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RBI lines up staff drill for better customer service

Freny Patel

The Reserve Bank of India is putting in big money to train its over-the-counter work force across the country.

The central bank has hired NIS Sparta Ltd, a group company of NIIT, to train its 3,000 employees in terms of their behavioural attitude when dealing with the general public in exchanging soiled notes and distributing coins across the counter.

Having placed the training order with NIS Sparta, the central bank aims to complete the task by March 31, 2003.

Training of bank employees contributes over 60 per cent of the total revenue accruing to training institutions.

Private sector and foreign banks are paying big time money to train their staff in selling and servicing retail loan products, as well as helping them cope with work pressures.

The management of public sector banks is trying to motivate employees and change their behaviour in a customer-centric environment, said NIS Sparta vice president banking and insurance Goutam Roy.

Banks are paying Rs 15,000-20,000 per head to train their front desk employees. "On an average, we train 200-250 bank employees every month in selling and servicing asset and liability products. The technical skills are imparted in-house by individual banks, but we teach them how to cope with the challenges in the work environment and work towards team building to achieve a larger picture," said Roy.

With poor credit offtake in the corporate sector, banks' chief thrust is on selling retail asset products, both on the liability and asset side, said the HR head at a private sector bank.

Three thousand of State Bank of India employees have been trained at NIS Sparta, said Roy. This has brought about a marked shift in their behaviour in generating higher customer goodwill at some of the branches.

Many public sector banks are undergoing business process engineering and have engaged consultants to advise them on how to restructure their business processes to be customer-focus, Roy added.

Training programmes for employees differ from bank to bank. In private sector and foreign banks, employees face a lot of pressure and stress as they look at growth in their careers.

In contrast, employees of public sector banks continue to operate in the old legacy of license raj, and do not have any motivation to work harder for want of growth opportunities.

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