Covid, toxic environment, skill blamed for attrition in banks

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Various leaders on major private banks in the country have sighted Covid, toxic environment, laxiety shown by top management, inter alias behind rise in attrition in banks. The Reserve Bank of India, Governor, Shaktikanta Das, highlighted that he kept vigil on rising attrition rate in private banks.

Laxity by senior management

According to a leading business daily, ‘The Hindu’ the RBI Deputy Governor, MK Jain, had said in May, that, inability of senior management of major private banks to nurture acquired talent for their upskilling served key reason behind rising attrition levels.

HDFC Bank CEO blamed psychological impact of Covid-19 

HDFC Bank, CEO and MD, Sashidhar Jagdishan, had sighted psychological impact of Covid-19 behind attrition level hike in HDFC Bank. He had mentioned in the private bank’s FY23 annual reports that Covid-19 pandemic aftermaths had prompted employees to think and introspect what they actually want from their lives. This according to him might have prompted employees to look for other types of jobs.

Lack of incentives

According to US based media company Bloomberg, two bank officials of a major private bank had sighted lack of incentives as one of the main reasons behind rising attrition rate in private banks. The officials had sighted long working hours, hostile client behaviour as other reasons behind rise in switching of jobs by the harassed employees. The two officials had also said that the trend of attrition which private banks are currently battling in India was highest among junior level employees than the higher hierarchy.

The matter of divergence in attrition rates among different bank employee categories was also echoed by Shanti Ekambaram, whole-time director at Kotak Mahindra Bank. Same thing was visible in attrition trend of other major banks like HDFC Bank and Axis Bank.

Since FY23, private banks have been hit by high attrition rate especially in lower level employees category. In FY23, Kotak Mahindra Bank had reported highest attrition rate of 45.9 per cent in the banking industry followed by Yes Bank, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank.

Private Banks with rising attrition rate:

Since, FY23, private banks have been battling rise in attrition rate which has gone up to as much as 30 per cent to 35 per cent for the entire private bank industry.