ICICI Bank 2015 Annual Report Download - page 86

Business Overview
84 Annual Report 2014-2015
The Bank strongly believes in nurturing talent within the Bank. In line with this belief, the Bank has put in place several
initiatives that focus on leadership and talent development across grades. The Bank has built a robust leadership
bench not only at the senior management level but also for all critical positions up to the middle management
level and frontline roles in sales, service & operations. The Bank has created a second line of leaders for all critical
positions. This ensures managerial continuity and facilitates a long-term and steady association with customers. In a
recent global survey called ’Top Companies for Leaders’ conducted by AON Hewitt, the Bank was ranked among the
top five organisations in the world, who invest time and effort in building a leadership pipeline across all levels. This
ranking demonstrates the efficacy and robustness of the Bank’s leadership identification and development processes.
The Bank continues to leverage its internal, role-linked and functional training academies to provide the requisite knowledge
and skills to employees and enhancing the pool of suitable successors for critical roles. These academies provide banking
knowledge with a focus on practical application. The Branch Banking Academy conducts the ‘Branch Leadership Program’
to train and certify eligible employees to assume leadership roles at branches. ‘Skill through Drill’, a 12-week audio-video
based programme, is conducted for all branch employees to build skills in threshold service behaviours through regular
practice and role plays. The ‘STAR’ (Sales Talent Acceleration and Recognition) programme, which was launched last
year, continues to serve as a structured career progression plan for high performing sales personnel. Under this, high
performing sales personnel are selected into the Probationary Officers’ programme of the Bank. The STAR programme
aims to inculcate strong relationship skills in the frontline managers in line with the Bank’s philosophy of Khayaal Aapka.
This year, the Bank has launched the Young Leaders Programme (YLP) to provide a structured career progression plan
for high performing employees at the Assistant Manager grade. This programme is a one year residential course (jointly
offered with NMIMS, a management institute in Mumbai) with six months of internship, which prepares employees for
critical positions like credit manager, wealth manager and in branch banking roles.
The industry-academia programmes which include the Institute for Finance, Banking & Insurance (IFBI) for entry level jobs in
customer service and operations for the banking and financial services sector; ICICI Bank Sales Academy for frontline customer
acquisition roles; ICICI Manipal Academy (IMA) for entry level managerial roles and ICICI Business Leadership Programmes for
roles in risk management, wholesale banking, treasury and IT, continue to provide pre-trained skilled manpower for specialised
roles in the Bank. All these programmes have significant focus on skill building through practice sessions in classrooms as well
as structured internship in the Bank’s branches and offices. They provide inputs on the Bank’s products, norms, IT systems,
service philosophy and the regulatory guidelines, equipping the new employees with required knowledge and skills even before
they join the Bank. The various industry-academia programmes serve the twin objectives of acculturation and ensuring first day-
first hour productivity of the new hires. The ‘young faculty immersion programme’, which the Bank conducts for the faculty of
ICICI Manipal Academy, also ensures that the faculty is sufficiently imbued with the Bank’s culture and processes.
ICICI Bank has leveraged technology and used innovative methods to assist employees to serve the customers effectively.
The Bank has deployed games and simulation based trainings to develop service and transaction processing skills in
employees. Since the last few years, the Bank has implemented several real-time performance support tools for employees
through the launch of ’Business Companion’. These are smart phone/tab based performance support tools for employees
across business groups who are in the field and need real-time access to critical product and process related information.
Easy access to such knowledge, while on the move, has helped relationship teams and operations groups to reduce
rework and deliver superior service to its customers.
ICICI Bank has liberal leave policies which are aligned to various life stage needs of employees. Special holidays are
given for adoption, childcare, fertility treatment and maternity in addition to privilege leave, casual leave and sick
leave. It has also established a 24X7 emergency helpline to support employees and their family members. The Bank
has launched a Quick Response Team (QRT) to respond to women employees if they are in distress while commuting.
A QRT is a specially equipped vehicle which is provided with a GPS, a stretcher and fire extinguishers along with a
team trained to deal with medical and personal safety related emergencies. ICICI Bank believes in the philosophy of
being a caring meritocracy. The leaders in the Bank while being demanding on performance from colleagues, are
also sensitised to be considerate towards the needs of team members. They should support their team members
during difficult times and invest in developing capabilities within the team. Care and sensitivity are important
behavioural characteristics that the Bank evaluates during the annual leadership potential assessment exercise. Care
for customers and fellow colleagues, treating others with respect, dignity and empathy are important aspects of ICICI
Bank’s culture. The Bank ensures that all the employee policies and practices are underpinned by its philosophy of
being a caring meritocracy.