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HRD in Emerging Economies- Research Perspectives in
Indian Banking

Prachi Bhatt

   Limited research restricts com-                Introduction
   prehensive understanding of
   challenges that hit various as-                    Indian banking systems has under-
   pects of Indian banking. There                 gone rapid changes in the decade of the
   has been a dearth of studies that              90s. Changing banking sector in India of-
   address the impact of changing                 fers huge opportunities and with the op-
   environment on Human Resource                  portunities come the challenges. In the
   Department (HRD) paradigm. In                  wake of greater financial deregulation and
   the changing times, it is pertinent            global financial integration, the challenges
   to verify the relevance of HR in               to survive and develop in this global eco-
   business priorities, its compat-               nomic scenario, banks could not afford to
   ibility and efficiency in Indian               ignore the HRD facets. However, it is
   Banks. This paper ascertains                   change, and especially the rate at which
   various challenges that Indian                 change occurs that largely influences the
   banking industry is facing and                 HRD hybrid that any organisation adopts.
   the subsequent requirement of                  Techno-sophistication has facilitated the
   change in HRD paradigm. The                    speed of change in banking. The wisdom
   article forms the foundation for               about the important role that HRD plays
   further diligent research in the               for organisational success has been de-
   area and identifies the missing                veloped over the years and finds its rel-
   links in researches which are cru-             evance even more today. The changing
   cial to pave way to the future of              dynamics have sketched a new role for
   HRD and performance of Indian                  HRD in the organisations. Trends in man-
   banking.                                       aging people in this dynamic industry re-
                                                  flects emergence of the most critical is-
                                                  sues in lieu of the enormous opportunities
                                                  spun off by the market. As the entire In-
                                                  dian banking industry is witnessing a para-
Prachi Bhatt is Assistant Professor (HRM & OB),
                                                  digm shift in systems, processes, strate-
FORE School of Management, Qutab Institutional
Area, New Delhi 110016. Email: dr.prachibhatt     gies, it would warrant creation of new
@gmail.com                                        competencies and capabilities on an on-

The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 47, No. 4, April 2012                    665
Prachi Bhatt

going basis, thus, demanding in-depth         would be in serious trouble unless qual-
studies. Researches enhancing the un-         ity HR is retained. HR needs special fo-
derstanding of paradigm shift in Indian       cus in terms of attracting, retaining and
banking sector especially those directed      motivating human resources. Quality of
towards change are very limited. It is im-    human resources should be commensu-
portant to realise emerging patterns in       rate with the ability of banks to deliver
Indian banking and HRD in Indian bank-        value to customers. Banks should empha-
ing systems.                                  size on the need to streamline human re-
                                              source development strategies with busi-
Emerging Scenario in Indian                   ness strategy (Kamesam 2004). It is the
Banking & HRD                                 impact of change, technology and chal-
                                              lenges of enhancing the quality of exist-
     Relationship between importance of       ing manpower and explaining importance
HRD and its effect on the organisational      of changing HRM in the Indian banks
performance have been established much        (Leeladhar 2005) which is set to face
earlier. HR efforts like training and de-     more challenges (Nair 2006).
velopment for new breed of bankers is
crucial while managing human factor for        Banks in the country need a para-
banks. According to Asian Development          digm shift in their human re-
Bank (1999), India needs to accelerate         sources (HR) practices.
structural reforms directed towards its
financial and capital markets, concentrate
on infrastructure and public finance con-          Dynamism in Indian banking can be
solidation and strengthening support for      attributed to the challenges like upward
human resource development to ensure          direction of interest rates, demanding
sustainability of reform process in bank-     customers, financial inclusion, technologi-
ing sector that have impacted the sector      cal advancements, competition for human
extensively (Reddy 2005). There is need       talent and efficient utilisation of a bank’s
to focus on developing human resources        resources (Financial Express 2010).
to cope with the rapidly changing sce-        Other challenges before Indian banking
nario. In transforming Indian banking into    sector, according to Kamath et al. (2003)
a vibrant system, initiatives would not       are changing needs of customers, cop-
work unless quality human resources are       ing with regulatory reforms, thinning
available (Jalan 2001a, 2002b). HRD is        spread, maintaining high quality assets,
the key to the success of any organisation    management of impaired assets, keeping
and that success lies in how efficiently      pace with technology upgradation,
the organisation manages its human re-        healthy bottom lines and increasing
sources and adapts to change, matches         shareholder value. The drivers of dy-
with the global standards, evaluates on       namic changes offer challenges, which
an ongoing basis continual up-gradation       need to be addressed to unleash the com-
in the organisation (Gupta 2003). Banks       petitive advantage offered by the Indian
require quality human resources and that      banking sector and thus contribute to in-

666                   The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 47, No. 4,April 2012
HRD in Emerging Economies- Research Perspectives in Indian Banking

vigorate banking sector’s growth. This          new human resource policies that would
calls for the effective management of the       permit lateral entry at senior positions so
mobilizers of all other resources i.e. hu-      that some fresh winds blow down banks’
man resources, leading to another chal-         corridors. These issues have been
lenge of streamlining HR (BCG, FICCI            around for decades but never as relevant
and IBA 2010), i.e. banks in the country        as they are in the current context. Finan-
need a paradigm shift in their human re-        cial Express (2010) emphasized the need
sources (HR) practices.                         to invest in human capital development.
                                                Along with knowledge and professional-
    In lieu of the confronting challenges,      ism being areas of improvement,
HRD in Indian banking demands a                 McKinsey (2010) in their report men-
makeover. HRM has since many years              tioned the need for human capital devel-
been misunderstood of its capability to         opment and concerted efforts required
produce results. A wrongly perceived            towards enabling labour reforms, focus-
importance of HRs consequently affects          ing on enriching, human capital, to help
HRD approaches and finally the finan-           public sector and old private banks be-
cial performance losses of the banks            come competitive. According to
(Ramu 2008). There are various business         Deolalkar (2010) management of young
strategies, but equally important is the        generation workforce and its implications
strategy woven around people and their          for HR practices are recruitment, career
capabilities to perform and deliver. In         development, strong staff management,
service organisations like banking human        matching resources with new responsi-
capital can be the difference between           bilities, and managing the spread of IT
success and failure. Various new HRD            culture, etc. Also, focus is required on
interventions that banking sector needs         creating core competencies along with
are regarding image makeovers, brand            staff morale, organisational culture and
building, performance accountability, pro-      training, retraining essentials that high-
motion, posting and discipline; and more        light the importance of managing people
such practices. Subbarao (2009) dis-            for productivity excellence (Bhasin
cussed the advanced approaches that             2011). To evolve is a mandate. Obsolete
banks are likely to face and the need to        practices cannot prove to be relevant and
be multi-faceted, like, assessment of skill     effective for performance of any evolved
requirements, identifying and bridging the      organisation. There are changes and chal-
gaps, identifying talents, putting the avail-   lenges in the next generation banking in
able talents to optimum use, attracting         India. It is important to review the cur-
fresh talents, retention of talents, and        rent challenges thrown by the changing
change management. According to him             environment upon the Indian banking in-
banks needed to pay special attention           dustry and its consequent implications on
along with the other critical issues inclu-     HRD. As mentioned above, HR prac-
sive of the human resources. Regarding          tices like recruitment, talent acquisition
recruitment and selection he discussed          approaches, career management, and the
Reserve Bank of India considerations on         cultural factors have effect on banks’

The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 47, No. 4, April 2012                 667
Prachi Bhatt

performance. Thus, it becomes impera-         (1988) discussed the impact of environ-
tive to identify the best practices in the    mental changes on human resources in
banking sector and come up with inno-         banks. He emphasized on promotion, re-
vative practices to meet the challenges       cruitment, placement, performance ap-
in the light of concerted researches in the   praisal, training, and social welfare in
area.                                         banks. Raman (1989) explained through
                                              his experience, the practices and tech-
HRD Research Perspectives in                  niques of HRD in SBI. Although exten-
Indian Banks                                  sive, these researches attempted only at
                                              the conceptual framework rather than
     The relationship between HR efforts      highlighting issues related to banking in-
and performance has received research         dustry and suffer from the limitation of
support in various studies. HRM has un-       narrow scope. And most importantly they
dergone continuous changes over time          no longer seem to be relevant in today’s
and reshaped itself to address the con-       context, thus call for new and system-
temporary state of affairs. There are         atic studies. Role of management at dif-
convincing researches projecting the re-      ferent levels was studied through spe-
lationship between the management of          cific case studies regarding HRD in a
people and the performance of compa-          particular bank like Bank of Baroda
nies (Moynihan, Gardner, and Wright           (Verma 1988), Canara Bank (Prabhu
2003). Studies on HRM climate, prac-          1988).
tices gave an idea about progressive
HRM (Kopelman, Brief & Guzzo 1990,
                                                Challenge before Indian banks to-
Huselid 1995, Delaney & Huselid 1996,
                                                day is to encourage people and
Ostroff & Bowen 2000, Boxall 2003) af-
                                                help them feel being treated fairly
fecting organisational performance
                                                and to unleash the power of think-
(Bowen & Ostroff 2004, Lawthom et.al
                                                ing and application.
1998). HR investment is also one of the
key elements required to understand the
changing HRM framework (Wood 2006)                The profitability of the public sector
and its effectiveness.                        banks improved in the latter half of the
                                              nineties relative to the performance of
    Papers in the last few decades basi-      the private and foreign banks (D’Souza
cally have dealt with the theoretical con-    2002). Pattanayak (2003) for example,
cepts of human resources development          studied HRM climate as a matter of se-
like, HR practices, climate studies in        rious concern in Indian public sector
banks. Studied were the concepts              organisations with reference to
(Varsheny1986), framework and func-           organisational role stress and quality of
tions (Gupta1983) and significance of         work life. Khandelwal (2007) emphasized
HRD in banks (Joshi 1986). Abraham            on mobilizing the passion of people to
(1988) studied HRD climate with the help      transform organisations and grow. Also,
of a structured questionnaire. Kulkarni       cannot be overlooked is one of the most

668                   The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 47, No. 4,April 2012
HRD in Emerging Economies- Research Perspectives in Indian Banking

important internal customers of HR de-          productivity and profitability in the pre
partment i.e. employees. To a large ex-         and post e-banking period. They sug-
tent effectiveness of HRD efforts de-           gested some measures to tackle the chal-
pends upon how it is being perceived.           lenges faced particularly by public sec-
Literature in the area has devoted less         tor banks. Right human resources, right
empirical attention to how employee per-        HR efforts, at right time in sync with right
ceptions and attitudes influence HR ef-         context (change) would help
fectiveness. Although recently, empirical       management’s abilities to manage the
researches (Bhatt 2008) have studied the        business (Uppal 2011).
perception about various aspects of HRD
effectiveness in public and private sec-
                                                 Right human resources, right HR
tor banking units in the changing envi-
                                                 efforts, at right time in sync with
ronment but geographically restricted to
                                                 right context (change) would help
south-Rajasthan. Challenge before In-
                                                 management’s abilities to manage
dian banks today is to encourage people
                                                 the business.
and help them feel being treated fairly
and to unleash the power of thinking and
application. A satisfied employee is a pre-          Thus, the above literature review
requisite for a satisfied customer. The         races the need for studies in the area of
required effectiveness of an organisation       upcoming challenges and their implica-
calls for right HR policies and practices.      tions on the HRD in Indian banks. Em-
There are various other HRM practices           pirical evidences regarding employees’
that influence performance of                   perception towards change and chal-
organisations, which need to be ad-             lenges in front of Indian banking sector
dressed in the studies, i.e. environment        and their perception about the effective-
that encourage creativity, transparency,        ness of current HRM practices can prove
open communication, good group dynam-           beneficial for the banking industry in In-
ics, knowledge of growth opportunities,         dia.
management trust in employees, HR phi-
losophies, investment in people, grievance      Summary
handling mechanisms, etc. which need to
be addressed and at scale representative            There are many facets of HRD in
of Indian banking systems. Al-Hawary            Indian banking system, which are still left
and Sharma (2011) have also acknowl-            unattended. The studies of HRD para-
edged that banking is under revision and        digm in Indian banks especially in the
that employees are required to be handled       context of change can be more relevant
and managed appropriately in times of           and functional. In the light of growing
change. They studied the multi-dimen-           importance of human resources, the
sional transformations, inclusive of HRD        present study attempts to raise the un-
taking place almost in all categories of        tended need of studies and empirical evi-
the banks and analyzed their effect on          dences that can fill the gap. Past re-
performance of major banks in terms of          searches reveal narrow learning and lim-

The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 47, No. 4, April 2012                  669
Prachi Bhatt

ited understanding of the fast-paced sec-     human resources in Indian banks, so that
tor. A comprehensive and integrated out-      the best information can be made avail-
look based on an empirical study on hu-       able to the policy makers and research-
man resource development in banks is the      ers from around the world, thus, leading
gap to be filled in the existing literature   to constructive improvement in HR prac-
on the subject. There is need to address      tices. This cross-pollination of ideas
various dimensions of HRD in Indian           would mutually enrich the banking and
banking industry starting from its role,      HRD processes.
practices, workforce attributes and atti-
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672                     The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 47, No. 4,April 2012
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