RBS boss bemoans retention failings

Stephen Hester, the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has admitted that thousands of top RBS staff quit last year in a massive retention failure that damaged the firm''s profits.

He claimed that profits at the bank would have been about £1 billion higher if planned retention had worked successfully, following a recent announcement from the bank that it was paying £1.3 billion in bonuses despite making a £3.6 billion loss in 2009.

Mr Hester told the BBC: "We''ve had a small experiment in this respect…some of our best-performing people have been leaving in their thousands.

"The people who left us last year, I believe, would have increased our profits by up to £1 billion beyond the ones we''ve got."

In a separate interview with the London Evening Standard he admitted that the company''s employee benefits left them at the "bottom end of the league table in terms of the incentives we are offering".

Employee benefits packages can help employers retain the top talent by helping them fit their work around their lifestyles. Back