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Danske Bank Axes Administrative Jobs in Bid to Cut Bureaucracy

Danske Bank Axes Administrative Jobs in Bid to Cut Bureaucracy

(Bloomberg) -- Danske Bank A/S is firing scores of people who had focused on business development and technology, as part of a broader revamp of its organization designed to cut bureaucracy.

Denmark’s biggest bank will part ways with 63 people, it said on Monday. At the same time, about 5,000 Danske employees will shift into “better ways of working,” entailing “less bureaucracy and more flexibility,” it said.

It’s the latest shift in staff arrangements at Danske, which earlier this month said employees were free to permanently work from home a few days a week. The bank said the Covid-19 crisis and the lockdowns that followed will have a “lasting impact” on how it operates, after observing an increase in customer satisfaction, employee engagement and productivity in recent months.

With Monday’s announcement, Danske says its employees will now be able to “react faster to our customers’ wishes and needs.”

Danske didn’t provide a figure for potential cost savings as a result of the new organizational structure. But Mikkel Emil Jensen, an analyst at Sydbank, said it’s clear the bank is doing what it can to save money.

“If they are to reach the cost reduction targets for 2023, they can’t avoid reducing costs and that will primarily come through layoffs,” he said.

“You could hope that all the corona related cost reductions like less traveling could reduce the need for layoffs,” he said. “But I think banks are under so much pressure to cut costs that they can’t get around further layoffs.”

More details -

  • Danske is removing 156 positions total -- primarily coordinating roles -- as a part of its “Better Ways of Working” initiative; most will be reallocated while 63 people in Denmark and Lithuania will leave
  • “We are sorry that we have to say goodbye to a number of skilled employees, but this is a natural outcome of our ongoing work on becoming more efficient, including working in other ways,” Lars Alstrup, Danske’s head of “Better Ways of Working” push, says
  • June 4: Danske Creates Permanent Work-From-Home Option for Bankers

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