Barclays staff were warned on Thursday that the size of their bonuses will be linked to the way they do business – not just the revenues they generate – under a new approach being developed by the new chief executive Antony Jenkins, reports The Guardian.
Two weeks into his new role, Jenkins told the bank’s 140,000 staff that he would “define and embed a refreshed set of values and behaviours” into the bank in the wake of the Libor rate-rigging scandal.
In a memo peppered with management jargon, Jenkins said: “How we do business, our impact as a company, and adherence to our values, will be considered as important as financial targets when assessing performance.”
“Barclays leadership population will be tasked and supported to be visible exemplars and champions of these values and behaviours,” Jenkins said.
He described the review of business practices currently being undertaken by the lawyer-cum-banker Anthony Salz (also a director of the Scott Trust, owner of the Guardian) as a “seminal intervention in the future of Barclays”.
Salz will report back next year on how the bank can improve its business ethics following its £290m fine for attempting to manipulate the key Libor rate, a scandal that led the resignations of the chairman Marcus Agius, chief executive Bob Diamond and chief operating officer Jerry del Missier.
His memo is the latest effort by the new top management of Barclays to pledge an overhaul in the culture which the Financial Services Authority, the City regulator, has criticised as being “a culture of gaming”.
On Wednesday, Sir David Walker, who will become chairman in November, told the new banking standards commission that he was in favour of greater disclosure of top pay and signalled changes to the bonus culture at Barclays.
Jenkins, who ran Barclaycard and the retail bank before being named as Diamond’s successor last month, also provided more detail about his vision of Barclays as a “go to” bank.
“Success will be defined by how our stakeholders think and feel about Barclays. It is about creating an emotional as well as intellectual connection with them. Think about the brands which provoke the strongest positive responses in people and you are probably thinking about ‘go-to’ brands: Google in search, Apple in technology, and Nike in sport, for example,” he told staff.
He said he wanted Barclays to be seen “as a force for good” and as having a “model of constructive engagement” with government and regulators, as well as customers and colleagues wanting to do business with the bank.
On Monday Jenkins told analysts that operations which damaged the bank’s reputation would be closing down, even if they were profitable, with the controversial tax planning operations likely to face the axe.
