State Bank of India will recruit 10,000 persons over the next three years to manage operations at new branches and as replacement for employees who retire on reaching superannuation. The country’s largest lender will open 2,000 more branches over the next 12 months to increase penetration and garner business from the new centres of prosperity across the country, SBI Chairman O P Bhatt said at the banking round table on ‘Banking in Tough Times” on Tuesday.
SBI is opening new branches to cover high potential semi-urban locations. It has already opened 576 branches in 2007-08 and plans are in place to open a further 1,000 in 2008-09.
Pointing to a change in the approach of banks, Bhatt said that over the last 6-12 months, all banks have been trying to open more branches. Before that, there was a lull on branch expansion activity combined with emphasis on non-branch channels such as automated tellet machines (ATMs) and the internet. Both divisions are going to see an increase in the coming days, he said.
According to an industry estimate, in the current financial year, about 5 per cent of the total employees in public sector banks have retired and this number will increase to 12 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively, over the next two years (2009-10 & 2010-11).
Besides taking care of the manpower requirements, the lender is giving equal emphasis to building leadership, attitude for customer service and enhancing skills, Bhatt said.
When there are signs of growth moderation for the next two years, SBI will be able to spare human resources for training, which should help in improving quality of customer interaction. Also, it is embarking on leadership development programmes to create a pool of 500 bankers within the organisation to sustain growth of bank in the long term.