Reshuffling in OP to affect 6000 employees

The OP Financial Group (OP Pohjola) has decided to go for a process of information sharing and consultation with employees of its central cooperative consolidated.

The central cooperative consolidated has approximately 6,000 employees, said a press release on Tuesday.

The process will not extend to OP Financial Group’s member cooperative banks. The process will neither extend to Helsinki OP-Kiinteistökeskus, Pohjola Health, OP Bank Group Pension Fund, and OP Corporate Bank Group’s Baltic operations.

The OP Financial Group’s central cooperative consolidated will continue to redesign its organisation according to the direction of the new executive board appointed in June.

The objective of the new organisation is to improve employee and customer experience, while enhancing operational agility and productivity.

Based on the plan, some of the existing jobs will cease to exist or change substantially, but at the same time a significant number of new job opportunities will become available that OP seeks to offer to as many employees as possible.

“The planned redesigned organisation marks the beginning of a major cultural change at OP’s central cooperative. We have trialled the agile practice in individual development projects with good results, and now our aim is to gradually extend this practice to cover the entire central cooperative,” said OP Financial Group President and Executive Chair Timo Ritakallio.

He claimed, “The new practice will simplify responsibilities, reduce decision-making levels and guide operations according to customer needs.”

In addition to the new organisation, OP aims to reduce the annual costs incurred by the central cooperative consolidated by 100 million euros. Several measures will be taken to achieve the cost savings: by specifying the strategic focus, focusing on core businesses, and optimising the relation between in-house and outsourced work.

The information and consultation process of employees will start on October 1 and continue for at least six weeks unless the parties concerned agree on terminating the process earlier.