A front page story in The Financial Times in the UK last week portrayed one of the great industrial relations cockups of recent times, all brought about by a button inadvertently pushed on a dreaded email! Here’s what happened.

ANZ, one of our big four banks, is having an absolute shocker after an accidental email was sent out informing staff members (many who were senior managers) that they’d be sacked. This was a front page story in The Financial Times in the UK last week and was portrayed as one of the great industrial relations cockups of recent times.

And it looks like this IR disaster isn’t getting any better, with the AFR reporting that the bosses of the bank put on a town hall meeting with staff that seemingly posed more questions than were answered.

While details of how many jobs will go are yet to be revealed, the Financial Sector Union has been told that five restructuring or job-cutting proposals were possible, affecting 200 jobs. But it could be worse. The AFR’s Angira Bharadwaj informs us: “Brokers have suggested that the bank could cut up to 2,000 jobs from its 42,400 global workforces.”

Insiders (who wouldn’t be named) have said 30% to 40% of the retail and technology divisions of the business could be in for the chop.

Like a lot of businesses, for a long time, inefficiencies within the organisation have been lived with. Bank experts, who advise stockbrokers and fund managers, say 2,000 jobs could easily go and some tasks performed by people will be replaced by AI solutions.

All this upheaval comes as ANZ learns to live with a new CEO, Nuno Matos, who was shipped in from the British founded bank HSBC. Apart from improving ANZ’s productivity and profit, Matos has to bed down the integration of Suncorp’s banking business bought last year.

Since April 9, ANZ’s share price has spiked from $26.50 to $33.57 — a 26% gain that suggests people ‘in the know’ saw job-cutting and profit-boosting decisions were on the way.

ANZ

Not surprisingly in the world of money, this PR nightmare inadvertently informing people by email that they could be sacked, hasn’t hurt the bank’s share price.

Cost savings work in the first instance to boost profit. Undoubtedly, AI will be used to fill holes created by fewer staff members. However, if ANZ becomes known as a customer-unfriendly organisation because of less face-to-face encounters thanks to robots or chatbots, there could be a stampede out of the bank.

In this brave new world we live in, all banks will be doing the same thing! On this very point, Westpac’s CEO Anthony Miller is expected to wave 1,500 staff members goodbye.

This is a sign of the AI times we live in, so we need to get used to it.