The Right Choice

Overall Rank: 11

In For an HR Makeover

SBI's HR initiatives cater to retiring as well as young employees, and the banking industry's fast paced changes.

Despite its large size and public sector legacy, India's largest bank, State Bank of India (SBI), has gone for a massive overhaul of its HR function in the past few years. The premier bank, which hired the global consultant BCG for this, has made its hiring process through the bank probationary officer examination more rigorous; a new performance appraisal system is in place with targets and budgets; and the focus is on building a leadership pipeline at all levels.

The biggest challenge that SBI faces is on the retirement front in the next five years, a large number of its employees will retire. So, the bank is putting in place a robust succession plan. "Potential leaders will be identified and mentored through customised training programmes to create a strong leadership pipeline," Rajnish Kumar had said in his first address as chairman.

While there is a succession process for chairman and MD, as they come from within, unlike in other PSBs, the bank will face a challenge in terms of skill sets. Digitisation, cyber security risk and new areas of business will demand new skills at the top. The focus is on imparting analytics and other digital skills. The bank has set up a state of the art training institute in Kolkata for senior executives, and there are specialised in house training programmes in areas such as risk, international banking, credit, and others.

Going forward, the bank will face the challenge of having a young workforce. Its HR initiatives will have to improve productivity if the bank has to survive in the cut throat