Media Release - National Australia Bank Employee Opinion Survey - 10 August 2005

The National Australia Bank Group's Managing Director and CEO, Mr John Stewart, today released the results of the Group's 2005 Employee Opinion Survey, which provides an overview of employees' attitudes and perceptions across the organisation.

Mr Stewart said employee satisfaction across the National was steady, at 71%, compared with the last employee survey in 2003.  Employee engagement, which measures employees' commitment to the organisation, also remained steady at 35%.

"We are only just over one year into a three year turnaround, and given that over this time we have significantly restructured our business and leadership teams, I thought it was likely employee satisfaction levels could have dropped.  In this sense, the survey results are encouraging.  However, they are also clearly not where we want them to be," he said.

Over the past 18 months, the National's turnaround program has included a substantial amount of work to improve the experience customers have, and the Employee Opinion Survey showed staff believe real progress has been made in this area.

"We have been focusing on improving the customer experience, stabilising the business and improving policies and procedures to make us easier to do business with.  This is working - our staff tell us that our customer focus is clearly the right way to go. 

"But they are also telling us there is more we can do to further improve our systems and processes to make their jobs easier and provide a better service to customers.  This is very valuable feedback for us because it gives us the view of the customer 'experts' - those people who deal with customers on a daily basis.  We will now analyse this feedback and use it as a basis for developing better ways for our staff to work, and better processes for customers.

"We also need to focus more on improving our employee satisfaction and engagement by making sure we recognise and value their contributions, while also continuing to make it easier for them to do their jobs.  Most importantly, we have to make sure what we are saying matches our actions.

"It's very important we get this right.  If we have happy staff, it will be much easier to make sure we have happy customers, and ultimately, happy shareholders." 
 
National Australia Bank Employee Satisfaction - 2005

Total National Australia Bank Group 71% 
New Zealand  80% 
Australia 74% 
Institutional Markets & Services 72% 
United Kingdom 59% 

More than 30,000 employees from across the National's regions and businesses took part in the survey.

For further information:

Brandon Phillips 
Group Manager, External Relations
03 8641 3857 work 
0419 369 058 mobile