One metric illustrating the present priorities at National Australia Bank is employee numbers, which are building pretty quickly.Financial results for NAB for the full year show that staff numbers increased by around 6000 (measured on a full-time equivalent basis) over the last year, of which fewer than half arise from the takeovers of Aviva (an insurer, in Australia), Challenger Mortgage Management (now Advantedge) and Tier One (in the US).The majority of the staff growth is related to business initiatives. The largest number of the new staff are working on the overhaul of core banking systems, which accounted for about 1000 new staff, most of them hired in the second half.This hiring policy is in line with spending on internal infrastructure. NAB said this spending had increased by $212 million or 85 per cent since September 2009.The retail bank accounted for the bulk of the rest of the new hires, with many of this group employed to help overcome the bank's poor record in collections.