Virtual classes for ICICI Bank

EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

The bank has tied up with Manipal University to train its staff with virtual lessons.

ICICI Bank has tied up with Manipal University to offer training through virtual classrooms for its employees. Virtual classrooms will operate on a hub-and-spoke model, with three spokes in Delhi and three in Mumbai.

The training through virtual classrooms is targeted at junior management, officers and senior officers. A total budget of Rs 30 crore has been earmarked for training its employees. The initiative is aimed at reducing the cost incurred in training whereby bulk of the cost lies in the trainer travelling to the location where the training has to be conducted.

Virtual classrooms comprise a two-way audio with each person having a computer for himself. In virtual classrooms the employees engage with experts in a given field for discussions whereby there are studio centres through which discussions are held. "Manipal university provides the technology support for the programme,"says K.Ramkumar, General Manager, ICICI Bank.

This initiative helps them in gaining a complete knowledge on a given topic. Such training programmes gains significance more so because the bank has been on a massive hiring spree. The bank had recently taken 13,500 freshers on board that includes around 4,000 re-placements and an additional 9,500 to ensure that manpower needs in the event of future attritions is effectively met. In fact the average attrition rate in the industry is 25 per cent.

Virtual Classrooms is just one such training programme that ICICI bank has deployed.There are atleast 2,000 people on any given day who undergo a host of e-learning modules that the bank has put in place.

Its compulsory for employees to undergo atleast four mandays of e-learning, and overall employees undergo 1,50,000 mandays of training through e-learning in a year.

"We emphasise on e-learning since we have found that a mere classroom training is inefficient," says K.Ramkumar, General Manager, ICICI Bank. Any person undergoes a multi-pronged training programme after getting a job with ICICI Bank. They undertake a training to understand the history,ethos and culture.

Second part of the training is one where they have to undergo a training in the business in which the person is inducted, third part is the training on some immediate learning requirements to perform on the job.