What you need to know before aspiring for a bank PO job

There is something inherently wrong with an organization and its HR policies in which the clerks of the organization do not aspire to get promoted and become officers! This singular aspect explains everything that is wrong with the policies of public sector banks in India.

A vast majority of the senior clerks who have put in fifteen or more years of  service in the bank routinely opt out of the promotion process. When one scratches the surface, this apparently illogical behavioral pattern is not so devoid of logic. Sample some of these facts

• The pay that senior clerks get is quite attractive, for the work that they do. Their take-home pay is actually comparable to what the officers get, may be a few thousands less.

• The clerks have regulated working hours. Nobody, not even the chairman, can hold them back more than 30 minutes beyond the fixed office timings without compensating them monetarily for the additional hours put in.

• They do no get transferred every 2-3 years, meaning it gives them a better social life and their children, better grades in school.

• Clerks or Assistants as they are called, are required to do only well defined jobs, often times they get away saying that they do not know how something is done, if that ‘something’ is not what they do on a daily basis.

All these and a lot of other facts compare very favorably with the rather difficult, joyless and frustrating lives of officers, especially the younger officers.

There was a time, not so long ago, when a bank Probationary Officer’s  was amongst the most sought after jobs in the country. It came only second in importance to the coveted career in the Indian Administrative Service/ Indian Foreign Service.

Public sector banks are headed for a double whammy in the months ahead on account of the fact that almost 35% percentage of their old warhorses are superannuating and almost 40% of the new recruits hired to replace them, are not staying beyond an average of two to three years.

What has led to this state of affairs ? Why is the job of a bank PO being given up by most ambitious youngsters within months of the probation period getting over.

1)     An officer in a PSB, is not expected to have a balanced life; period.

As per the Officers’ Service Rules, officers are required to be available to the bank 24 hours a day. I reckon at a theoretical level, this is unavoidable, in the sense that an officer should  not be doing a parallel business or  be engaged in any other activity that is detrimental to the interest of the bank. But in reality, the bank actually expects its officers to be in office for almost all his waking hours. A typical officer is expected to sit late and work on Sundays and holidays. All this without any incentive, like overtime pay for the extra hours put in. A typical officer, therefore reaches office around 9 am and leaves office not sooner than 8 pm. Depending on where he is posted, and if one takes into account commute time, one can imagine, if the officer  really has a life outside his workplace.

2)     Immense work pressure

A typical branch in a Public Sector Bank is almost certainly understaffed. If an average able bodied person can perform X amount of work comfortably on a given day, every bank employee is made to work at least 1.75X; officers are loaded with anywhere between 2X to 4X. This explains  why the officers have no option but to sit late routinely and even sacrifice their Sundays and holidays; to do justice to the huge amount of work  thrust on them.

When someone exceptionally organized and efficient, after completing his 4X share, tries to leave at 6.30 pm or so, more work is loaded on to him to ensure that he does not leave before 8pm.

A question routinely asked to officers under probation, who have relatively lesser work-load when he tries to leave office by around 6 pm is why as a bachelor he wants to leave early when he is staying away from parents  ?!

What  this does is that, very early in one’s career, officers get conditioned to the fact that, a ‘smart officer’ is one who takes the longest to complete the tasks assigned to him and that the one who spends the most hours at work is seen as the most committed and loyal and hence the most suited to be rewarded and promoted.

Efficiency has absolutely no value and meaning in a PSB.

3)     High accountability

Understandably, because one is dealing with finances, there is very little margin for error in banking. But then bankers are humans, they work under a lot of pressure and mistakes are inevitable. Any small mistake is  severely punished. On the other hand, there is no incentive of any sort for performing well or increasing the business.

This  aspect is even more relevant for those working in the credit department. The only reward, as has been alluded to earlier, for good work is more work.

Inadvertent lapses, can lead to issue of memos, inquiries, personal accountability and even CBI cases, especially in the credit department.

There is not even benefit of an extra rupee for doing well in credit.The unwritten rule is, the less risk taken, the better it is.Make no mistakes of any sort, be conservative, sit late in office, work on Sundays and holidays, do not do any real value addition and one becomes the model employee in the organization.Do less work and take home your fixed pittance of a salary, performance can go take a hike.

4)     Poor ( Laughable) compensation

It is not easy to become a Probationary Officer in State Bank of India.It is an intensely competitive exam and only the really hardworking actually make it.

Objectively speaking, a large no of bright, ambitious and capable youngsters join the banking industry allured by the totally wrong impression or ignorance about the working conditions and the monotony of the job, not to speak of the totally pathetic HR policies.

The salary scales of all the public sector banks in the country are the same and these are the lowest when compared to any of the state govt/ central govt  or govt public sector undertakings in the country.

It is not like the banks are not running on losses or making only a nominal profit. An organization like State Bank of India  is one of the most profitable ones in the country, that on an average makes a y.o.y profit of 30 %. SBI declared profits of  over 11,700 crores in the most recent financial results.

5)     Frequent transfers

Every two or three years, the officer is to uproot and relocate to a new place. This practice, deprives the officer of any semblance of a  happy married life,  if he or she has a working spouse.

With the thrust for greater financial inclusion and ever more branches being opened in semi urban and rural areas all over the country, officers are getting posted in ever more remote places.

The biggest problem faced by the public sector banks is the rising resentment and frustration level of their employees.If these organizations do not wake up to this reality, some of them may just cease to exist in the next decade.