In what would appear a classic example of how not to do it, UBS bankers only discovered that they could be out of a job after having their passes refused on entry to the office yesterday.
According to the Daily Telegraph, scores of London traders were denied access to the Swiss bank’s City headquarters and were whisked away to special offices on the fourth floor.
Here they were handed an at risk of redundancy letter, just hours after the Swiss bank unveiled a radical restructuring that would result in 10,000 jobs being lost worldwide.
One banker said: “It was like a scene out of ‘Village of the Damned’ up there. They said we would be getting two weeks paid leave and then we will be told what is to happen. I expect we’ll just get a call from human resources or lawyers telling us how much we are worth. We won’t be able to talk to our bosses.”
After being turned away, the traders congregated in The Railway Tavern, one of the only pubs in the area to be open at 8am. Although the bank failed to communicate how many of its 6,500 staff were likely to lose their jobs, scores of traders have been placed on “special leave”.
While some saw the impersonal letter, which started “Dear colleague, You will not be required to continue to perform your current duties at this time…” as an insult, others took it on the chin, seeing it as a natural result of the current economic and political climate.
