ENERGY giant npower has announced it is to "consolidate" its offices from 26 to 10 over the next five years as part of a "major plan" to reduce costs.
The firm, which currently employs around 10,000 people in the UK and has an office based in Clough Road, Hull, has also started "reducing management layers across the business". As part of this ongoing review, npower is also in discussions with external partners, to explore whether other elements of its business could be better managed to help reduce costs. Paul Massara, chief executive, said npower would "avoid compulsory redundancies, wherever possible" but said the company needed to make "major changes"."As the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee recently highlighted, it is vital that all the costs which make up energy bills are kept as low as possible," he said."Even though we only influence less than 20 per cent of the total bill, we're determined to help our customers by keeping our costs as low as possible."To do this we need to make some major changes and, although some of these will be difficult, I believe it's the right thing for both our customers and our business. Changing our structure will help us to serve customers better – and reducing our costs will help them at a time when external factors are pushing prices upwards."As part of our ongoing commitment to maintain open dialogue with our people, and where people are affected, we will continue to consult with them and their representatives first and avoid compulsory redundancies, wherever possible." It is not yet known how many, if any, jobs will be lost across the company.↧