Barclays Human Resources Strategy: Recruitment & Rewards
This paper analyzes Barclays' human resources strategy across three interconnected dimensions: recruitment and selection, employee retention and motivation, and the rewards system. Drawing on academic frameworks by Cherrington (1991) and Klatt, Murdick, and Schuster (1985), the paper traces how Barclays evolved from recruiting school-age candidates to targeting experienced graduates, and examines the company's stakeholder-oriented philosophy of treating employees as assets. The paper also addresses how the 2008 global financial crisis forced Barclays to restructure its remuneration model, and concludes with practical recommendations for non-financial rewards that sustain employee loyalty during periods of economic stress.
- Introduction: HR as Barclays' most critical strategic resource
- Barclays' Staff Recruitment, Training, and Motivation Strategy: Recruitment evolution, retention philosophy, and workforce diversity data
- Integration of the Rewarding System: Crisis-driven cuts to bonuses, dividends, and wages
- Human Resources Strategy Discussion: Investment vs. value-oriented HR strategy classification
- Recommendations: Non-financial reward alternatives during economic downturn
- Company Background: Barclays' founding history and long-standing HR philosophy
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What makes this paper effective
- It grounds the analysis in established HR theoretical frameworks (Cherrington, 1991; Klatt et al., 1985), lending academic credibility to what could otherwise be a purely descriptive case study.
- It uses concrete, quantified data — FTE counts, turnover rates, gender and ethnicity percentages — to support claims about Barclays' workforce composition and performance.
- It moves logically from description (what Barclays does) to analysis (why it works or doesn't) to recommendation (what should change), giving the paper a clear argumentative arc.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied case study analysis: it takes a real organization and maps its observable practices onto established academic HR frameworks. Rather than simply summarizing Barclays' policies, the author evaluates those policies against theoretical criteria — for example, assessing whether Barclays follows stakeholder theory versus shareholder theory and identifying which of three HR strategy orientations the company employs. This synthesis of theory and evidence is a hallmark of undergraduate business writing.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a justification for why HR is critical in a financial services context, then devotes its largest section to recruitment history and evolution. A shorter section addresses the 2008 crisis impact on remuneration. A discussion section classifies Barclays' strategy typologically, and a recommendations section proposes non-financial reward alternatives. A brief appendix summarizes company background. The reference list follows APA conventions.
Introduction
Human resources represent the most valuable resource a company can draw upon in its operations. Other resources — financial, technical, or informational — are essentially useless unless properly managed by qualified personnel. Barclays is no exception. Because Barclays' activity is not based on the production of goods, where technical resources are paramount, but on providing financial services for individuals and businesses, it is imperative that the company's staff be highly educated, thoroughly trained, and consistently monitored in order to deliver the highest quality of financial service.
Barclays' Staff Recruitment, Training, and Motivation Strategy
Before and during the personnel recruitment process, Barclays aims to address the following issues: identifying the qualities and aptitudes of candidates and selecting those who best correspond to the requirements of new or vacant positions; identifying and attracting competitive candidates using the most appropriate methods, sources, and environments for staff recruitment; and respecting relevant legislation while working to diminish and eliminate any form of discrimination.
Some of the difficulties encountered by Barclays' HR professionals include identifying the genuine necessity of hiring someone for a specific position, determining whether vacant positions are truly required or merely created to fill spaces on the organizational chart, and assessing whether the stated recruitment need is somewhat exaggerated.
Barclays' recruitment activity encompasses all the basic steps identified by David J. Cherrington as essential to the success of any recruitment effort (Cherrington, 1991). These steps consist of human resources planning, recruitment, and selection. In addition, the company's recruitment process includes the analysis and projection of positions required within the company, as well as staff orientation once candidates have been selected through external recruitment.
In the case of internal recruitment, the process includes activities such as transfer, promotion, qualifying existing personnel for other positions, restructuring, and professional development. This recruitment process model aligns fully with the theoretical findings presented by L. A. Klatt and R. G. Murdick in Human Resource Management (Klatt, Murdick & Schuster, 1985).
Barclays' long history and impressive performance over decades in the financial market is also grounded in the company's commitment to long-term strategies that have proven effective regardless of changing conditions. The company's human resources recruitment strategy has changed very little over the decades. Barclays found a simple yet successful approach to recruiting, retaining, and motivating its employees.
For example, from early on Barclays recruited very young candidates — many of them students or recent graduates. Initially, Barclays hired many employees at the age of 16, while they were still in school; later, the minimum recruitment age rose to 18. In such cases, employees were expected to spend their entire career at Barclays (Ackrill & Hannah, 2001).
Most of Barclays' staff at that time consisted of such candidates. Beyond this, the company recruited only a small number of specialists in fields that required more thorough and specialized education, which by nature precluded recruitment at a younger age.
Today, Barclays' recruitment process is similar in some respects but differs in others. The company still targets young employees — though not as young as in previous decades — and continues to orient heavily toward fresh graduates and students. The difference is that such candidates no longer represent a majority of Barclays' staff. The company recognized that the complexity of modern financial operations demands employees with experience and specialized education rather than young, inexperienced ones, and has adjusted its recruitment and selection process accordingly.
One challenge this shift created is that the banking environment was not always as attractive as it is today. In past decades, banking was considered a secure but unexciting sector — suitable for those seeking a stable, long-term career with predictable promotions and steadily increasing wages. As a result, exceptionally talented candidates often bypassed banking in favor of more stimulating fields.
Modern times have changed this perception. The global banking market has grown substantially, and the range of services provided by financial services companies has diversified significantly over the past decade in response to new market requirements and evolving customer expectations.
This evolution allows Barclays to diversify its recruitment approach. Candidates entering the company's selection process today are more specialized, and the company increasingly targets both experienced professionals and individuals who demonstrate exceptional potential that the company can develop over the medium and long term.
The company's trend toward retaining employees continues in the present as well. Barclays' HR professionals are developing strategies to provide long-term careers within the company for most employees — in other words, to "build an engaged workforce" (Barclays, 2009). The rationale behind this strategy is that lower staff turnover leads to higher sales growth and, consequently, to greater customer satisfaction, which in turn drives stronger business performance.
Barclays' attitude toward its existing and future employees suggests that the company follows stakeholder theory rather than shareholder theory. Employees are acknowledged as one of the company's most important stakeholders and, as a consequence, should be treated "as an asset, not as a cost" (Barclays, 2009).
By adopting this philosophy, Barclays seeks to cultivate a corresponding attitude among employees — encouraging loyalty to the company. The company's HR professionals aim to retain their most valuable staff by treating them with respect, acknowledging their contributions, and rewarding them accordingly.
To demonstrate that Barclays genuinely cares about employees' futures and well-being, the company encourages and supports them in developing their own Personal Development Plan. As evidence of this commitment, Barclays invests significant resources in training and development programs designed to meet employees' professional aspirations and to improve their skills and knowledge.
The core principles underpinning Barclays' human resources strategy include: winning together, best people, customer and client focus, pioneering, and inspiring trust (Barclays, 2009). The company has also implemented a differentiated rewards system.
In the UK, Barclays' human resources can be characterized by the following figures: full-time equivalent (FTE) headcount reached 60,700 in 2008, compared to 61,900 in 2007; the average length of service is 9.2 years; the proportion working part time is 16.1%, a figure that has remained stable over recent years; the turnover rate increased to 19.3% in 2008 from 16.6% in 2007; and the resignation rate remained relatively constant at around 12.2%.
As noted above, Barclays is committed to eliminating any form of discrimination in its human resources practices. The company is in fact a pioneer in this area, being one of the first financial services firms to hire female employees and to promote women into top management positions.
Women accounted for 56.1% of all employees in 2008, 28% of management-grade roles, and 14.6% of senior executive positions. Ethnic minorities represented 12.3% of all employees, 11.5% of management grades, and 8% of senior executives. The Barclays UK Retirement Fund currently has 58,316 active members, and the company has 50,499 current pensioners.
References
Cherrington, D. J. (1991). The Management of Human Resources. Allyn and Bacon.
Klatt, L. A., Murdick, R. G., & Schuster, F. E. (1985). Human Resource Management. Charles E. Merrill Publishing.
Ackrill, M., & Hannah, L. (2001). Barclays: The Business of Banking. Cambridge University Press.
Barclays. (2009). Human Resources Top Ten Tips. Barclays Commercial.
Barclays. (2009). Our People. Annual Report.
Barclays. (2009). Remuneration Report. Annual Report.
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