MUMBAI, Feb 17: The nations largest lender State Bank has begun a massive employee engagement programme to ensure its 2.6 lakh-strong staff does not work mechanically and is sufficiently motivated to take on newer challenges that the future will throw up, a top official has said.
The programme, christened Nayi Disha or the new
path, focuses on work-life balance and also involves the
staffs immediate family members, also giving them the ability
to inform the bank if an employee is not able to leave work on
time.
We realised that over a period of time, our
employees, especially the ones in branches, had started to
work mechanically which could have an impact on customer
service and also their morale, Prashant Kumar, deputy
managing director and chief development officer, said over
the weekend.
The previous chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya too
had initiated a slew of pro-employee measures such as letting
them choose the location before transferring a couple of both
of them are with the bank, extending sick leave to attend to
in-laws health needs, long leaves to help their children
during the exams among others.
He said the bank has hired an external hand to design
the programme, and started implementing it in December with
the top management, including chairman Rajnish Kumar.
Over 350 trained staff are reaching out to every
employee in the programme, which is the first major
initiativereaching out to every member of the staff in over
four years. They undertake five to six hour-long sessions
which end with a team dinner with each ones spouses, Kumar
said.
Half the staff has already undergone the module and
the programme will be finished by March 15, in time to let the
employees focus on the heavy duty workdays towards the end of
the fiscal year, he said.
At the end of the training module, the employee signs
a pledge which draws from the banks value statement released
last year, vowing to keep herself healthy, not damage the
environment, speak positively of the bank and leave for home
at least once a week.
Interestingly, the pledge card has a special bar code
which, if scanned by the employees spouse using a mobile
phone, will send out an alert to the employees superiors
about the employee spending long time at work and result in
corrective action, Kumar said.
Without mentioning non-performing assets, Kumar said
the banking sector has had a difficult time in the last
two-three years which has affected the employees and the bank
found it essential to rejuvenate and prepare them for the
future as well.
While stressing that the worst is behind the bank, the
employee is told about the business plan and also the way
banking is changing due to technology, which will entail
changes in their working as well, he said.
The bank had already started stressing on the
importance of employees health and the need to maintain
work-life balance around a year ago, Kumar said, adding this
programme takes it up as a strong need.
Over 27 per cent of SBI staff are women and the
average age has now come down to 43, he said. (PTI)
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