the group centre,
Barclays Corporate Banking, Barclays Capital and Barclays Global
Investors.
These teams are unaffected by Barber’s review.
