Around
3,500 IT staff at HSBC bank will be given two years' notice of any
future plans to outsource IT systems or business processes
overseas, under a new agreement.
The agreement,
signed earlier this week between HSBC and banking union Unifi,
includes a commitment to provide staff with two years' notice of
plans to move IT systems or business processes offshore and seek to
avoid compulsory redundancies.
Last year, HSBC
announced plans to move around 4,000 call centre and data
processing jobs overseas.
The HSBC agreement
comes one month after Barclays Bank agreed a similar deal with
Unifi over offshore outsourcing.
Outsourcing
experts said the HSBC deal was likely to set a benchmark for
employee consultation over offshore outsourcing deals.
"The HSBC deal
demonstrates that organisations are viewing their offshore plans as
an integral part of their business planning rather than just a
cheap short-term option," said Alex Blues, head of the offshore
outsourcing practice at outsourcing advisory firm Orbys
Consulting.
"Offshore
outsourcing is still a sensitive issue but [agreements such as
HSBC] can reduce the negative impact offshore outsourcing on
staff."
A growing number
of UK companies have moved IT and business operations to lower
cost-countries over the past few years.
Analyst firm
Ovum Holway has predicted that up to 25,000 UK IT jobs will be lost
in the next three years through offshore deals. Most job losses to
offshore outsourcing so far have been in call centres, but some
experts believe that more senior staff will be at risk.