Staffing power up: HDFC Bank likely to overtake SBI in employee count

Numbers for industry show private banks are taking the lead in adding workers and setting up new branches

HDFC Bank, the country’s largest private sector lender, is likely to surpass the State Bank of India (SBI), the largest lender, as the biggest employer in banking.

 

HDFC Bank had 213,527 employees at the end of FY24 and SBI had 232,296, according to data compiled from the annual reports of the two companies.

 

Of SBI’s total workforce, 110,116 are in the “officers” category; 92,514 in “clerical” and 29,666 in “sub-staff”. Women comprise about 27 per cent of the state-owned lender's workforce.

 

That said, SBI’s workforce is decreasing – a trend seen at all state-owned banks. Data compiled by Business Standard annual reports show that SBI had 249,448 employees in FY20 and 232,296 in FY24, marking a drop of 17,152 in five years.

 

In the same period, HDFC Bank increased its workforce by 96,556 to 213,527 in FY24 from 116,971 in FY20. In FY24 alone, HDFC Bank added more than 40,000 employees. It added 31,643 employees in FY23; 21,486 employees in FY22 and 3,122 in FY21.

 

Due to erstwhile HDFC Ltd.’s merger with the bank in FY24, the lender added many more employees in the financial year compared to other years. “FY24 was significant as we welcomed employees of erstwhile HDFC Limited post the merger”, the bank stated in its annual report.

 

Women comprise about 26 per cent of HDFC Bank’s workforce.

 

“The bank, like the rest of the BFSI sector, has experienced a volatile talent landscape in recent times,” said Sashidhar Jagdishan, managing director and chief executive officer of HDFC Bank in the bank’s FY24 annual report. “Attrition was a matter of concern for the bank as it was for the industry in FY23. However, in FY24, most of the industry has seen a slight moderation in the attrition rate and that is reflected in our numbers too.”

 

To control attrition, HDFC Bank in FY24 set up a task force to identify causes and make corrections. “Managers are the primary custodians of talent, and much effort has been made to raise awareness and accountability towards retention and engagement of their teams,” said Jagdishan.

 

HDFC Bank has invested in improving on-boarding and professional learning and set up an active listening framework to help employees and ease attrition.

 

“As a result, in FY24, we saw a drop in new joiner attrition by 10 per cent over last year and the overall attrition drop by over 7 per cent,” he said.

 

Data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows private sector banks’ employee strength has increased 1.5 times in five years and surpassed that of the state-owned lenders, reflecting their growing market share at the cost of their public sector peers.

 

RBI data shows at the end of FY24, state-owned banks had an employee strength of 764,679, while private sector banks employed 846,530 individuals. In FY20, state-owned banks had 770,409 employees, compared to 554,950 of the private banks.

 

According to experts, private banks have strengthened their outreach and financial inclusion by expanding their branches in Tier-II and Tier-III cities while also diversifying into non-urban lending products like agriculture, microfinancing institutions. Public sector banks are not opening as many new branches as the private sector banks.

 

An email sent to SBI did not get a response.