 "Digital wave makes banks re-align their hiring strategy")
Banks are increasingly aligning hiring strategies to suit the growing reliance on information technology. Bankers say they have stepped up hiring from technology and consumer analytics.
Zubin Mody, head of human resources at IndusInd Bank, says the focus is no longer on hiring talent from other banks; it has shifted to employees from the information technology (IT)/IT-enabled services. “The idea is to have employees who understand technology well, both at the back-end level and at the branch level. Therefore, we are now looking at new areas to recruit rather than the traditional way of hiring people from other banks.”
HR managers say as banks are looking to hire a more technology-savvy and young crowd, campus recruitment by these entities has also increased.
Rajesh Dahiya, group executive, Axis Bank, says to build a workforce with strong customer analytical skills, the bank has tied up with campuses and designed courses based on this. “To build future capabilities of those on the threshold of entering the workforce, we tied up with NMIMS as a partner for their postgraduate programme, for which analytics is the core specialisation,” he said.
For banks, especially private ones, the competition has moved to the digital medium in the past year. On the retail, and corporate fronts, lenders have been coming up with new digital solutions. Bankers say as hiring from sectors other than banking has just begun, it is difficult to ascertain the number of new recruits from the technology and analytics sectors. They are, however, quick to add almost every new person being hired has to have an understanding of technology.
Deodutta Kurane, group president (human capital management), YES Bank, says digital banking requires skill sets that are a synthesis of banking and technology. “We source talent from other banks for this space; there are banks at different stages of maturity in the digital space. Having said that, we might not find all relevant skill sets within the sector and we also look at sectors such as IT/ITeS, which have the requisite skill sets, as these are providing services/solutions to banks and understand how the system works,” he says.
A rise in the number of transactions on digital media has strengthened banks’ focus in this regard.
According to Reserve Bank of India data, in July this year, transactions through mobile phones were worth Rs 21,456 crore, against Rs 4,422 crore in the year-ago period.
Rituparna Chakraborty, senior vice-president at staffing company TeamLease Services, says, “The digital strategy has to do something that is formulated by a bank in-house. However, at present, demand is higher than the supply, though there is an ability among youngsters to pick up these skills at a later stage. Therefore, there would not be too much of a challenge.”
Though some banks are increasingly looking at developing this talent in-house instead of sourcing it from another bank. For instance, for building its mobile wallet offering- LIME, the bank developed an internal team.