BANKING ON HUMAN VALUES

IN the seventies and eighties the emphasis was on social and communty banking.Banks had to satisfy the canon of social purpose along with tarditional canons of liquidity,safety and profitability.They had to involve themselves very actively in the implementation of social objectives and in their anxiety to fulfil social objectives banks did not give adequate attention to their own soundness and operational efficiency and this resulted in dilution of banking standards.
FORMIDABLE TASK
Under the liberalised environment one of the prime objectives of banks is to increase profitability through ensuring their own soundness and operational efficiency.The efforts at liberalisation will surely bring about changes of a far reaching nature in operational policies of banks.Banking in India has always been labour-intensive industry.The changes,reforms business strategies and diversification efforts have to be implemented through the staff and hence effective human resource management alone can help banks in this regard.
Infact this will be a formidable task for banks during this decade and in the decades to come.Banks have to adopt some sort of ''involve and evolve''approach as regards human resoure management to achieve the desired measure of success in facing the emerging banking challenges.We have to give up the belief that people are not interested in work.This thinking is a clear manifestation of distrust of people-an incorrect approach which is not workable and has to be abandoned.In the seventies and eighties highly educated and meritorious people entered banks as employees.As a philosophy therefore personnel management today must proceed on the basis that employees are basically good ,intelligent,sincere and capable of good work.What is needed today is a total and complete orientation of the approach of banks to the ''people system''.Only with such orientation can they face the forthcoming challenges resolutely and with success.
TRANSPARENCY
Personnel management hencefothshould not confine itselfto traditionalfunctions such as service conditions,transfers,and placements,promotions etc alone...Banks have to adopt a pro-active human resource mangement system.They have to build up organisational capabilities to creatively destroy the old systems and approachesand evolve better systems,policies and practices.The human resourec mangement policies to be evolved and adopted must be transparent in nature.People must be made to feel that work is an opportunity provided to them.In all decisions such as transfers and placements,rewards,promotions,etc justice and fairplay must be visible.Such transparency has to be achieved at the earliest.The accent in the entire human resource mangement policy must be on developing people by means of giving opportunities to satff members for participation and growth which would also constitute an important basis for their self development and professional advance.There must be an open management system involving sharing informationa as a resource brain storming sessions with staff members and pooling their ideas in the interests of banks growth and motivation of staff by recognising their workand by treating them as a vital resource.
SHARING INFORMATION
The earlier hire and fire approach has no place now.Today no officer can consider himself a boss.He has to function only as a leader of a team.The system of sharing information will bring about a sense of equality,mutuality,inter-dependance and one-ness which are very valuable from the point of view of motivation of employees.
Armed with information the receiver of information can discharge his responsibilities with better understanding and increased confidence.Coming days and years will see only information-based mangement.Such being the case the best way to motivate the employees is to share inside information with staff and also share with them information concerning the external environment .Such information -sharing has to be encouraged.The field-level staff should share the data relating to field operations with superior officers and higher level officers.With mutuality and respect so developed the organisation can perform better through better motivation ofemployeesand better formulation of strategies on the basis of shared information.Highly qualified people who are inside the banking institutions today are real challenge-seekers.They desire newer and newer opportunities for displaying their abilities and competence.Rigid rules relating to postings and placements come in the way of utilisation of strengths of officers and staff.Even economists and law officers who are specialised are forced to go to branchesand operational people are made to handle the job of economists in some cases.Excellent performers in branches are compelled to come to administrative offices .As a result we are contributing to non-performance in both administrative and operatinal lines.This type of man mangement was being practised by many banks in the nineties and even now some banks are yet to reform and tone up their personnel management practices.
SELF MOTIVATION
The task of human resource management today lies in making people self-motivated by a conscious process of exposing them to to various challenges and opportunities and by making them enjoy a sense of achievement on the job itself.It is important to think that law officer or economist will enjoy the job as a branch manager.Personnel management has to facilitate the projection by each individual staff member of his professional status regardless of his scale and cadre and recognise his contribution.
These are exactly the areas where personnel management has to be imaginative and set in train appropriate measures.Reckless and immature handling of staff members will only bring about alround frustration.The responsibility of HRD function lies in developing people,and making them derive satisfaction from their jobs.
Fundamentally every employee seeks a challenge in his work.Employees whose jobs provide adequate scope for facing challenges are more satisfied ;they find something new and there is scope for them to make a contribution in the process of meeting the challenge.There is also evidence to show that the organisations where the corporate policies are fair nad just the employees are generally more satisfied and motivated.
The method used in the past to motivate nad enthuse the workers were confined to economic incentives security of employment and welfare measures.These are no doubt important and employees do respond positively to such measures.But it is not possible to achieve enduring motivation and optimum results through these measures.Also it is not possible to employ such measures in public sector banks because of standardisation of service conditions and restriction on giving benefits beyond what are prescribed.We have to appreciate that an employee is not only the ''economic''man but also a ''social''man and ''psychological''man.That is what makes the human resource more complex and unpedictable when compared to other resources at the disposal of the mangement.This does not mean that human beings are unmanageable.Once above truism is accepted and reflected in the policies of the organisation other changes are relatively easy to bring about .
UTILISATION OF STRENGTHS
The man managing responsibility consists in utilising strengths available in employees rather than trying to shift them from one office to another.An employee who is not good in field work at the branch level may be excellent in an administrative office.An economist posted to a branch in the process of implementation of rigid transfer rules may not be a performer there.But he will be a performer as an economist.Similarly an excellent branch manager may not enjoy work in an administrative office.Therefore the success of human resource mangement function lies in utilisation of services of employees depending upon their strength.Transfers for the sake of transfers on the basis of rigid rules will only eliminate the opportunities that are available for utilising strengths.Banks must identify the skills available and take steps to to make use of the skills.People who are having the basic skills can be developed thruogh training and they can be used for handling new functions to be taken up on account of diversification in the liberalised environment.Steps must be taken to reorient the training system also.
It is found that employyes usually work at 20 to 30 percent of their ability.Given the necessary motivation they can work even up to 80 percent of their ability.Therefore the main role of human resource mangement must be to motivate people at all levels so as to derive better performance and improved productivity from them.In addition to developing employees individually attention must be given to developing groups of employees like committes say customer service committe,task force ,teams etc.Development of such groups of individuals must be from the point of view of incresaing collaboration amongst people working in the organiastion and increasing their effectiveness.
Finally different departments and offices and the bank as a whole must also be covered by development.This development would involve developing a climate which is conducive for developing renewed capability in the organisation.Such a concept of development will focus on the different units in the organisation for different purposes.The individual employee and his role are important in the organisation.Also the role of departments ,units etc are important.The cocept of development must cover both the aspects.Development in this sense becomes an effort which has analysing role,involving key performance areas ,critical attributes,and job evaluation matching the role and person covering selection and recruitment,placements,promotions etc,developing the person in the role which includes performance appraisal,feedback,and counselling,potential appraisal,career developmentand career planning etc.
OPEN SYSTEM
The system of sharing information which has its own motivational overtones must percolate to the grass root level of branches.Each level in the organiastin must have a system of sharing information.Nothing should be kept back from employees.If there is a tendency to keep anything secret there will be an atmosphere of suspicion..Such suspicion on the part of employees will act as a constraint to good performance and good management.Therefore there must be an open system wherein information has to be shared as a resource so that nobody can have recourse to rumours and false information.
Motivation is most vital input in human resource mangement in the present day context.The task of man management can not be left to personnel department alone.It has to be handled at every level in the organisation.Positive action like providing giudance,encouragement,sincere appreciation,and honest praise for the slightest improvement and for every improvement goes a long way in mmotivating people.At the branch level,departmental level,or other unit levels leaders like managers and group heads must not engage in gossip with their colleagues.They must not give vent to their personal frustration.As far as possible cultural and social activities must be encouraged.A lot of attention must be given to employees to see that they are involved.When so much attention is bestowed on them they will surely feel they are important.As aresult they will feel motivated,their involvement will increase and they will perform better.Planning is important not only at the corporate level ,but also at unit level and the level of employees.Given the necessary environment and support people begin to satisfy their esteem and self-actualising needs by participating in the planning,organising,motivating,and controlling their own tasks.The human resource mangement must be so organised as to ensure that it is positioned towards need-satisfaction of employees.Only such type of human resource mangement can enable banks to face the challenges emerging from time to time as a result of liberalstianand banking reforms.Banks must re-organise their human resourece mangemrnt departments and see that they adopt a pro-active human resource mangement system .They have to re-orient their approach on the lines explained earlier.Banks must also adopt startegic planning and performance budgeting system must be integrated with the strategic planning process.This should be supplemented by adoption of a strategic human resource mangement system .Armed with these banks can surely face the challenges emerging from time to time and perform well.
[Published in FORTUNE INDIA February,16-28,1993]