Access Bank’s CEO Herbert Wigwe Announces 40% Pay Cut For Staff Or…

It is no more news that Access Bank salary cut has been generating many controversies over the on-going salary cuts for the bank staff or the risk of downsizing them in numbers.

As one of the leading Nigerian banks, the Group Managing Director of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe revealed the disturbing truth to his staff due to the ravaging economic crisis around the world caused by the coronavirus disease.

Brandnewsday gathered that Wiwge made this known in a meeting (tagged, Employee Town Hall Meeting) held with some staff of the bank via Microsoft’s Teams (video) informing them of some strategic moves that the banking institution would take in May to ensure the bank keeps peddling his wheel of sustainability despite the threatening economic crisis.

Consequently, two hard choices were rolled out for staffers of the bank to choose at the town hall meeting; either to accept downsizing the staff strength or slashing of salaries. However, the majority of the staff agreed to a pay-cut of their salary.

Access Bank Salary Cut: What Herbert Wiwge Said:

According to Access Bank Wiwge, the Access Bank Salary cut decision would affect the bank’s 5,870 permanent staff starting with him, as his salary would be cut by 40%.

Meanwhile, he gave the hint that 75% of staff might be laid off as that percentage is the number of outsourced employees working with the bank.

Subsequently, Wiwge via Microsoft Teams (Video) emphasized the importance of using digital techniques in place of staff. According to him, ”one thing that has come out from the lockdown is that digital is the way forward.

Speaking further, the Access bank boss said: ”We do not need the complement of staff to take us to where we are going. It has also shown that non-essential staff, particularly from the outsourced staff, may not be at the level that we require to be in the future.

“We do not need all the security personnel, cleaners, tellers among others that we have now, considering the fact that not all our branches would be open between now and December. We will talk to the employers of that number of staff, which represent about 75% of our staff strength, to rationalize to the level we think would make us a customer-oriented financial institution that we are.

“We are also looking at a professional cut. I understand that that is very tricky because it comes with pains. I will be the first to take the heat and I will take the largest pay cut as much as 40%. Everybody may have to make some adjustments of the sort.”

”We understand the difficulties people are going through but also understand the higher calling of creating an institution that can continue to provide for us. When things improve tomorrow, we shall revert to normal. We understand the difficulties facing the people but we have to protect our franchise,” Wiwge explained.

In a similar vein, earlier in this year, the United Bank for Africa (UBA), had announced a downsizing of its staff.

As a result of the downtime, many Nigerian banks are presently experiencing the threat of rising bad-debt levels, as a plunge in oil prices and the naira devaluation which was birthed by the Covid-19 pandemic that has shuttered businesses.