Living the issues

I went to this bank to make a demand draft. I knew that my father knew the manager of that branch and so I directly went to him for the work to get done. While the draft was being made, he was talking to me about a few things. Before I go into that, I must say that I have come across many people from south India who are very sincere about their work. They try to give their best even under various constraints.

The manager was speaking about how he is trying to motivate his employees to give the customers a good service. He said that he asked his employees to greet the customers with a smile, but somehow they have forgotten to smile. I have observed that the manager himself keeps on smiling and he also confessed about it. He wants to pass on this habit to the bank employees (at least for the time they are in the bank), but says he is yet to achieve much success.

The bank being a public sector one, there is limited threat of job loss. Given that the employees know of the security they enjoy, there is hardly any reason for them to put in any extra effort. The manager says that he is facing this huge problem since there is no fear among the employees for he cannot take any action against them. I do not think he can even get them transferred. In fact, I have seen that it is the manager of the branch that keeps on changing rather than the employees.

The manager said that if it was a private sector bank the case would have been completely different. There is little job security in a private enterprise. Also, unlike in a private bank, in a public sector bank, there is no differentiation being done among the performers and the laggards – another factor which contributes to the issue of lack of any incentive to perform. He says that if the bank comes up with a VRS scheme, the best performers will take the opportunity to leave the bank. Also, that even if he is able to get rid of the laggards, the new bunch of people who would join would be no different. Hearing all this I remembered my Human Resources course form earlier term where we used to discuss similar issues.

He says that whenever he comes from his meetings with the higher management, he calls a meeting of his branch employees and tells them about their message. The message can be summarized in what he says is something his boss tells, ‘In this market, just to remain at the same place, you need to run the fastest you can’.

Unfortunately all this falls on deaf ears. The manager told me that he is aware of the fact that there would be people who would be thinking that he keeps on repeating the same old stuff again and again. But he believes that the message needs to be conveyed regularly to emphasize and re-emphasize it. The market has changed for sure and the days of monopoly of banks have gone for good. People are ready to pay higher fees for convenience and hospitality. And private sector banks are literally banking on that.

Things have improved considerably in this particular branch I am talking about. I remember a time few years back, when I used to tell my parents that I would not go to this branch come what may. At the same time I was ready to go to another bank’s branch a little further away for reasons I have mentioned above. That is no longer the case, but there is still a long way to go before, the manager’s vision at least seems plausible.