Hays embarrasses RBS with pay email

VENDOR MANAGEMENT

UK – Recruitment firm Hays have sent out an email containing confidential pay details of temp staff working for Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), potentially jeopardising one of its most lucrative contracts.

In an email to 800 RBS employees lat week, a Hays staff member disclosed day rates for 3,000 contractors, stating that a few of them were paid £2,000 (S$3,905) a day. The email, which was supposed to remind managers to complete timesheets before the British holiday weekend, also revealed that bankers were paid around £500,000 (S$976,257) a year.

However, Hays said it managed to recall about half of the emails before they were opened.

While the leaked data included the roles and pay rates of the temp staff, Hays spokesman Neil Bennett said it did not contain any bank account details or national insurance numbers. The recruitment agency has also begun an investigation into the incident and will conduct a review of its procedures.

“Hays recognises that the correct treatment of data is of the utmost importance and we are taking the unauthorised release of this data extremely seriously,” Bennett said in the statement. “We are working with RBS to recover the data from recipients where possible.”

Michael Strachan, deputy head of group media relations at RBS, confirmed that confidential data had “inadvertently” been shared by the recruitment firm. However, he stressed that no customer information was compromised.

“We are extremely disappointed that confidential personnel data has been shared by one of our suppliers,” Strachan said in a statement. “This is unacceptable and we are taking action to address this issue.”

Sources suggested that the bank will review its relationship with Hays over the coming days.

The leaked data is an embarrassment for the state-backed bank, which has been axing thousands of permanent staff as it seeks to cut costs and streamline the business. RBS has been criticised for the high wages many of its top employees are paid even though it is 83% owned by the taxpayer.

The contract workers were involved in specialised areas such as human resources and risk management. They were working on the integration of ABN Amro, the Dutch bank RBS bought in 2008, and the winding down of unwanted assets.

Unions in the UK had reacted with anger to the high pay rates received by RBS contractors. David Fleming, Unite national officer, said, “It is wholly inappropriate that RBS, backed by taxpayers, appears to be throwing money at thousands of contractors.

Fleming added that the union is concerned about the bank’s widespread use of highly paid staff on short term contracts at a time when it continues to cut large numbers of staff.

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