UniCredit hires 500 young people and brings 7 out of 10 bankers into the network

UniCredit is beginning the first quarter of the year with a plan to hire 500 young people and achieving its goal of having 70% of its people in branches and client facing services, dedicated to customer relations and development. "With the Unlocked and Unlocked Acceleration strategic plans, CEO Andrea Orcel is taking UniCredit back to its roots as a commercial bank, putting the customer back at the centre of the business in Italy. This is a profound transformation that aims, by the first quarter of 2026, to redeploy the workforce: 70% of people will be engaged in roles dedicated to the relationship and development of corporate, retail, large, wealth and ultra-high-net-worth clients, responding to needs in a multi-channel mode, activated directly by the client through a full range of tools and services," explains Ilaria Maria Dalla Riva, COO Italy and Head of People & culture Italy.

When Orcel arrived in 2021, UniCredit had 49% of its people in commercial structures and 51% in business support structures. Today this proportion is profoundly changing, with 20% more bankers in customer relations. "The result was possible thanks to 5,000 hires, concentrated in the business, and a rationalisation operation that reduced central functions by 20%," says Dalla Riva.

These are days in which Dalla Riva is grappling with the 500 new hires in the commercial network that were shared with the trade unions (Fabi, First, Fisac, Uilca and Unisin) in the last trade union agreement signed at the end of 2025, against 484 early retirements. With the agreement, the one-to-one ratio between exits and recruitments was substantially exceeded. The agreement will also fully implement the Abi protocol against violence against women, with 58 recruitments of women victims of violence and children of victims of feminicide over the next three years.

This, however, is only the last stage of a journey that began four years ago and has changed the face of the bank, which employs around 30 thousand of its 70 thousand global employees in Italy. First of all, through the generational changeover with 8 thousand exits and 5 thousand entries into the network that "have led the proportion of under-35s to double, from 7 to 15%," says Dalla Riva. "One thousand workers have had the opportunity to move from central functions to the business thanks to reskilling and upskilling paths, while the Talento Diffuso project has redesigned roles and allowed over 30% of the company's workforce a change geared towards personal and professional growth. Constant dialogue with the trade unions has made it possible to manage voluntary departures and incentivise the reconversion of roles that are no longer central, while the streamlining of processes has freed up the equivalent of 2,500 resources, now dedicated to customer relations"

As the organisation has been redesigned, so has UniCredit's welfare, which is characterised by a strong focus on inclusion. "The welfare of our colleagues is as central as that of our customers," says Dalla Riva. Corporate welfare has been restructured "with the primary, but not sole objective of increasing the purchasing power of employees," says the manager. The company's performance bonus (Vap) has been increased by about 200%, from EUR 1,000 gross in 2021 to EUR 2,500 net in 2025, thanks to the defiscalisation of the welfare account. Around 92% of workers choose to receive their productivity bonus, or part of it, in their welfare account, and this is thanks to a very wide range of flexible benefits ranging from education to reimbursement of bills, care and assistance for family members, health, leisure, welfare, healthcare, rent, shopping vouchers and fuel. For UniCredit employees, it is also possible to convert the bonus amount into time, up to 5 days per year, thanks to the welfare days. To improve work-life balance there are 8 days per month of smart working, no more than two days per week for central structures, subject to organisational requirements, and 10 days of smart learning per year for the network.