The disenchantment

A few months back, I got an anonymous call. The person at the other end enquired me about how much salary a four years senior clerk in your Bank would draw. I asked why?  He told me that a marriage proposal has come from a boy who is working in your Bank. When I gave the information he wanted, he exclaimed! Sir, only that much? I thought it must be much more.

I just would like to juxtapose this with the statistics thrown out by the recently held clerical examination held in Bangalore. The attendance at the exam tells the story better than the words. The attendance for the first stage of examination is 40%. This is woefully low. This perhaps is the lowest so far in the history of banking recruitment. What could be the the reason / reasons for this abysmally low turnout? Is it on account of abundant job opportunities outside banking? I don't think so. The job opportunitiy outside also is not rosy either. Notwithstanding not a robust  job opportunity outside, the poor response to our banking examination is a pointer to the grim realities in the banking businesses.

Banking industry is in the news constantly for all the wrong reasons. Issues like, huge NPAs, frauds and resultant losses would have taken the sheen off from banking job. While this is the story for outsiders, the story for the insiders (staff) is no better either. The bank is grappling with acute shortage of staff. Post merger, it was thought that the problem would ease. But unfortunately it has aggravated further putting the staff under tremendous pressure. As if adding salt to the wound is frequent transfers. On top of this is not so attractive salary package viz., the other PSU counterparts. Even the state government employees draw better emoluments in similar positions, let alone PSU counterparts. All these factors would have adversely affected the psyche of the prospective candidates to take up the banking recruitment test. The poor turnout for the examination is perhaps reflective of the DISENCHANTMENT of the people about bank job which is not a positive sign. If concrete and concerted efforts are not put in place to reverse this negative perception about Bank jobs, it will be dissastrous. After all, the all important assets of a financial institution is its live assets called its employees. If these live assets are demotivated and frustrated, then the handling of dead stock assets by this human assets will not be appropriate. The result of this is left to one's imagination. Because, it is the employees who carry forward any organization.

K N Krishnan.