The Royal Bank of Scotland's HR strategy was not in any way to blame for the financial mire the group found itself in, Neil Roden, group director, human resources, has stressed. And the financial crisis was "not all the fault of bankers' bonuses or the fault of Fred Goodwin either".
"There is a danger of simplifying the analysis," Roden said. "That is not to say bonuses or Fred were not a problem, but banks not lending and liquidity drying up are not HR issues."
RBS had specific problems that meant it was poorly placed when the crisis came, he said. These included lack of capital in the business; a ballooning balance sheet, especially in the global banking and markets business; too much exposure in sectors such as property; and the acquisition of ABN Amro.
Of the latter Roden said: "If we hadn't bought ABN we would have made a profit last year. It tipped us over the edge."
Roden argued only 300 people out of the 155,000 staff employed by RBS were involved in businesses that caused these problems. The bank was at the beginning of a new phase and HR had a "critical role to play" he said. "We have done a huge amount of restructuring, in every business unit and every geography across the world. People are pivotal in the recovery - we need to get them to do a lot more and to do different things in different ways.
"What HR can do is to look at the issues that created problems and find ways to help avoid them in the future," he added. "I doubt there is a more interesting place to do HR at the moment than in RBS."
However, HR is not immune to changes in the business. It has been tasked to take 25% of cost out before 2011. The company has lost 150 jobs out of 2,400 in HR worldwide and Roden conceded there was still some "shaving of headcount" to do. But the majority of cost savings will come from other efficiencies, in particular the increased use of technology as well as harnessing group buying power and examining preferred suppliers.
"In the next 18 months technology investment will come on stream," said Roden, "and we are looking at lean processes. I am always examining ways of becoming slimmer and have always believed you should be a master of this, rather than waiting for the FD to come knocking on your door."
- See also page 36 The Grass is Greener.
