Future Ready Workforce

A mother app and digital townhalls are among the several steps ICICI Bank has taken to transform its work culture

- Anand Adhikari

SCORES HIGHLY ON

• Clarity of goals and growth opportunities
• Fair and objective processes and policies
• Job stability and growth opportunities

When an employee of India’s second-largest private sector bank, ICICI Bank, goes to a retail or a corporate customer for sourcing business, he offers the entire range of products and services from savings account to mortgage to credit cards. When a customer reaches out to any employee (including HR or legal team) at any branch or the corporate centre, he gets to experience the full bank. This is part of a huge business transformation under way at ICICI Bank for aligning nearly 1,00,000 employees with the new strategy of organising itself around the customer ecosystem.

The new HR strategy has been woven around ‘One ICICI, One KPI and One ROE.’ The seeds of this new strategy were sown two-and-a-half years back when Sandeep Bakhshi took over as MD & CEO. The bank was facing headwinds due to the vacuum created by the exit of Chanda Kochhar, forcing it to rejig its overall business strategy to focus on operating profits, risk management and strengthening the balance sheet. As a first step to align HR policies to a common goal, the bank decided to move from grade-based organisation structure to role-based (head of asset, liabilities, etc.) designations and empowered teams at the zonal and branch level. This immediately crashed the hierarchy or department structure and helped in faster response time. The results are reflected in India’s Coolest Workplaces study where the bank has made it to the Top 5 in the list.