Tips For Officers for Getting Success in Promotion Process

Promotion process has started in almost all public sector banks. If you are also a candidate to appear before promotion process, you should keep in mind that more than fifty percent of seats are reserved for those who have good relation with top ranked officials (branch head or Regional Head ) and who can use his Godfather to impress upon members of Interview panel for picking him for the sake of promotion to higher scale. 

If you have worked with any officer who has been working as Regional head or Zonal Head, try to talk with him on a few days interval , try to reach his residence with sweets and costly gifts , call him on your location making excuse of your birth day or any product launch or branch anniversary day or to head any meeting.Ask your valued customers to offer valued gifts for your bosses when your valued top executives come to your location. Or you may send valued quotations on his mobile .You may ask your clients to oblige you bosses by handsome amount of cash if you have sanctioned any loan facility .In whatsoever manner you have to remain in continuous tough with your immediate boss, higher boss or any officer posted at head office.

Even if you have good rapport with trade union leaders you may get a chance to get promotion through your linkage with him also. Please encash all your relations with top executive and top union leaders now .So far as Godfather is concerned , top ranked officers of bank management and top leaders of trade unions are two sides of same coin.Use anyone as per your comfort.

Only few seats are reserved for meritorious officers to show the society ,the government,media and the union that Bank Management  promote those who are real workers, who are real performers and so on. 

As such for these few seats you have to make all efforts to acquire success by developing your real knowledge level and response skill. You need not work in branch or in office you are posted. There is no one in upper echelon to assess your field performance. You have to be  a perfect student.You need not bother for rising volume of bad assets or non achievement of target set under deposit or advances. 

If you do not have bribed any executive or not extended red carpet welcome to any of your boss or you have not any such officer at higher post who can manage your success , you should concentrate on study of all policies , all circulars and all guidelines issued from RBI. It is better you devote your entire time in bank or in home on study  and study only. Because by deep study you can pass written exam and you can also impress interview board members as also pass group discussion if held. 

Read and read as much as possible at least for a month of two .Do not have faith on marks you obtained in Annual 'Appraisal reports or in educational qualification or in experience., They are meaningless .

Either a corrupt or an extraordinary performing  officer only succeed in life. Those officer who are blessed with  Godfather have better probability of success and those who are read all circulars carefully have also little chance. But those who work and only work , who only care for the benefit of the organisation have very rare chances of getting success.

Revised Guidelines for Promotion Of Officers

As usual, as done year after year ,this year too ,in the month of March 2013 Ministry of Finance has issued revised guidelines for promotion of officers from one scale to other giving some relaxation. Bank Management in nexus with officials of Ministry of finance is making all efforts to reject officers whom they dislike and pick up officers as per their whims and fancies even if the officer to be promoted by them is less experienced  less skilled , less talented and more corrupt (but He is number one Yesman)

MOF has given relaxation in rural service. Those officers who have been serving in Metro areas for decades will once again get chance to get promotion without serving in rural areas. On the other hand officers who have been posted in rural areas for more than one or two decades will once again be rejected in Interview.

Every year management gives relaxation to urban area based officers and take a simple  undertaking from such promotees that he will serve in rural area for two or three years. BY the time the officers is promoted to scale IV or V , management will have an excuse that there is no branch or Regional office in rural area for scale V or scale IV post.

It is very much dangerous and risky that officers who have not yet gained experience in various fields of banking , who do not understand even basic of accounting , who do not have capacity to judge the creditworthiness of a loan seeker and who do not possess sufficient exposure in credit portfolio to judge the merit and demerit of  credit proposal are getting scale IV or scale V rank  only due to their closeness with top bosses. 

Banks are committing blunder by promoting such inefficient and incapable  officers to scale II or scale III or scale IV or scale V or scale VI level .Future generation officers will face the crisis as current top ranked officers are facing the ill -effects of what their predecessor officer commuted in lending and in monitoring of loan.

After all these top ranked officers will get retired by the time repercussion and ill effects of wrong actions of such incapable officer emerges and surfaces. Bankers are now facing the consequences of wrong financing made by senior top ranked officers    who have either got retired or who have been elevated to the post of ED or CMD. 

None of top ranked officers have guts and courage to point their accusing fingers towards their contemporary brothers and sisters sitting at higher posts in their bank or in other banks  even if they are found to be accountable for  bad lending . 

After all in all cases of bad loans involving more than five crore of rupees, it is the joint responsibility of Board of the bank, Managing committee of the bank and Credit Approval Committee of the bank normally constituted of senior officers including those from RBI and MOF. 

Birds of same feather flock together.Gang of thieves serving as police officers serve interest of each other and it is a well established culture in all Ministries and in all departments in India. Transfer and posting and promotion of every senior officer ultimately depend on the mercy of their bosses and hence the culture of flattery and bribery never ends.

Below is the link of guidelines issued by Ministry of Finance in March 2013

https://www.facebook.com/groups/unionites/?fref=ts

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Engagement Of Retired Bank Staff On Contract Basis

There is acute shortage of employment opportunities for unemployed youth in out country. There s no doubt in it .

Due to rise in unemployment in our country, youth are resorting to anti-social and crime activities which may eventually disturb social peace and harmony in near future.

In such situation it is very much undesirable, unjustified, and improper that bank management appoint the retired bank staff on contract basis just as private companies use to do in our country.

I request Prime Minister of the country to take appropriate steps to stop this newly cropped up unhealthy practice of bank management. Rather I would like to suggest him to reduce retirement age from 60 to 55 or 50 so that new vacancies are generated and unemployed youth get additional scope for employment.

Those officers or staffs who have served any organization for two or three decades, they may at least survive on interest income or on pension or earn some money by doing business investing their accumulated money which they could save  during their service life. But those individuals who have got no employment or who do not have enough capital to start any business activity are unable to manage their family needs even after spending lacs of rupees on getting education in costly higher study institutes. 

It is worthwhile to mention here that private banks are managing their banking activates by junior staff very well and this is why average age in private banks is less than 30 whereas that in public sector banks it is more than 45.

Bank management falsely cry for senior and experienced employees. They are ready to promote officers to executive cadre even if he or she has serving experience of only 5 to 10 years provided he or she is number one Yes-man and flatterer. On the contrary the same management of the bank does not give value and respect to those who are serving the same bank for last two to three decades sincerely and honestly.

There is no doubt to me that clever and corrupt top executives of all public sector banks are putting false, fabricated, concocted  and improper logics to get relaxation in promotion process and falsely shed crocodile tears on availability of senior and experienced staff in their bank, they fraudulently cry that huge number of staff are retiring in near future.

Retirement is a not a new phenomenon in any industry or in any bank. They simply befool the officials of RBI and MOF to give favour to a few officers of their choice in promotion processes every year and it is unfortunate that officials in RBI and MOF always accede to ill-motivated demands of top management of banks. 

Even if it is assumed that there is shortage of experienced senior manpower in bank, the question arises who are responsible for such mismanagement, such shortage and compulsion for reappointing the retire staff .It is only they who are accountable and punishable for not managing human resources and for not planning manpower in best suitable manner keeping future requirement in their vision. It is they who did not have vision for future shortage when they use to plan.

What for they spend crores or rupees every year on training system and planning system when they could not make even twenty or thirty year old experienced officer competent enough to shoulder the responsibility of higher post.  

It is ridiculous that when public blames top management for campus hiring the same breed of top ranked officer these clever officers put the excuse that they need young officers who can shoulder bank work in better way. They plead that existing staff are not competent enough which forces them to recruit persons from campus.When people ask for not recruiting retired staff , the same bank management say that experience is the key to success.

 It is further to note that individuals recruited for the post of civil services by UPSC can manage entire district but it is regrettable that the officers recruited in bank (after taking bribe) are unable to should responsibility of bank.A Finance Minister who has got no knowledge of banking can dictate terms to top CEOs of great banks and issue guidelines for bankers to follow but bank staff having experience of two to three decades are not found fit for promotion to scale II or scale III or scale IV by members of Interview panel who conducts interview for promotion of an officer from one scale to other.tested and attested service of an officer is fount unfit in  two to three minutes of interview by promotion committee.

Bank management want relaxation in promotion process to promote officers of two or three years experience only because they need not performer but flatterer. This is why they prefer retired flatterer for appointing in bank on contract basis then to rely on existing manpower who are stagnating and facing humiliation in the hands of juniors elevated to higher post. This is the root cause why top bankers always put focus on continuity of interview in promotion processes so that they may reject officers who are not Yes-man.

Otherwise they have plenty of senior and experienced officers to whom they do not to promote. After all when majority of top ranked officers are facing charge sheet for various irregularities, how can they dream of taking wise decision for the benefit of the bank they serve.

 And it is most unfortunate that directors representing various fields and appointed by GOI from outside are silent spectator of all what in happening in Board of the bank. These inefficient and unskilled directors are simply putting their signature on every resolution placed before the Board of directors of these banks.

This is why one after other scam takes place, bad debts goes on increasing , cases of fraud goes on increasing . All regulating agencies sleep in deep slumber for entire year and they come to senses only when media men or some private companies like Cobrapost carry out sting operation to expose the irregularities of the banking system. 

Chit Funds are looting hard earned money of poor and innocent in entire country but the officials of RBI and that of SEBI are unaware of it as long as promoters of a chit fund company fly away and when cheated depositors and media men cry in protest. This is India where act after acts are passed against dowry or rape or corruption but the evil goes on spreading and ballooning.

I therefore once again request Prime Minister, RBI officials and Finance Minister to ponder over reducing retirement age for all staff working in bank or state or central government offices and they must stop practices of recruiting retired employees on contract basis immediately.

Bank union against hiring retired staff--          Business Line

KOCHI, APRIL 23:  

Appointment of retired bank employees on contract basis is detrimental to the prospects of existing staff and denies job opportunities to unemployed youth, according to Syndicate Bank Staff Association (SBSA), an affiliate of the National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW) and Bharatheeya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS).

Describing the trend as “nothing but outsourcing,” K.S. Bhat, national secretary of SBSA, condemned the appointment of retired executives/employees as recovery adviser, recovery agents, investigating officers, inquiry officers etc on a large scale.

Inaugurating the regional meeting of SBSA and Syndicate Bank Officers Organisation (SBOO) here, Bhat alleged that contract appointments of ex-officials have led to “unethical practices, bordering on internal frauds in many cases and to influencing the proceeds of investigations.”

He said hundreds of retired people have been appointed as recovery agents. Branch managers, who are instrumental in sanctioning loans under their discretionary powers, on their retirement are entrusted with the recovery of the same loan.

He said the practice would lead to underhand dealings and the damage would outweigh the benefits.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/banking/bank-union-against-hiring-retired-staff/article4647292.ece

Six Bs of Human Resource Development

6 ‘B’s of building HR competences in banks

MANGALORE, APRIL 20:  

Six ‘B’s are the pillars of building HR (human resource) competence in banks, according to a banker.

A.K. Vinod, Deputy General Manager of Corporation Bank, said this while delivering the BL Club lecture on ‘Banking sector in India: Future outlook and career prospects’ to MBA students of Department of Business Administration of Mangalore University here on Friday. Syndicate Bank sponsored the Business Line Club lecture.

He said six ‘B’s are buying, building, borrowing, bounding, bouncing and binding.

Explaining them, he said ‘buying’ can be termed as sourcing the right manpower for the banking industry. ‘Building’ is a process of training and developing the manpower.

He said the third pillar – ‘borrowing’ – is aimed at bringing in specialist resource persons from outside. While ‘bounding’ helps provide the right environment to the manpower, ‘bouncing’ weeds out the non-performers. The last pillar – ‘binding’ – is nothing but retaining the talent in the organisation, he said.

Vinod said that one of the biggest challenges for banks will be to attract good quality talent and retain them. There is a generation gap in banks and talent induction is unsustainable.

Stating that the next decade bodes well for the banks in the country, he highlighted the major trends that are going to define the decade.

K. Puttanna, faculty at the Department of Business Administration of Mangalore University, was present on the occasion.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/education/6-bs-of-building-hr-competences-in-banks/article4640068.ece

Why Campus Hiring Is Risky

Mr Pannvalan says -------

I criticize the campus recruitment undertaken in India – be it by MNCs or Indian Companies or Public Sector Banks – because of the following strong reasons.

1. From the beginning, there is lack of transparency in the whole process followed for campus recruitment.

2. The eligibility criteria and the final selection process are not properly intimated in advance, by giving wide publicity through reliable means/media.

3. The companies/institutions do not employ qualified and experienced professionals for conducting campus selection.

4. There is no consistent and established procedure adopted for successive batches of selection and recruitment. Each time, the tools and methodologies adopted undergo drastic changes, without prior notice to the candidates of the particular batch.

5. In addition to subject knowledge, aptitude, attitude and preferences must be examined by administering simple but comprehensive psychological tests to all the candidates uniformly, without any favour or discrimination.

6. The ‘Placement Officers’ in majority of the educational institutions act as brokers and agents of the recruiting companies or institutions, for whatever reasons. This is highly condemnable and it shall be ruled out at any cost.

7. There is a strong bias towards candidates from urban and metropolitan centres. This is highly incorrect and preposterous and it does great harm and injustice to candidates from rural background and from smaller towns.

8. Those who do not have access to any coaching or training institutes are the worst affected.

9. At the end of the process, many a time, it has been found that many sub-standard candidates have been selected on some unknown criteria, while real gems are left out. This leads to great demoralization of the really meritorious candidates.

10. Ultimately, I reject the hypothesis that a person’s true worth can be found out in verbal interaction that lasts less than an hour.

11. Several rounds of interviews by the 'same team of examiners' will not yield the best results (either to the recruiting company or to the candidates)

From my own observations made at some of these events, I wish to share these points.

1. Over-emphasis is laid on ‘problem solving ability’ at the time of selection.

2. Fluency in English (spoken form) is often mistaken to be proficiency in English.

3. A high score in academic pursuits does not guarantee that one will be equally successful in real life situations too.

4. Overall performance of a candidate – both inside and outside their college/university – is not considered for arriving at the final score of each student.

5. Many candidates selected and recruited are very weak in Language and Communication Skills, Public Relations Skills, Emotional Stability and Teamspirit. 

6. These candidates have been found too selfish to describe in words.

7. They do not have any kind of loyalty to the organization that has recruited them. At the earliest available opportunity, they ditch it and jump to any rival organization in the same or related field. They have no qualms in doing this.

Gain of Campus Hiring In Banks

The Great Indian Folly of Campus Recruitment--------Despite Adverse court verdict, many banks are still in process of campus recruitment in higher scales.( Court verdict against Central Bank of India is given in link given below )

 They neither follow guidelines issued from Ministry of Finance nor respect Court Order and always try to give wrong excuses for their wrong actions. Until guilty persons are punished for their past actions, one cannot dream of any reformation for future.

People sitting at top posts in banks or in the government use their art of presentation to commit fraud and perpetuate their corrupt practice.They never want to to punish evil persons.

Scam after scam takes place but government always promises to make new laws and never tries to enforce existing laws.

This has been seen during last 65 years of freedom. One after other committees are formed to conceal their misdeeds and to exonerate corrupt leaders. Even reports of such committees are not cared if the finding goes against them or their bosses.Only a few honest and devoted officers are made scapegoat if the media or some persons come forward with exposure in naked form.

Clever government has framed several laws against social evils like dowry, rape, corruption, extortion, terrorism etc but could not stop its rise day after day and year after year. This is only because their tendency to protect the guilty.They make act but do not ensure action on the act .

Until birds of same feather occupy the powerful posts once cannot imagine of any change. Person like Arvind Kejriwal can only dream of change because he has a vision for execution matching his ideas.

After all, what is justification for campus recruitment in higher scales in banks even after having hundreds and thousands of senior, experiences, skilled, honest, tested and attested officers in bank and waiting for promotion?

 

Banks are service oriented industry where experience is more valuable than educational degrees or good looking personalities. Best marketing officers can bring new businesses for their banks, but only able and experienced officers can sustain them. 

Quality of service is more important in banks than the degrees of serving employees. Once a person joins a bank, his educational qualification becomes insignificant. His ability to judge a loan seeker and comfort of depositors can only help in increasing business of a bank.

 

Officers who do not have credit processing skills or who have not developed enough experience are made Branch head. This culture has resulted in bad lending and hence rises in bad assets. Quick mortality of assets in banks has gone beyond  control of bank management only because unskilled MBA graduates are sitting at top posts and seniors are working as subordinates in such branches. This mismatch has adversely affected the work culture in almost all banks which have resorted to campus hiring giving false excuses to Ministry of Finance or to give favour to kith and kin of powerful ministers.

 

It is therefore need of the hour to assess and ascertain the pros and cons of practice of campus hiring and punish CMDs of those banks who introduced this culture for their self interest and caused irreparable damage to banks.

Work culture is more important than any other thing for survival of banks. Officers who understand the value of money, intricacies of character of bank customers , principles of lending , importance of KYC norms, significance of RBI prudential norms for income recognition and asset classification creditworthiness of loan seekers and overall comfort level of their customers can only ensure safety and security of banks for future.

 

In response to court verdict against Central bank and its clear warning to bank not to repeat such campus hiring, Government of India should order CBI inquiry into all recruitment which took place during last ten years in public sector banks through campus hiring and whether those officers are really better than already working officers in banks and whether there was any corrupt dealing in such type of recruitment.

It is necessary to first identify the disease, find out the root cause of sickness and then treat the sickness in such a way that the sickness is cured for good and ever.Until the germs of disease lie in the body , one cannot expect quick and permanent recovery from sickness.It is praiseworthy that now banks have at least started accepting bad assets as bad assets and this is why banks have taken recovery steps to some extent.

Banks and the government have to first learn to say spade a spade.

Click on following two links one by one to read more--

http://importantbankingnews.blogspot.in/2013/04/high-court-warns-bank-management.html

 

http://importantbankingnews.blogspot.in/2013/04/campus-recruitment-in-banks.html

Campus Recruitment By Banks Is Unconstitutional AND Illegal

This refers to Mumbai High court judgement pronounced Today in a case related to Central Bank of India . The Bombay high court on Tuesday held that its ( bank’s ) recruitment policy, which allows campus recruitment/interview method for appointment of officers against permanent vacancies on regular basis, was illegal and unconstitutional. 

Bank management of almost all public sector banks has resorted to campus hiring, not only in scale I but in scale II and scale III too. During last ten years top ranked officers of almost all banks have functioned in an arbitrary manner, recruited persons of their choice, giving favours to kith and kins of high profile persons and denying the talented unemployed youth. Recruitment of persons for some personal gain or to give favour to sons and daughters of known dignitaries has damaged work culture in banks and adversely affected the asset quality of almost all banks.

Top management in public sector banks picked up persons from campus of their choice and in the name of merit they raped those who have been working in the bank for years and decades. Not only in recruitment have they harmed the future of those existing employees who were waiting for promotion to higher cadre and higher scale. There are instances where bank management recruited officer directly in scale III whereas hundreds and thousands of officers eligible for promotion to scale III are denied their rights.

Further due to their arbitrary and unjustified recruitment of officers from campus in scale III or scale II management of bank had to pay double salary or more for the same work which could be and which hitherto has been performed by junior officers and clerks.

Is there anyone who can punish such top ranked officers whose faulty action caused huge loss to the bank??

Why these responsible and top ranked officers should not be personally punished and taken to task so that in near future no one dares violating the rights of existing employees and denying the opportunity to really talented youths.

I am unable to understand why the courts have simply warned the bank to desist from campus hiring in future and why not court thought it necessary to impose penalty of erring top officials.

In response to court verdict against Central bank and its clear warning to bank not to repeat such campus hiring, Government of India should order CBI inquiry into all recruitment which took place during last ten years in public sector banks through campus hiring and whether those officers are really better than already working officers in banks and whether there was any corrupt dealing in such type of recruitment.

RBI now Questions HR Policies of Public Sector Banks

RBI for overhaul of banks' HR practices

K C Chakrabarty questions wisdom in hiring from top B-schools http://dkjain4970901092007.blogspot.in/2012/06/rbi-now-questions-hr-policies-of-public.html http://dkjain4970901092007.blogspot.in/2012/05/fresh-guideline-to-banks-on-promotion.html High Court Warns bank Management Against Campus Hiring Central Bank’s campus hiring illegal: HC       Times Of India   Prafulla Marpakwar, TNN | Apr 3, 2013, 03.44 AM IST http://importantbankingnews.blogspot.in/2013/04/high-court-warns-bank-management.html http://dkjain4970901092007.blogspot.in/2012/10/selection-of-ed-and-cmd-of-public.html http://dkjain4970901092007.blogspot.in/2012/06/average-pay-per-employee-in-private-and.html