ICICI Bank 2016 Annual Report Download - page 89

87Annual Report 2015-2016
Several initiatives focussed on women employees were launched during scal 2016. An important initiative is
iWork@Home, which is designed to help the Bank’s women employees to deal with life-stage related challenges. Under
this initiative, women employees can opt to work from home for up to a year. This period is extendable depending on
circumstances. Employees are provided access to the operating system in a safe and secure manner, thereby creating
a seamless ofce-like environment. A unique face recognition technology platform has been developed in partnership
with IIT, Delhi for this initiative.
Managerial responsibilities like client interaction, business reviews or training often requires travelling outside one’s
neighbourhood limits. In order to support these employees, the Bank bears expenses for the young child and the
caregiver to accompany the woman employee on such outstation travel. This initiative will help our women managers to
balance their professional and motherhood responsibilities.
In another initiative, the Bank launched iTravelSafe, a mobile application, to support women employees. This app tracks
the location of women employees (subject to their consent) while commuting to and from work. On activation of the
tracking option, the app provides easy access to a distress signal through the emergency panic button. Its unique car
sharing feature also helps employees share a ride with colleagues.
Capturing the rich legacy of the ICICI Group, the Bank has launched I-museum, a digital museum, in the form of a
mobile app. The museum captures the theme of: Born out of history to create history. It chronicles the ICICI Group’s
rich legacy and celebrates the institution’s culture built by its great leaders over six decades. The museum presents the
organisation’s journey and its deep-rooted linkage with India’s economic growth and progress. The museum provides
employees a unique glimpse into the creation and growth of the ICICI Group.
In December 2015, Chennai faced unprecedented heavy rainfall which ooded several parts of the city. During this
period, the Bank made all efforts to ensure safety and well-being of its employees in the ood affected areas. Field
teams were deployed to ascertain the whereabouts of the employees who could not be contacted and support them
and their families in distress. The Bank ensured timely assistance to the local teams and their families by availing help
from the Indian Coast Guard and the Indian Air Force for the rescue operations. The Bank extended salary advances and
medical help to all employees impacted by oods. Medical camps were set-up to administer prophylactic treatment to
the affected people.
The Bank accords high importance to initiatives which aim at improving the efciency of employees. Structured hand-
holding programmes for new employees in the frontline relationship and sales teams are conducted for improving
their productivity. In line with this, the Bank continues to leverage the internal role-linked and functional training
academies for its employees to provide the requisite knowledge and skills. Some of the initiatives like ICICI Sales
Academy, Probationary Ofcers Programme, Young Leaders Programme and the Business Leadership Programme
help sharpen the skillset of new recruits and focus on making them productive right from “rst day rst hour”. The
Sales Academy has been one of the Bank’s key strategic initiatives, ensuring the requisite number of ready and trained
front-end ofcers. The curriculum and pedagogy followed at the Sales Academy was revamped this year to enhance
focus on important products and regulations.
The Bank also introduced video-based learning modules for its employees. A new learning framework was developed
where content was re-designed to make it more interactive through audio-visual experience-based learning. The Bank
has upgraded its learning management system to host video based content. i-Studio, a custom-made video-conferencing
and web-casting tool, has been extensively used for learning sessions. The tool is also used for engaging with employees.
Given the geographical spread of branches and other work premises, i-Studio has been leveraged by the employee
relations managers to connect with teams on a real-time basis.
An interactive learning portal for the Probationary Ofcers (PO) Programme was made functional from the August 2015
batch. Its core feature was to ensure technology-based delivery of the PO Programme. The portal was designed to
enhance the learning experience using self-paced e-learning modules, gaming exercises, quizzes, Q&A forums, discussion