Top officials at the Reserve
Bank of India have started engaging with bank chiefs to understand the cause of
unusually high employee attrition, especially among private banks.
Attrition seen in FY23 was
way beyond the last five year s average and this is not good for the sector in
the long run. How do you build succession and third layer of leadership if this
is the case, said a highly placed source aware of the matter. Hence the
central bank has started engaging with private banks to understand what s going
wrong for them.
Recently, Shaktikanta Das, RBI
Governor, in a conference held by a media outfit acknowledged that high
attrition of employees in banks is a cause of concern. The meeting with private
banks CEO is said to have taken place just ahead of Diwali.
To put things in perspective,
average attrition rate among private banks was 30 35 per cent in FY23. At the
entry level, the rate was seen at a whooping high of 40 45 per cent across most
private banks. Even at the middle level, it was around 20 25 per cent for the
industry, defying the long-term employee churn ratio of 10 15 per cent seen
prior to pandemic for this category.
Too much to handle
According to sources, when
enquired by the central bank whether it was for reasons of inadequate on-job
training or skills mismatch that attrition is high, bankers responded that the
problem is structural.
Today to be a teller at a
branch or be a branch manager of a bank is an excruciating job. Employees at a
branch spend 14 16 hours at work and a major part of their time is spent
documenting the day s work. To top it, there is sales pressure on every branch
employee as well. An MBA graduate at entry level would prefer to be a sales or
marketing profession at a retail company rather than a bank, said a bank CEO who
didn t want to be named. In variably, he ends up learning sales skill from the
bank and becomes employable across sectors .
Another bank CEO said that at
a branch manager level, the issues are different. From an accountability
perspective, the branch manager s is almost equal to that of a CEO. If he has
handled a few queries or circulars from the regulator, he becomes a hot
commodity, said the CEO. He either gets poached by competition for better
salary or jumps industries, said the executive.
Citing that the banking
industry is going through the Big 4 moment perennially faced by the
consultancy firms, bankers have requested the regulator to see if workload at
the branches can be streamlined.
www. thehindubusinessline.com dt. 20.11.2023