ICICI Bank not to hire aggressively, skips attrition replacement

The country's largest private sector lender has paused fresh recruitment and is not even replacing attrition on many occasions. Instead, it is now focusing on improving the productivity and efficiency of its existing manpower.

"We believe that given our scale of operations, the employee additions over the last two years and our aspirations in terms of growth and productivity, we can do with lesser number of employees. We have executed this strategy carefully looking at manpower in each of the functions and wherever we believe that the productivity can be enhanced, we have not replaced attrition," NS Kannan, executive director at ICICI Bank, told analysts during a recent interaction Stock Market Trading Tips

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The bank had increased its headcount to 72,226 at the end of March 2014 from 35,256 at the end of March 2010. The lender hired closed to 14,000 employees in the last couple of years.

However, in July-September period its employee base decreased by 3,800. The bank trimmed its workforce across segments, especially in retail banking business. This helped the bank in reducing its operating expenses on a sequential basis. ICICI Bank currently employs around 69,000 people.

Kannan said the current employee base of the bank was sufficient to drive business growth as majority share of its loans and assets are in segments that are not manpower-intensive. "About 30% of the loans would be domestic corporate, which does not consume too much manpower," he said Financial Astrology Trading Tips

"Further, about 25% of our asset base is from our overseas branches where bulk of the funding is wholesale in nature and on the lending side, the loans are to corporates. Accordingly, it is not a manpower-intensive business...We have looked at it (the hiring strategy) in that context and said that we can do a lot in terms of overall employee productivity," Kannan added.

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He clarified that in retail banking the bank may hire a few depending on its requirements. But there also the lender is now originating more loans from branches so that it can manage the growth in this segment through existing staff. Retail advances currently account for 40% of ICICI Bank's loans.

The introduction of technology platforms has also helped. "We have introduced a number of new technology platforms over the last 18 months like tab banking, various mobile-based applications, etc. We expect this to translate in terms of better people productivity," Kannan said Personal Numerology Trading Tips