HRM Case Study

Rajiv Malhotra is preoccupied with his office work for the last few days and is unable
to keep his mind off the dilemma that he is facing. Rajiv has been working with XYZ
Bank for last 20 years and is currently the head of XYZ Banks Learning &
Development (L&D) department. Earlier this week, he had a long and factious
meeting with Mr. Shankar Sarin, Senior VP & Head HR and his team, over the results
of a recently conducted nationwide survey of the banks 2500 Probationary Officers
(POs). Mr. Sarin, known for his calm and polite demeanor, was clearly not in his usual
self during the meeting.

The survey was conducted for the POs who had joined the organization within the
last 6 months to 2 years of time span. The unfavorable results of the survey have
completely surprised the senior executives of the bank, especially the L&D
executives and thus it has become a cause of concern for them. Some executives in
the organization including Sarin believe that the results indicative of high attrition
rate among POs and the widespread dissatisfaction among them. Rajiv however was
disappointed with the results as he believed that the training program for POs was
well structured, and covered all the aspects required. He wanted to gain an informed
perspective about the actual trainings and concerns of the POs.

Rajiv himself called 25 branch managers of the banks division spread across the
country, where few of the surveyed POs were posted. The objective of the calls was
to enquire and confirm the validity of the issues raised by the POs. Certain important
points emerged out of these conversations (Refer Exhibit 2 for details). The
responses that he received from POs and Branch Managers totally confused Rajiv, as
the managers presented a different picture from what was being highlighted by the
POs in the survey.

Later in the coming week, Rajiv is supposed to present his analyses and
recommendations to Raghuraj Ram, Chairman of XYZ bank and Mr. Sarin to solve the
issues that were highlighted by the survey results. However, with the contradictory
sets of data that he has received from the banks POs and the branch managers, he is
unable to arrive at a suitable conclusion.

You are Rajivs college friend from his days at XLRI, Jamshedpur while you both were
pursuing the HRM course. Rajiv has approached you for some recommendation on
the issue. What advice would you give him?

Company Background

XYZ Bank is an Indian multinational banking and financial services company. It is
a government-owned corporation with its headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
XYZ is a regional banking behemoth and has 20% market share in deposits and loans
among Indian commercial banks. The bank provides a range of banking products
through its network of branches in India and overseas. As of December 2013, it had
assets of US$388 billion and 17,000 branches, including 190 foreign offices, making it
the largest banking and financial services company in India by assets. XYZ bank is one
of the largest employers in the country having 222,033 employees as on 31 March
2014. The percentage of Officers, Assistants and Sub-staff was 36%, 46% and 18%
respectively.

Induction and Training Details of New Recruits

Newly joined officers of XYZ Bank remain under probation for two years and come
directly under the L&D department. The department has the responsibility to impart
the necessary training to these recruits across various functions in the next two
years, and also track their progress. The problems or grievances of these officers, if
any are to be addressed by L&D based in local regional head offices.

Officers upon their joining are deputed to various branches with a well defined
training schedule. The entire two year training schedule for each role is built on the
classroom training and on job training approach. Every year, the batch of new
recruits sees a balanced mix of fresh graduates as well as experienced professionals.
Most of the experienced people come from different private organizations, having a
work culture quite unlike that of a public sector company.

Exhibit 1: A list of key points in the report summarized from the survey are

1. The managers in the branches to which the Probationary Officers have been
deputed with a fixed training schedule seem to consider them as a human
resource to the branch rather than as trainees, and are not adhering to the
training schedule. This has negatively impacted the learning of the POs and is
causing a great deal of frustration among them.

2. The grievances submitted by the POs to the local L&D departments,
regarding their problems faced are not being properly sorted and addressed,
thus leading to their dissatisfaction and also creating a feeling of isolation
among the young officers.

3. The transfer notifications of POs from one branch to another in different
geographical areas, though necessary, were not given to the officers in
advance and in many cases the notification was sent one day prior to the
joining date at the new location, hence creating hardship for the officers.

4. Many officers have stated that the organizational culture was a big hindrance
in the efficient performance of their duties and hence they were not sure
whether they wanted to consider the bank as a long term prospect. As per
them, the culture lacks professionalism and there is no focus on employee
motivation.

5. In most cases, it was found out that the new recruits are unhappy with the
clerical cadre as, according to them, the clerical employees took undue
advantage of union and are not performing their roles.


Exhibit 2: A list of points enumerating the branch managers response to Rajiv:

1. Greater involvement of the POs in day to day activities gave them higher
exposure and hence they were assigned variety of tasks apart from the
training schedule.

2. The young officers were highly reluctant to work overtime and this was a
major bone of contention, which was not the case with that of old timers.

3. Most of the newly joined POs considered the posting as just a training
exercise and are not ready to take on higher responsibility voluntarily, so the
managers have to enforce several tasks upon the officers, sometimes against
their will.

4. Some POs have problem in adjusting to the working culture of the branch,
leading to frequent clashes with the clerical cadre on several occasions.