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State Bank of India (SBI) is looking to have a separate cadre of talent for working in its subsidiaries. The bank is mulling a specific pool of candidates who would be selected to work in its subsidiaries, excluding the associate banks.
“We are looking at a specific pool of people who could be selected to work in our various subsidiaries. They would work there for a few years and would be given the opportunity to come back to the parent,” said a senior SBI executive.
SBI has a total of nine non-banking subsidiaries/joint ventures in India. These include SBI Capital Markets, SBI Funds Management, SBI Factors & Commercial Services, SBI Cards & Payments, SBI DFHI, SBI General Insurance, SBI Life Insurance, SBI Pension Funds and SBI-SG Global Securities Services. At present, each of these subsidiaries has a separate process of hiring its personnel. The SBI executive explained that their initiative would help the subsidiaries have a special pool of candidates who could keep rotating between the parent company (SBI) and the subsidiary, according to the structure of the initiative. While the process of devising this mechanism has not begun yet, the bank is studying various models to decide on the structure.
The bank, which is India's largest lender, has a total employee strength of 2,23,000 people, which it is looking to maintain for the next four years.
Human resource experts said that if a rotation mechanism is introduced, it would attract more candidates. “When there is a large BFSI company, it is imperative that they allow new hires the opportunity to work in all its subsidiary and allied companies. This would give candidates more exposure and would be beneficial in retaining them within the group companies. Since SBI is one of the largest recruiters, it would be a big 'pull-factor' to get prospective employees to work specifically in their subsidiaries,” said the head of a New Delhi-based human resources consultancy.
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