CALM DOWN, MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS
My dear friends,
Please calm down. Be cool. No need to turn emotional or aggressive. Let us engage ourselves in a peaceful and sane discussion – not a war of words.
I request you to consider these points carefully. Please do not skip any point.
By seniors, I referred to all those employees/officers with more than 20 years of service in a single bank. Remember, the present day seniors were also juniors 2 decades ago.
By juniors, I referred to those who joined a bank during the past 10 years and still continuing in the same bank.
It is evident that you hold a wrong opinion about all the past employees and the present day seniors in general. That’s quite unfair, unfounded and not supported by hard facts. Not all of them were arrogant, irresponsible and whatever they have been accused of by you. May be about 10% to 15% of them were like that in the past.
But gone are those days and things have changed far and far better today. Therefore, accusing the present day seniors for the unpleasant happenings during 1969 to 1995 will be totally unreasonable, improper, irrational and unjustified and it will not cut any ice.
Can you say with absolute certainty, the entire stock of present generation is without any faults?
After all, human beings are human beings, regardless of the period in which they live. Everyone has his/her own merits, good and bad qualities, strengths and weaknesses. There is no point in talking about what was happening 2 or 3 decades ago. It will take us nowhere.
Even in those years, many staff like me have fought with them and pointed out their mistakes. But we were not liked and we were simply sidelined by them.
Most of the people who joined the banking service before 1975 have retired by now and only a very few of the old stock are left now.
But nobody can deny the fact that only because of the struggles made by the staff during the period from 1948 to 1985, we could secure so many benefits and privileges in the organized sector. What we are today is only due to their untiring efforts and countless sacrifices made by them.
After the constitution of BSRB in the year 1978, public sector banks were generating the largest number of jobs followed by Indian Railways in the country. It continued until 1995.
We bankers had the second best pay package in the entire public sector.
Even college lecturers used to resign their jobs and join the banks as mere clerks, because of the cozy and sophisticated work environment, special status enjoyed by bankers in the society, the attractive compensation received by them here (then UGC pay scales were not implemented in colleges) and the excellent career prospects available in banks then.
During the year 1982, R. Venkataraman, the then Finance Minister of India (he subsequently became President of Indian Republic) called the staff in banking and insurance sectors as high wage pocket islands, albeit sarcastically and derisively.
Only after 1995, the downslide of Indian public sector banks commenced. This is partly because of the economic liberalization and globalization policies adopted by the government and partly due to disappearance of selfless leaders from the banking milieu.
After the implementation of 6th Pay Commission, the downfall of the bank staff became total and complete. Today, we are nowhere near the Central and State government employees and the Central/ State PSU employees, not only in terms of attractive pay, but in terms of service conditions too.
For this, the utter selfishness and greediness of the present generation trade union leaders were also the prime causes (when your leaders are weak, the managements will definitely try to take advantage of it).
When more than 1 Lakh personnel from different ranks and grades left their bank on VRS in 2001, the MOU between the respective banks and the MOF/IBA was not to fill up those positions/vacancies caused by the VRS for the next 5 years i.e. until 2006. But, Corporation Bank was the only public sector bank that did not offer VRS. And in SBI, as an after-thought, those who were aged below 55 years were denied VRS in violation of the terms of the scheme designed, drafted and announced by them.
Both Corporation Bank and SBI had the courage to tell the other banks that they did not want to send out their staff in thousands en masse, as their services were needed to meet the future requirements of the bank.
Between 2001 and 2009, even vacancies caused by superannuations, VRS under pension scheme, deaths, resignations and dismissals were not filled up fully. Added to them was the problem of attrition since 2008 onwards. Whatever incremental hiring took place was undone/nullified by these causes.
While SBI started recruiting new hands in thousands from 2008 onwards, all other public sector banks woke up very late and started recruiting new people only from 2009 onwards (that too only in hundreds) and I can say only from 2011, this exercise gained real momentum.
The truth that there will be large scale exodus from the banks on account of superannuation dawned upon the bank managements only in 2010 and after a gap of nearly 2 decades, public sector banks started recruiting new staff on a large scale – in thousands.
Only because of this new found love for youngsters, the bank managements have started repeating the same mistake what they were doing once, but with a difference. Until 1990s, seniors were given undue importance in every matter starting from placement to promotion. Now, the young generation is preferred, favoured, placed, pampered and promoted.
If meting out ‘step motherly treatment’ to juniors in those days was wrong, then discriminating against seniors these days is also equally wrong.
The present generation seniors were given a raw deal when they were young, by calling them juniors. Now, the same discriminatory treatment continues for the same group of employees, saying they are seniors, as if they have become dead wood all of a sudden. This is nothing but a double jeopardy.
I ask my young friends two simple questions.
- In another 10 or 15 years, you will also become seniors. At that time, will you support the management if they start favouring only the juniors and deny fresh growth and developmental opportunities to you, putting forth the same reasoning offered by you now?
- If you are so concerned about the welfare and development of your present bank, can you give me a guarantee that you will never quit until your retirement? Or at least for the next 10 years?
I want a simple, but straight answer, please.
Finally, a few words.
The number of new branches/offices opened in the last 3 decades has increased by more than 5 times. In the year 1986, the aggregate business per employee was about Rs.25 lakhs and today, it has gone up to Rs.16 crores in public sector banks. In case of profitability, it has multiplied by more than 450 times.
But during the same period, the staff strength has gone up by only 3 to 4 times. Even after factoring in the inflation and computerisation, it should be not less than 6 times.
Today, we have outsourced many of the routine banking functions. By doing this, we have plugged the employment opportunities for the millions of aspiring youth.
But, banks today have unnecessarily poked their nose in unrelated activities and every section of the society starting from Central and State Governments, PSUs, Local Bodies, Corporate Sectors, NBFCs and NGOs and all other private business firms have dumped their jobs cleverly on us and we also have unwittingly accepted them, believing we gain more by undertaking such jobs.
In the guise of weakening the then militant Trade Unions, the Government, IBA and the bank managements have weakened the banking industry itself, through their joint efforts.
Guess, who is wise?
Date: 10-07-2013 V Subramanian
Another Article on same subject by same writer is available in link given below
Advantage Of Seniors AND Juniors in Banks
‘X’ PLUS ‘Y’ IS GREATER THAN BOTH ‘X’ AND ‘Y’ – DO YOU AGREE?
Contributed by Sri V. Subramanian
Contributed by Sri V. Subramanian
A person’s true worth must be assessed not basing on his appearance, age etc. His character comes first. His knowledge, experience and skills come next. Then, his aptitude and attitude are to be looked into. Lastly, special achievements if any must also be taken into account. Only by doing this, the overall assessment of a person can be said to be fair and complete, in an organizational context.
No. It is not always politically correct. If 'X' or 'Y' have a negetive value, the summation can became less than 'X' or 'Y'.
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