A Study of HRM Practice as

Talent Management in ICICI

BANK LIMITED

Submitted to
Prof. Debi .S. Saini

HRM
Group Project:
Term-III

27NMP44Amit Jain
27NMP45Anand
Shankar
27NMP51Komal Tagra
27NMP73Sumit
Aggarwal

A Study of HRM Practice as Talent Management in ICICI BANK LIMITED

Abstract:
The case discusses the talent management strategies at India-based financial banking institution, ICICI Bank Ltd. (ICICI
Bank). Since the 1980s, the bank has fostered a culture of nurturing young talent. This was a bid to create a talent pool
and to develop a leadership pipeline at the bank. The process of empowering young people, nurturing talent, and
developing a leadership pipeline became part of the bank's culture and was carried forward by former CEO and MD, KV
Kamath and present CEO and MD, Chanda Kochhar. Kamath was instrumental in grooming several people who later
took up key positions at the bank. He spotted people with leadership potential at the bank and moved them from one
assignment to another and mentored them to take up different leadership roles and serve the bank.
The success of the mentoring process led to the bank institutionalizing a formal leadership development process that
identified talented employees through a performance appraisal system after which they were assessed for future
leadership roles. According to experts, ICICI Bank's focus on nurturing young talent reaped several benefits for the bank.
While the leadership grooming process helped it tackle the problem of attrition, it also enabled the bank move ahead of
others in the Indian banking sector. The bank's focus on nurturing young talent also helped ICICI Bank develop
businesses that accounted for half of ICICI Bank's profits. Industry observers felt that going forward, the challenge for
Kochhar would be to maintain the bank's momentum, continue international expansion, expand product offerings,
improve technological innovation, and continue to nurture young talent. The main issue in this case is, as per market
survey ICICI BANK is not a good paymaster and average salary of its employee is 9%lower than the other competitive
banks but still ICICI BANK is more profitable than other private banks and the main reason for this is successfully
managing its talent pool and retaining them by giving proper training and showing them the future success path.
INTRODUCTION
Banking Regulation Act of India, 1949 defines Banking as accepting, for the purpose of lending or of investment of
deposits of money from the public, repayable on demand or otherwise or withdrawble by cheque, draft order or
otherwise. The Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 and the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, govern the banking operations in
India.
Banking Structure in India

The Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India Limited. In 1995, it was incorporated as the initiative of World
Bank. Objective: Creating a development financial institution for providing medium term and long term projects financing
to Indian Business. In 1994, ICICI established Banking Corporation as a Banking Subsidiary which was later renamed as
ICICI Bank Limited.
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A Study of HRM Practice as Talent Management in ICICI BANK LIMITED

In the 1990s, ICICI transformed its business from In October 2001, the BoD of a development financial In 1999, ICICI
become ICICI and ICICI Bank institution offering only the first Indian company approved the merger of project finance to
a ICICI and two of its wholly- and the first bank or diversified financial services owned retail finance group offering a
wide variety financial institution subsidiaries, ICICI Personal of products and from non-Japan Asia to Financial Services
Limited services, both directly and be listed on the NYSE. And ICICI Capital Services through a number of Limited, with
ICICI Bank subsidiaries.
By the High Court of Judicature at Mumbai and the Reserve Bank of India in April 2002. By the High Court of Gujarat
at Ahmadabad in March 2002.By shareholders of ICICI and ICICI Bank in January 2002- The merger was approved:
ICICI Bank is Indias second-largest bank. The Bank has a network of 2,888 branches and 10,021 ATMs in India, and has
a presence in 19 countries, including India and has Equity Shares listed in BSE, NSE. Its American Depositary Receipts
(ADRs) are listed in NYSE.
Corporate CentreInternational BusinessProject Finance and Special Assets ManagementWholesale BankingRetail
BankingOrganizational Structure
VISION
To be the leading provider of financial Services in India and a major Global Bank
MISSION
We will leverage our people, technology, speed and financial capital Bethe banker of first choice for our customers by
delivering high quality, world-class products and services Expand the frontiers of our business globally Playa proactive
role in the full realization of Indias potential Maintain healthy financial profile and diversify our earnings across
businessman and geographies Maintain high standards of governance and ethics Contribute positively to the various
countries and markets in which we operate create value for our stakeholders
AWARDS
ICICI Bank won the Best Bank - India Award by The Banker.
ICICI Bank in the Private Sector Bank category won the Best Technology Bank Of The Year
Best Financial Inclusion Initiative
Best Use Of Technology In Training and e-Learning by Indian Banks Association (IBA) Technology Awards
The Bank also received the first runner up for Best Online Bank,
Best Customer Relationship Initiative
Best Use Of Mobility Technology in Banking by IBA Technology Awards.
For the fifth year in a row, ICICI Bank was awarded the "Best Foreign Exchange Bank (India)" by Finance Asia
Country Awards.
CHALLENGES FACING BANKING INDUSTRY IN INDIA
The banking industry has already begun the process of redefining its boundaries, refining its products and services,
providing alternate delivery channels and improving the flexibility of such delivery to cater to all the financial
intermediation requirements of the customers. The success of the banking industry will lie broadly on how it responds to
these challenges. All these challenges are related to humans as banking is a service industry. Employees are the face of the
organization that stands on the front end. The company who provides better service is the ultimate winner. We will see
how ICICI bank is managing its human capital. The major challenges faced by ICICI bank are enumerated below:
Technology up gradation
Customer centric
Response to competition
Transparency/Accountability
Skilled workforce
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A Study of HRM Practice as Talent Management in ICICI BANK LIMITED

Technology up gradation: Technology brings in fundamental changes not just in product differentiation and delivery but
also influences productivity, efficiency and profitability. Technology enables banks to provide better services to the
customers where the branch is not necessarily the delivery point of banking services.
Customer Centric: Customers are no longer investors or buyers of financial solutions. As service that requires high level
of customer interface, understanding customer requirements and evolving customer-centric business strategies is the prime
focus area for banks.
Response to competition: Competition is inevitable as more number of banks aim for their share of the market pie. Most
banks eye the corporate sector and the metro and the urban markets for business. Technology is today the differentiating
factor. But as more and more banks come under the Core Banking solutions umbrella, with little to distinguish between
the products and services offered by various banks, service and cost alone will be the determining factors in ensuring the
profitability and success of the bank.
Transparency/Accountability: With the introduction of financial reforms, the Indian Banking Industry has been pushed
into the open to achieve international standards of prudential accounting norms for classification of assets, income
recognition and loss provisioning. The scope for ensuring openness and transparency in bank management has also been
ushered in. corporate governance will determine the way the Board of Directors manage their banks. This will mean that
the management will be accountable to the Board and the Board to the stakeholders. Banks will have to adopt the best
global practices of accounting norms and reporting. More transparent disclosure norms will ensure that banks resort to self
regulation rather than base their working on regulatory requirements.
Skilled workforce: HR practices and training is engaging the immediate attention of banks these days. HRM strategies
include managing change, building up a team of committed human capital and improving team work. Knowledge levels
are very important and sufficient training should be afforded to the staff. The existing staff will have to upgrade their skills
to keep pace with the sweeping changes that are taking place on the technology front in Indian banks. Only this will help
in improving the quality of service to the customers as well as justify the investments made in technology and the salaries
paid. In this back ground the present paper attempts to explore the HR challenges facing the banking scenario and
strategies to deal with them. The human resources of an organization constitute its entire workforce. Human resource
management (HRM) is responsible for selecting and inducting competent people, training them facilitating and motivating
them to perform at high levels of efficiency, and providing mechanisms to ensure that they maintain their affiliation with
the organization.
Human resource management is also an art of developing people and their potentialities for their personal growth and for
the growth of the organization. It is a process of bringing people and organizations together to ensure that individual and
collective goals are closely aligned. People have always been considered as critical in an organizational set-up. Unlike
other resources, such as technology, finance, and materials, which can be purchased human resource is a critical and
sensitive element, and it needs to be handled with care. Often, organizations are concerned not only about employee
productivity but also about employee commitment and harnessing their potentialities for maximum growth. Since people
constitute the cornerstone of any organization, HRM assumes central importance in most organizqatio0ns. Any decision or
process in an organization must be implemented through its people. In a competitive situation, it is the ingenuity, zeal,
enthusiasm, and commitment of its people that makes all the difference for4 an organization.
According to the Hudson report (2008) the critical HR challenges are hiring right staff, retaining talent, cutting staff, staff
development, salary inflation, external threats, etc. The other challenges are changing working conditions, re-skilling,
compensation etc., Coping with the massive technology adoption programme, change management from employees as
well as customers perspectives. Some of the management concerns are:
Marketing HR services
Human assets
Man-power planning
Talent management
New approach to performance management
How HR can act as the corporate glue or organizational conscience
Making the most of human capital
Customers- who are they, and what do they want?
Towards a framework for continuous development and learning
Challenges facing HR today attracting, retaining and motivating talent
Implementing recruitment and resource-based strategies
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A Study of HRM Practice as Talent Management in ICICI BANK LIMITED

Where HR fits in the modern central bank
Managing people and linking with technology in banking operations needs to be prioritized.
In ICICI bank (commercial private bank) we face similar HR issues but we have achieved excellence in handling such
issues by industry best practices. Today we will discuss how the ICICI bank has been able to manage its talent/human
capital. Employees are the strength of ICICI bank who helps the organization to achieve the vision and mission.

HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ICICI

The achievement of an organization is the result of the combined efforts of each and every employee. All individuals want to
do a good job, and if they are provided with the proper environment, they will do so. People rarely succeed at anything unless
they enjoy doing it. The Bank has always viewed Human Resource (HR) Development as a critical activity, as it plays a very
important role in culture building and gives an impetus to the effort put in achieving business goals more efficiently. A seminar
was conducted in January 1999 which enabled the Bank to establish clearly the link between businesses strategy and human
resource strategy. Accordingly, different kinds of mindsets were worked out to ascertain the requirements in the staff in
the three main lines of business corporate banking, retail banking and treasury operations. In the foreign banks and
private sector banks, however, there has been growing recruitment amongst the officers' cadre with a decline in the
recruitment of clerical and subordinate staff. Private Banks started the decade with 24.5% of staff as officers, 54.8%
as clerical, and 20.7% as subordinate staff. By the end of the decade 36.2% of the staff were officers, 45.9%were clerical,
and 17.9% were subordinate staff. A new organizational structure effective April 1, 1999 was implemented successfully
with the change agent role played by the HR Department. Three different job profiles viz., customer service and
cross selling of products, back office operations and marketing and sales emerged after the new organizational structure
was put in place. The recruitment process has been fine tuned through specially devised processes that identify an
individuals degree of customer orientation the principal tainted in the banking business. New recruits have been provided
training in skill up gradation and team building and development of an appropriate mindset for better conduct of banking
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A Study of HRM Practice as Talent Management in ICICI BANK LIMITED

business. Training programs of shorter duration were designed for the existing staff, with specific focus on product
information, customer service, cross selling of products and operational excellence. The promotion process has been
designed on the principles of openness and transparency. Career progression is based on performance of employees being
above an acceptable level with emphasize on those with high business drive and potential. These exercises are carried out
by the Career Development Centre, which offers a comprehensive competency building program. This process has been
followed for the last 5 years and has been perceived as being fair and credible by the employees.
A high level of performance is rewarded by a system of performance bonus. The ratio of variable bonus to fixed salary is fairly
high to attract and retain the best talent in the Bank. In the private and foreign banks there are larger pay differentials, fewer
rewards for tenure, and individual incentives are high. Further, to ensure that the Bank does not lose high performers and
to increase the motivation levels and instill a feeling of ownership, the Bank has introduced and Employee Stock Option Scheme
(the Scheme). The first grant of stock options under the Scheme was made during the year. The total number of staff of the
Bank increased from 891 as on March 31, 1999 to1,344 as on March 31, 2000. On an average, an employee received 37
hours of training during the year. The Bank conducted 34 internal and 67 external training programs involving 658 and
198 employees respectively. Further, 22 employees were a part of overseas training programs
HRDD Vision
The Vision of the Human Resources Development Department (HRDD) is essentially to facilitate the Bank to carry out
central banking activities, i.e.(i) To create an enabling environment to enhance the efficiency of the organization(ii) To
draw out from our staff the very best by a system of proper placements, incentives, &(iii) To create an atmosphere of trust,
a certain security of expectations and a feeling that the organization cares about the well being and personal aspirations
of the staff. This would help align personal aspirations with professional goals and help enhance efficiency
HRDD Mission
The Mission of HRDD is to create a facilitating environment to enhance the efficiency of the Bank; to empower the staff
so as to draw out the latent potential and to catalyze conditions for a more wholesome quality of life on the work as well
as personal front.
Functions of HRDD
1) To evolve HR policies on
a) Recruitment
b) Performance and Potential Appraisal
c) Placement: Promotion and Career Progression Out of Turn Promotion/ Increment to Sports Person
d) Industrial Relations
e) Deputation / Secondment
f) Retirement and Voluntary Vacation
g) Motivation
h) Training Establishments
i) Mobility (Transfer/Rotation)
j) Remuneration and Reward Mechanism
k) Staff Welfare
l) Communication
m) Organizational Development
n) Training and Skills Up gradation (Policy and Implementation, both)
o) Medical
2) Other than policy aspects
a) Interface with other institutions, government, central banks, etc. on HRD issues
b) To maintain up to date database on human resources in the Bank and undertake analytical studies and c)
ongoing research on different manpower related issues
d) To make ongoing review of the appraisal system in order to make it an effective tool for HRD policy
management
e) To install and implement an effective counseling system
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A Study of HRM Practice as Talent Management in ICICI BANK LIMITED

f) To review and revitalize the training functions

A Study of HRM Practice as Talent Management in ICICI BANK LIMITED

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION PROCESS

Recruitment is the process which links the employers with the employees. It meets the organizations legal and social
obligations regarding the composition of its workforce. In banking services recruiting right kind of candidate is very
important as they are the face of bank. ICICI bank has unique recruitment and selection process. It creates an efficient
applicant pool to fill vacancies. At ICICI recruitment is high during May-June & October-November. Attrition Rate is
high among sales managers, unit managers and those mostly in sales profile. Recruitment process starts with realization of
job vacancies and understanding of the job profiles for the same. Closely followed by this is job design and specifications
for the job portals. Every position at ICICI has a very specific job design. E.g. For audit, they seek technical knowledge
and analytical skills + an ability to sift through humongous data and bring a context to it
INTERNAL RECRUITMENT at ICICI
Referral forum in companys web-page
ATLAS Managerial roles - trace out the performances of the existing employees and conduct a review of selection
process.
EXTERNAL RECRUITMENT at ICICI
Souring from Manpower suppliers
Conducting interviews at university campuses.
At ICICI Bank, the selection process aims at getting applicants who are likely to succeed at various roles at the Bank.
The endeavor is to select people who have a high service orientation, are passionate about their career goals, and display
integrity and ethics in all engagements.
For Freshers from B- Schools
Psychometric Test
3 rounds of personal Interviews
1. General
2. Team head (DGM)
3. HR Head Hired as Managers
For Experienced Professionals-A Professional (with 3yrs or more experience)
Two Rounds of Personal Interview1. Immediate boss or team head2. HR head

A Study of HRM Practice as Talent Management in ICICI BANK LIMITED

Probationary Officers (junior level)
1. Online Aptitude Test2. Online Psychometric Assessment Once the above two are cleared: Group Discussion (Case
Study Based) Personal Interview
Probationary officers undergo a one year intensive residential classroom training at ICICI Manipal Academy and
internship. On successful completion, they get absorbed as Manager or Assistant Managers(999 students in 2012)
For B-School Hires: First 3 weeks: induction, business etiquette Allowed to work for 3-4 months Intensive 9 to 9
technical training for one week Yearly one week training programs (common for all employees)
ICICI Business Leadership Programme ICICI Bank has partnered with National Institute of Securities Markets (NISM)
to launch Post Graduate Certificate in Securities Markets (PGCSM)On successful completion of the course participants
get absorbed at ICICI Bank (or any other group company) as a Manager.

A Study of HRM Practice as Talent Management in ICICI BANK LIMITED

Knowledge Management
KM tigers ICICI Bank has grown six-fold since its KM strategy was established in 2000, making it the second
biggest in India today. But that strategy has been robust enough to grow with it. Central to ICICI Banks success has
been its flexible, innovative methods, and a plethora of KM tools that were cannily marketed to staff from the very
start
FIRST STEPS
ICICI Banks knowledge management (KM) strategy was established in 2000. Back then, the company was very much
smaller than it is now just 1,200 staff compared to the 30,000 that works for ICICI Bank today.
However, the programme was started at a time when the companys growth was starting to go into overdrive. Initially,
the organization developed a broad technology-linked infrastructure, including a corporate intranet, ICICI Universe,
intended to provide a platform where, for instance, employees could check the human resources (HR) system for
vacation entitlements, book days off or view their personal pension details By putting these simple, but necessary
activities on the intranet, it encouraged employees to get familiar with using web-based applications, to overcome any
fear of technology as well as providing them with a good reason for using the portal on a regular basis.
What began more as an idea and less as a project was simply the belief that staff should have a space on the intranet
where they could participate in collaborative activities, such as contribute or find documents, engage in discussions and
post or answer queries. That idea, in essence, first converted the bank to KM.
Initially, the organization was motivated to act due to the upheaval caused by the tail-end of the dot-com boom, which
was depriving the bank of many good staff as they left in significant numbers to join dot-com start-ups taking their
knowledge and know-how with them. We therefore developed Wise Guy, ICICIs KM intranet portal easily accessible
from the main staff portal to provide a way of capturing and disseminating the knowledge of departing staff.
To develop Wise Guy, a team was put together encompassing KM, HR, technology and research with a brief to just do
it. Indeed they did and a beta version was ready within just three months.
Before the year was out, faced with the prospect of a reverse merger of ICICI Bank with its parent ICICI, which went
through in 2002, the KM team had to restructure to meet the needs of the new corporate entity. Some issues articulated
at the time included:
1. How to connect this vast new pool of employees with each other;
2. How to share business-related information about clients, deals and ideas;
3. How to manage staff through the change process via communication, messages, channels and so on;
4. How to overcome the problems caused by staff turnover;
5. How to ensure that every person in the company is adequately equipped with the skills and training required for
their jobs and for lifelong learning and development.
The deeper question was, quite simply, how do we create a hunger among staff to acquire and share knowledge? That is
to say, how do we create the culture? The aim was to ensure that employees stayed permanently aware of the external
competitive challenges of the business, and to persuade them to remain constantly open to new thoughts, ideas and
ways of working.
SATISFIED USERS
In our view, employee satisfaction drives usage and we wanted to use this as the delivery vehicle to support three major
information-handling behaviors: sharing, collaboration and self-help. In essence, the workplace is no longer just a
physical location. It has become a blend of physical and virtual spaces in which work is undertaken.
The KM programme is now deeply embedded in the bank, but not as a result of any directive from top management.
Employees work with the KM programme because they see its benefits and realize the value it brings to them on a day10

A Study of HRM Practice as Talent Management in ICICI BANK LIMITED

to-day basis. This is what makes it vibrant and engaging.
It is significant that a small project originally designed for about 1,200 employees in few locations has been flexible and
scalable enough to cater for more than 30,000 employees in more than 600 locations, most of whom are customerfacing staff.
Everything they need should be at their fingertips, whether getting an answer to a problem, checking a policy or
accessing standard templates and formats such as letters, agreements or guidelines.
The importance of scalability cannot be underestimated. In 2005, usage increased more than six times compared to the
year before and the portal marked a record one-million logins in November 2004 after the site was redesigned. The
number of staff using the KM portal doubled in the same period.
On average today, about 6,000 users visit the site daily, of which 95 per cent come from ICICI Banks retail branches.
And more than 40 business divisions actively participate in the KM effort to contribute and publish content. Today,
there are more than 14,000 individual items, about 1,000 daily searches for information and more than 16,000
interactive postings.
The WiseGuy KM portal also encompasses a variety of sections including: document management; news inside and
outside the organization; digital resources such as trade and news journals, research reports, maps, directories, currency
and time calculators; information on the various business groups and group companies, complete employee
information; and, interactive sections such as discussion forums, query boards, book reviews, online quizzes, the
rewards and recognition scheme, and so on.
WISE WEDNESDAYS
Early on, we realised that several senior people were reluctant to type and post submissions to the portal. So we invited
them to share their tacit knowledge in an informal manner and the WiseGuy Knowledge Leader Series (KLS) was born.
Guest speakers included experts on various topics, such as advanced finance, and internal business heads who were
delighted to be invited and were willing to give it a try. KLS evolved to include even chief the financial officers and
CEOs of renowned companies in India, who have spoken on the topics of leadership and strategy.
Called Wise Wednesdays, we have conducted more than 60 KLS in various formats over a period of three years from
2001 to 2004. It contributed immensely to our WiseGuy brand and really helped to build the popularity of KM in ICICI
Bank and, overall, gave our KM efforts huge visibility.
In another experiment, we set aside some time once a week for a knowledge caf in the canteen of our Mumbai
headquarters. Similarly, we tried a variety of other formats, including informal brown bag concepts, in which staff
would be invited to bring their lunch along to a presentation on a particular subject by a notable individual, to web
conferences and live webcasts, so that any user in any location could participate. KLS encouraged face-to-face, live
interaction and KM was therefore not seen purely as a portal activity.
Not all of these were successful. For example, our knowledge cafes had to be abandoned because the noise in the
canteen proved too distracting, while some of our speakers for the brown-bag presentations felt offended that staff were
tucking into their lunches while they were presenting about weighty topics.
CORPORATE LEARNING
The ability to learn across the group and from team mates is a very powerful tool. We aim to build a learning
environment by encouraging collaboration and push mechanisms, including a webzine e-mail to every employee before
9.30am. The Daily Dose, as it is called, is a summary of what is new in the outside world and on the portal. It features
headlines, opinions, polls, happenings, customer appreciations, newsletters and other regular updates.
Again, one of the main benefits of the Daily Dose is the high profile it lends to our various KM initiatives. When we
polled staff, almost 97 per cent said that The Daily Dose represents an important part of their working day. By
delivering it direct to their mailbox, it helps the KM team to capture the mind space of employees as soon as they sit
down to work in the morning.
Other tools we use include Newsroom, a space on the intranet where daily news headlines are published. Here, staff can
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A Study of HRM Practice as Talent Management in ICICI BANK LIMITED

look up all the newsletters published by internal business groups, media releases, as well as tracking what our
competitors are up to. Then there are K-mailers, which are short, one-page reviews on any one of 33 topics in six
categories; internal newsletters from various domain specialists; online quizzes; word power articles or glossaries;
training modules; and, a whole library of online research tools.
Query Board, a central, interactive frequently asked questions repository by and for staff, is where they can post any
work-related queries, such as the number of cheques that can be deposited at any one time, customer credit
questions, cheque returns and so on.
Indeed, anything work-related that demands authoritative responses from colleagues and in-house experts. It serves as
the fastest and most reliable source for feedback on queries or doubts related to workplace rules, policies and
procedures, technical know-how and much more. Remarkably, the average response time to a query ranges from five to
15 minutes, but never more than one day from the time the query was posted.
In addition to Query Board, we also offer a more general discussion forum on the intranet where staff can talk about
finance, business and economy-related topics. Discussions on our forum revolve around topics highly relevant to the
work in the bank, such as the automatic cheque book re-order system and solutions for detecting fake bank notes.
MANAGING DOCUMENTS ON WISEGUY
The digital assets on WiseGuy represent a vital element of our KMprogramme. WiseGuys document-management
system offers a managed view into otherwise overwhelming enterprise content and provides users access
to personalised content with team-specific interfaces to improve collaboration.
Centralised and distributed publishing capabilities mean that users are empowered and can contribute their own
documents, define them, schedule updates and so on. Furthermore, the portal manager enables business groups to
generate their own template-based, database-driven mini-websites using an extremely flexible front end, point-and-click
tool.
The content is classified and organised by use of a simple tree view for easy navigation, supplemented by a search tool
for easy retrieval. Information can be located within two or three clicks, or less than a minute of searching. Other key
features include easy identification of documents by author, date, posted comments and even queries.
The system helps to preserve the organisations intellectual capital, as it is able to capture information so that it is not
lost even when a person leaves the organisation. To encourage participation, sticky features on the portal include
opinion polls, cartoons, tips, word of the day and tools available to business teams to conduct surveys and online
quizzes.
TECHNOLOGY PLATFORMS
Much of what is deployed to support our various KM initiatives is custom-developed, but the tools are supported on a
variety of standard hardware and software platforms, particularly Microsoft Windows, Linux, Microsoft
Office, OpenOffice (the open-source alternative to Microsoft Office), and a host of other off-the-shelf and custom
applications.
Implementation was eased by the fact that it was not one single mega project, but a combination of many experiments
and modular launches. This means that we nurtured what worked and discarded along the way any elements that plainly
did not work.
One early project was a Yellow Pages-style directory for the entire corporate group. These, of course, are quite
common KM tools, helping put staff in direct contact with one another. The result, Peoplefinder, is the experts
directory that employees use to locate others and update their own profile with interests, areas of expertise where they
can help colleagues and other relevant information. Creating it was like opening the doors and windows in a dusty
house shut for many months as people who did not even know who was sitting on the same floor as them suddenly got
connected and it continues to be one of the most-used sections.
Many implementations began as line-of-business pilots. At your Service is one such example in which employees who
are also customers of the bank can talk directly with the product and process teams for personal banking issues. With a
back-end plug-in to the call centre it serves the dual purpose of learning while solving problems. It was so effective that
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it was replicated for other teams too.
COMPLIANCE, QUALITY AND CUSTOMER SERVICE
In 2002, the bank launched its quality programme to achieve the relevant certification levels throughout
the organisation. Naturally, KMs role was to support the quality team and we did this by building a KM mini-portal on
quality. This quality portlet maintains the background material, documents on Six Sigma methodology, international
quality standards, certifications and everything else that relates to the organisations endeavours in maintaining quality
levels. Staff can also post and respond to queries and interact with the quality experts.
KM tools and techniques are also deployed so that customer-service teams and those staff who deal directly with the
public can share almost everything related to customer complaints and service quality issues, from branch and customer
satisfaction with cash machines, to standard templates, letters, tools, to recognising and celebrating customer
satisfaction benchmarks and people who have achieved it. The various activities, contributions and postings help spread
the good practices throughout the bank.
Of course, banks today have to deal with growing regulatory demands, including circulars and notices from the
regulatory authorities that must be followed to the letter. We therefore created E-Circulars to inform and educate staff
on regulatory and compliance matters. It is used by designated senior managers who have a duty to inform employees
on guidelines issued by various regulatory authorities as they affect the banks policies, products and processes. It is not
all one-way. Recipients can also be tested with four or five key questions to ensure that they broadly understand the
content.
BEYOND THE SURFACE TO THE SOUL
This is a phrase from a very useful book on the topic. It states that KM is not just a set of techniques or practices. If that
were so, it would not have been difficult for other manufacturers to copy the Toyota Production System, for example,
even though the details have been relayed in books and Toyota even gives tours of its manufacturing facilities it is no
secret. The difference is in its philosophy and perspective about such things as people, processes, quality, continuous
improvement and other factors that represents not just the surface what you can see but the inner soul.
This has become increasingly relevant with the realization that few jobs are well structured or well defined. Instead,
knowledge work is defined at the point of need by the issues, problems or opportunities that arise. Researchers and
authors Pfeffer and Sutton asked why it was that with so much education and research, management consulting, books
and articles, that the little change that does occur often happens with such great difficulty. They concluded it was
because knowledge of what needs to be done frequently fails to result in action or behavior consistent with that
knowledge.
This is what they called the knowing-doing gap. Their study analyzed how some organizations are consistently able to
turn knowledge into action while others fail. Their findings suggest that it is management practices that either create or
reduce the knowing-doing gap. In our work, the KM team used their insights as a guiding philosophy.
Rather than waiting for culture to change, we banked on change impacting the culture. We tried to make it fun and
prestigious and persuaded leaders to champion our KM efforts. In experimenting with so many new things and new
ways of doing old things, risk taking was encouraged and mistakes were not considered fatal.
Marketing, it is frequently said, is absolutely key to encouraging the use of KM systems. At ICICI Bank, employees are
encouraged to participate and contribute by way of rewards and recognition. First, the very fact that contributions are
published on the portal along with ownership details gives employees a sense of recognition for everything they do.
Every contributor earns K-Points for contributing anything from an article to documents, queries, responses to queries,
initiating a discussion and even just rating discussions. A separate section on the intranet is dedicated to the knowledge
champions, displaying the top contributors based on their knowledge quotient. This KQ is also prominently displayed
on their home page next to a personalized welcome message. K-Cash, an earlier version of the rewards scheme,
enabled employees to redeem gift vouchers online for the points they earned. And knowledge leaders, who spoke in the
Knowledge Leader Series, as well as knowledge champions, were given certificates signed by the managing director
and CEO of the bank.
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Marketing KM, we found, is all about making connections, so we didnt hold back. Early on, we moved to win over
senior management to help us evangelize our work. Then there were mailers, posters, group presentations, off-site
meetings, open house sessions on KM, regular publishing on the portal, surveys, a KM newsletter, even bare-faced
gimmicks. When, for instance, Wise Guy completed its first year, employees who logged on to their machines in the
morning were surprised by a short 40-second video embedded in an e-mail with bank
director Chanda Kochar delivering
a message on the value of KM, congratulating them and urging them to use it more. It had the whole company talking
about it for days and successfully generated further interest in KM at ICICI Bank. However, user tools were kept
relatively free of catchy, gimmicky names in favour of simple, explanatory terms that explained their purpose. For
instance, we eschewed names like Guru, Oracle, Solomon, Answer Point and any number of catchy acronyms
in favour of the simpler Query Board, Discussion Forum and E-Circulars.
This helped us to stand out from the crowd. Users, we feel, appreciated having something plain vanilla whose purpose
they could understand and relate to. The care we took in marketing was reflected in other ways. For instance, early on
the KM team would use internal marketing campaigns inspired by topical themes, but this was stopped when
we realized that it would not be relevant to everyone throughout India let alone in London, Moscow and Toronto.
CHALLENGES
The short history of KM in ICICI Bank has not been plain sailing. Having a director throw his weight behind the project
certainly provided an initial thrust. It sent a positive signal across the organisation that the top brass were serious about
KM, but it also ran the risk of being perceived as a pet project or flavour of the month.
While many employees actively use the portal, there are gaps in pockets among mid-level managers. I know best and
not invented here attitudes remain a barrier. Knowledge sharing is not tightly linked to staff appraisal and
neither are knowledge management activities mentioned in ICICI Banks balanced score card index if it were, it may
be a different matter.
Certain measures can be a double-edged sword. For instance, one team started an internal initiative in which they asked
team members to submit suggestions, linking their participation to performance indicators and making it a part of an
employees mandatory goals. However, it was soon observed and reported that some staff were taking ideas from Wise
Guy and submitting them to their group system. Such instances undermine or detract from the overall process and can
stoke internal conflict.
From a technical perspective, the KM initiatives have done a better job of capturing internal and external unstructured
information, such as documents and ideas and in harnessing external structured data such as content and databases
versus internal structured data, such as data warehouses, enterprise resource-planning applications and databases.
Disparate systems can create fatigue and/or confusion among users about which one to use.
First-generation KM revolved around creating processes to capture, codify and organize knowledge for retrieval. In
second-generation KM, knowledge flows becomes more important than the knowledge itself. The third generation of
KM involves easing the creation of new knowledge, innovation and improving organizational performance. Maturity
levels vary according to the applications within each team.
At ICICI Bank, the business leadership team, by sponsorship and example, has outlined principles of action that
stipulate that employees must actively share knowledge and seek out colleagues expertise to solve problems and/or
improve processes. KM at ICICI Bank was started in a non-dictatorial manner and its use is voluntary, but
a programme of this nature cannot be expected to continue on momentum. But to the average employee in the bank,
KM now is no longer strange or a novelty, but has become the way we work.
So while we build for scale, we design for the soul. The KM team is encouraged to be open-minded, to bring in outside
resources and to avoid being ego-driven to find solutions within only. When this is done, it is a value arbitrage and a
not cost arbitrage.
On many occasions it is not about KM strategy, but survival strategy. Simply ensuring that the proposals and projects
see the light of the day, ensuring they are nurtured and survive initial skepticism and hiccups.
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Finally, it is about speed, about the youth and their energy, about collaboration and co-operation
WISE GUY CONTRIBUTIONS
Wise Guy has assisted the organization in a number of ways. It has helped:
In the creation of a common storehouse of knowledge;
Staff identify sources of in-house expertise;

In the development of a sense of belonging among staff;

Save the bank money;

Improve our employees decision-making ability;

Empower staff;

Provide a means for staff to upgrade their skills;

Staff to plan their career movements;

Provide a platform for recognition of contributions made to the bank.

WHAT WORKS
What really continues to work in favour of WiseGuy is the way that it helps to engage employees. This is the result of
the philosophy and management practices and small decisions taken on a day-to-day, case-by-case basis. Some insights
may be capsulated as follows:

Listen, listen, listen. Then listen some more;

Speed is of the essence lead, dont follow;

Maintain the intrinsic organic nature and growth versus design and diktat;

Dont kill any idea however small;

Tap the collective energy;

Compassion and caring most employees are struggling with personal issues of work-life balance and stress. If
KM helps decrease this, you have a convert;

Sensing underlying concerns;

Team work, every time.

MAJOR DETERMINANTS OF EMPLOYEE RETENTION:1. Career Development Opportunities

More than 10 CEO and board level positions are filled by internal staff. It gives opportunity for horizontal growth. This
program is called know your DNA. Three type of leaderships are defined under this.
a) Task leadership-Organizing capability, managing change, strategic agility
b) People leadership-Sensitivity, collaboration, Nurturing Talent
c) Threshold-Dynamism, Passion, customer first, compliance with conscience
2. Supervisor Support
This is an internal platform for the employees to engage with senior management. This year, more than 400 such sessions
were held. The main agenda of this platform is resolving concerns and cordial industrial/Employee relation environment
3. Work environment- Tech-Savy
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Non-Hierarchical
Extension of Authority along with accountability
4. Rewards- ESOPs, Annual Promotions & Bonuses
5. Work-life Policies
Life Policies & Some Benefits
Employee Salary A/c Benefits. Family Health Insurance
Flexibility to innovate
Exhibits rigidity in terms of well laid systems, processes and infrastructure
STAFF RETIREMENT BENEFITS:
1. Gratuity
2. Superannuation Fund
3. Pension
4. Provident Fund
5. Leave Encashment
SKILL THROUGH DRILL
An innovative video based program to equip the branch staff with requisite service skills to deliver the better service to
our customers.
All employees in customer service and sales roles were assessed and certified on threshold functional knowledge.
Performance appraisal
It is a systematic evaluation of the performance of employees to understand the abilities of a person for further growth
and development
Manages and aligns organizations resources
It measures the pay of employees Analyses factors Guides employees
IMPORTANCE OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
Promotion
Compensation
Employee Development
Selection validation
Communication
Motivation
COMPONENTS OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL TECHNIQUES
Performance Planning (includes employee goal setting / objective setting)
Ongoing Performance Communication Data Gathering, Observation and Documentation
Performance Appraisal Meetings
Performance Diagnosis and Coaching
The Performance Appraisal system in ICICI bank emphasizes individual objectives, Bank objectives and also mutual
objectives.
INDIVIDUAL OBJECTIVE VIEWPOINT
a) What task the individual is expected to do?
b) How well the individual has done the task?
c) How can his performance be further improved?
d) His reward for doing well.
BANK OBJECTIVE VIEW POINT
a) Manpower information
b) improve efficiency and effectiveness
c) serve as a mechanism of control and provide a rational compensation structure
MUTUAL OBJECTIVE VIEW POINT
a) The emphasis is on growth and development, harmony, effectiveness and profitability of the bank
PA MODEL 1
Rank and yank strategy
Best-to-worst ranking methods are used to identify poor performers.
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The identified poor performers are then given a time period to show an improvement in their performance.
If the employee fails, he is asked to leave the organization and a severance package is offered to him.
If the employee refuses to leave, his service is terminated without any compensation.
Advantage : it continually motivates employees to better their performance since nobody would like to be included in
the poor performance band.
Disadvantage : employees become too competitive and team spirit is not nurtured.
PA MODEL 2
Management by Objective (MBO)
In this method the subordinate in consultation with the supervisor chalks out short term objectives followed by specific
actions.
The goals are action oriented, specific, measurable, achievable, review able and time bound, aligned with the goal of
the organization.
The activities are jointly reviewed by both the subordinate and his supervisor
. Depending on the performance of the subordinate, the goals are modified or redesigned for the next period of time.
Advantages of MBO
: Self evaluation
Promotes communication and information sharing
Motivates employees
Facilitates guidance
MODEL 3
1. Performance Appraisal Form :
2. A self assessment form employees and managers have to fill.2. 360 degree feedback process : Input is taken from
peers.
3. 3. Performance Appraisal Interview : Managers and employees take part in a formal interview.
Grooming leaders for adaptive challenges - The ICICI way
When vast opportunity and a meritocratic culture are complemented by a robust process for managing talent, leadership
development becomes a success
PEOPLE MATTERS EDITORIAL TEAM
At ICICI, leadership is defined in terms of conviction to set the agenda and persistence to live through the change
whatever the challenges. If you have leadership potential, someone else besides your manager should know you or
should have worked with you. When vast opportunity and a meritocratic culture are complemented by a robust process
for managing talent, leadership development becomes a success. Chanda Kochhar joined ICICI Ltd as project trainee in
1984. When, within 10 years of joining, she was sent to ICICI Bank as part of the core team to setup the bank, it was
clear that she had been chosen for a more ambitious role than her peers. An internal process had been set in motion,
whereby she would be provided with more opportunities to build and lead change as a platform for growth and
development. Other similar roles would follow -- from infrastructure finance to building the retail business mostly
assignments to grow a business from its inception phase, until she became CEO in May 2009.
With more than 2,500 employees in the Talent Pool, ICICI aims to create a pipeline of eligible talent to cater to all
critical jobs in the bank. This does not happen by default but by strategic design. The company puts serious resources,
time and effort behind this important activity of identifying and grooming talent. In 2002, the bank started to grow at an
accelerated rate and the previous process, which was heavily dependent on the contribution of board members, had
begun to look obsolete. In 2002, on Mr. Kamaths initiative, we began to set up a leadership development process to
cater to a different scale of business. We got ideas and inspiration from practices followed by GE and Unilever companies that we felt had mastered the art of leadership development, says Board Executive Director & HR Head, K.
Ramkumar. They took the best practices in the industry and tailored a process for Leadership Identification and
Development that essentially moved the ownership of this key activity from the MD level to a larger group of people.
The prime objective of this process was to scale leadership development to a new level and ensure that the organization
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had enough talent and leaders available from within to execute their ambitious growth strategy.
And the amazing growth of ICICI in this decade and the seeming ease with which they have created new businesses is
evidence enough that the process for creating leaders from within is working very well indeed. At ICICI, leadership is
defined in terms of Conviction - to set the change agenda and Persistence -- to live through the period of change
whatever the challenges.
With around 35,000 employees in ICICI Bank and more than 80,000 across the group, the process of identifying leaders
starts with the Performance Management Process. A pre-requisite to be considered part of the talent pool is to
consistently be a good performer, says Ramkumar; only those consistently on the 25% percentile are considered for the
talent pool.
These employees in the top performing category are then profiled on the basis of 9 leadership anchors, known internally
as the ICICI DNA. These anchors are defined in terms of specific behaviour and also have defined stoppers -unacceptable behaviour that goes against the anchor. For instance, Customer First (one of the anchors) is defined by
behaviour like consistently leveraging customer interaction as an opportunity to understand customer needs. Conversely,
the stopper is defined by actions like promising more than can be delivered. With such precise definitions, the process is
able to standardize the seemingly ambiguous task of identifying leadership talent. These definitions are attributes that the
core group believes are required of a leader in the organization. Finally, all this information is compiled into a one-page
profile which highlights the areas that the panel should be focusing on and gives a cue for potential areas for
development.
The final step is a panel assessment that identifies the aptitude and maturity of the employees leadership capabilities.
The assessment is a combination of process, technology and intuition. We believe you cannot replace personal
judgement in the process of identifying leadership talent, says Ramkumar.
What the group looks for in a Leader depends on the level of seniority of the employee. The panel focuses only on a very
simple approach to identify leaders. For junior level employees, it looks for consistent passion and strong problem
solving abilities; for middle levels, being able to build capability internally is key, ie, what has the employee built in the
last 2 years in terms of people, processes and systems? For senior level employees, the focus is on the agenda for change
that the employee has set in the last 2 years and achieved this successfully by mobilizing people and resources.
Interestingly, the panel needs to arrive at a consensus on whether the employee has the capability to move to the next
leadership role and whether he or she is ready to make this move immediately or over another couple of years. If the
direct supervisor is part of the panel, he or she is not allowed to intervene in the discussion unless the panel differs on
some point, then only the supervisor can bring some information to the table. The idea is that if you have leadership
potential, someone else besides your manager should know you or had worked with you. The panel selects employees
on the basis of their strengths and does not normally reject for weaknesses, says Ramkumar. The only reason for the
panel to reject an employee for weaknesses is when that weakness is considered a stopping behaviour, for example, a
person showing excessive aggressive behaviour is a stopping behaviour for ICICI and hence that person will be out of
the talent list.
The employee is then categorized under A List - ready to move to next role immediately, B List - ready to move in
the coming 2 or 3 years, and C List - high performing individual with potential for a specialist role within that area of
work without any emphasis on leadership development. This pool is revised annually and feedback to the employees
plays a very important role in the overall process.
There is a very significant differential in terms of compensation (bonus, rewards, increments and even ESOPs) and career
opportunities for people identified in the talent pool. Most importantly, they get priority for more interesting and
challenging assignments available across the group, says Ramkumar.
In terms of leadership development programs for those within the talent pool, the objective is to help leaders deal with
adaptive challenges which are not amenable to analysis. During the different modules, mostly developed in-house, the
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participants learn to apply standard models while appreciating that choosing between alternate course of actions will
require sound judgment. The key focus of the program is to provide the talent pool an opportunity to build perspective by
using the Action-Behaviour-Consequence model. The most unique aspect of the program is the concept of group
mentoring, as opposed to individual mentoring, where the entire senior and peer group come together to mentor and aid
in the individuals development. This program is interwoven with top management sessions where the CEO and board
members and successful icons play key roles in the group dialogue.
Results show the success of this plan - the targets are ambitious as it aims to create sufficient bench strength to cater to
all critical jobs in the group. With more than 10 CEO and Board level positions filled only by internal staff in the last 7
months, the program is definitely working and showing tangible benefits.

CONCLUSION
Human Resource Management is important for banks because banking is a service industry. Management of people and
management of risk are two key challenges facing banks. How you manage the people and how you manage the risks
determines your success in the banking business. Efficient risk management may not be possible without efficient and
skilled manpower. Banking has been and will always be a People Business. Though remuneration is important, there
may be other valid reasons why people select and stay with a particular bank. Banks must try to distinguish themselves
by creating their own niches or images, especially in transparent situations with a high level of competitiveness. In
coming times, the very survival of the banks would depend on customer satisfaction. Those who do not meet the
customer expectations will find survival difficult. Banks must articulate and emphasize the core values to attract and
retain certain customer segments. Values such as sound, reliable, innovative, international, close, socially
responsible, Indian, etc. need to be emphasized through concrete actions on the ground and it would be the banks
human resource that would deliver this. By seeing the above mentioned issues we can say that ICICI bank is one of the
best bank with such a unique talent management concepts.
LOOKING AHEAD
Experts felt that though ICICI Bank had a depth of talent, it also faced the risk of becoming a poachers paradise.
According to Kochhar, "When an organization grows at 35-40 per cent per annum for 10 years and adds 10 new
businesses during that period, young professionals get the kind of exposure they would not have got anywhere else. We
have groomed people to build and run businesses like insurance, securities, and retail. So if other players are looking to
grow who would they pick? The best person would be someone who has already run the business."

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References:
http://www.slideshare.net/ragsroxragavendra/hr-issues-in-psu-final?related=1
http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Human%20Resource%20and
%20Organization%20Behavior/HROB157.htm
http://www.business-standard.com/article/finance/icici-bank-shuts-door-on-ex-employees113032900127_1.html
http://www.peoplematters.in/article/2010/01/12/leadership/grooming-leaders-for-adaptivechallenges-the-icic-way/245
http://www.ijsrp.org/research-paper-0114/ijsrp-p2598.pdf
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/12/03/career-journal-what-icici-looks-for-inemployees/
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/My
%20Documents/Downloads/HUMAN%20RESOURCES%20DEVELOPMENT%20POLICIES84.pdf

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