IDBI's HRD migration poses a challenge

Human resource management is a key challenge that the merged entity Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) and IDBI Bank will have to face.

At present, the staff strength at IDBI and IDBI Bank stands at 2,700 and 1,900, respectively. The financial institution has been gearing up for the merger for the past six months.

IDBI employees have been given training at various public sector banks and IDBI Bank. In March, 450 IDBI employees were trained at the bank's Navi Mumbai facility. Their course work - basics of retail banking.

IDBI had shortlisted three consultancy firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Tata Consultancy Services and Boston Consulting group, for drawing the roadmap for the institution's conversion into a bank.

The chosen consultant will have to draw out the entire transformation blueprint ""- from designing the logo of the bank to risk management, technology platform, and give adequate importance to human resource development as well.

Salary differential is not a matter of concern, if one monitises the benefits an IDBI employee receives the salary differential should not be much, said a senior official from the bank.

Functions of the two entities overlap as IDBI and IDBI Bank both provide housing finance and term lending. This is why there is a decision to establish two separate strategic business units (SBUs) whereby the development finance operations will come under the existing IDBI and retail operations will fall under IDBI Bank.

When ICICI was merged with ICICI Bank, the institution had one head hence it was easy to get the employees of the two institutions together and syncronise the working.

In IDBI's case, the picture is still unclear and could lead to duplication of top level posts. This is playing on the minds of bank employees, said a bank official.

In the span of two months, IDBI Bank lost some of its top brass. Hemant Pardikar, regional head, western region, corporate banking, G Venkataraman, vice-president, retail banking, Ramana Rao head syndication, Shameek Bhargava head alternative channels and card products, Shalaka Gadekar head human resource development and Supratik Gupta head retail credit, left the bank.