Government has put stress on salary packages of employees of public sector banks to have performance linked variable component from next financial year. They could not ensure performance in central and state government departments but bent upon linking wage revision of bankers with performance knowing very well that it is still banks where work flows smoothly compared to other departments of government.
Government should first define performance, explain how to measure performance of various segment of officers and non officers, how to ascertain degree of customer service extended by a bank employee, how to correlate deposit mobilized by an officer with non performing assets (NPA) created by him before advocating performance based pay hike or incentive (PLI) to be introduced in public sector banks. There are numerous officers in banking industry who by paying bribe to government departments could mobilize handsome deposit to become performer but who endangered crores of rupees of banks by lending huge money to ineligible borrowers or to fake borrowers or who were found to be indulged in fraudulent activities.
Bitter truth is that an officer in general is treated star performers by an executive is later charge sheeted by another set of executive when exposure of irregularities created by so called star performers takes place or when top executive sitting at the top post do not like the said star performer.
There is already promotion policy in vogue in all banks which promises promotions based on performances. But the ground reality is that promotions are never given based on performances. Those who are flatterers, who are yes-man of bosses, who earn through bribe and share with bosses, who please bosses with cash and gifts are normally given better marks in Interview and selected for promotion. Similarly top officials are tactful enough to use good officers to clean the malady created and accumulated by their yes-men and justify the promotion given by them to a bad performer at the cost of good performer. If a honest and sincere survey is conducted on bank officers, the outcome will definitely reveal the large scale annoyance of bank officers with their top management and exposes injustices in promotion process. One cannot deny that promotions said to be performance linked in banking is absolutely whimsical and in no way related to work done by any officer.
In a bank it is very difficult to ascertain and measure work done by an employee and make it comparable with others. Different employees in different departments in banks at different branches and different administrative offices require different skill and unique level of handling. Every one is not competent to handle auditing work and similarly every officer is not tactful and efficient enough to handle a branch as Branch head. There are some officers who can be good faculty member in a training college but fail completely when they are posted in a branch and instructed to perform routine work in a branch.
Secondly, position, potential and work nature of a branch differs from village to village and from town to town. Quality of work at administrative offices is entirely a different story because administrative offices need no service to customer but only service and flattery to bosses. In brief each branch and each officer has a different characteristic and need unique treatment, different set of knowledge level and absolutely unique behavior.
I am unable to understand how bank management will justifiably quantify the work done by different segment of workers. It is rather bank management who can easily make or mar the career of any officer or a branch manager just by posting him at normal or critical branch, or by increasing or reducing manpower compared to normally required strength of manpower for a particular branch. Manpower provided to different branches is not uniform and more or less depends on the whims and fancies of higher bosses. An officer in good book of a boss can get surplus manpower whereas another officer when posted at same branch will be deprived of even normal strength of manpower.
There are many banks where even appraisal reports are not in vogue for assessing the work of award staff. Even for officer’s appraisal report is designed in such a manner that he or she is rated in different state in different way depending upon the likes and dislikes of the assessor. Even if appraisal reports on performance is written by his immediate boss, it has got no relevance in case of posting or promotion of an officer considered by the management from time to time. It is in banks that even guidelines for officers issued by government of India regarding Rural posting or North East posting related incentive is misused by the management to punish or isolate an officer who is not serving personal interest of the Boss.
If management wants to give performance linked incentive to any officer of their choice they will extend all cooperative hands and on the contrary they may pull back some good assisting workers from a branch to belittle good work done by a an officer who is though good performer but not in good book of his assessor. A man is not good or bad only because he is good or bad, but it largely depends on how the assessor or the judge perceives his performance. Attractive suit length in a cloth shop is liked by one but may be disliked by other.
Availability of suitable infrastructure and the potential of the area have greater role to play in performance of an officer. Similarly position of all branches is not same. There are branches, which are fraud ridden requiring skill in legal matter. There are branches where bad advances are huge and need focused attention on recovery of advances. On the contrary there are some new potential branches where in a year business rises to what 10 years old branch could not achieve in another town. Some branches are fifty years old having multifarious jobs and some are new requiring no special skill, some are situated in Naxal affected areas and some others are in business wise potential area. After all what will be the criteria for judging the performance of a bank employee which will be uniformly applicable and acceptable to all is a million dollar question.
It is seen in banks that charge sheeted officers are promoted based on caste or religion or closeness to bosses or based on recommendation of some God fathers or based on bribe he or she offers to top management in lieu of promotion he secures. There is no guarantee that the performance-linked incentive as contemplated by government of India will be used for real growth of banks.
As long as banks are unable to decide the framework and uniformly acceptable yardstick to measure the performance qualifying for incentive, mere introduction of such PLI in banks will undoubtedly create more conflicts, confusion and give rise to reign of injustice as perpetuated through promotions and posting by greedy and corrupt bank management in general, I do not talk of a negligible portion of exceptional good officials sitting at the top. Please excuse me. In general any power invested with Indian bosses produces nothing but gives rise to more and more corrupt practices and do not help in creating an environment conducive for real elevation of really good workers and real growth of banks. When incentive in form of promotion is not awarded judiciously, it is difficult to understand that the management will justifiably distribute Performance linked Incentives.
Danendra Jain
Ganaraj Choumuhani Agartala
9th December 2009
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