Employee unions in the State Bank of India have called for outright rejection of the new career development system proposed by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Called ‘Saksham’ and scheduled for launch on April 1, it is a draft under discussion and subject to changes based on feedback from employees.

The consultants have listed ‘key result areas’ or criteria on which a person will be evaluated for the year.

The new system proposes five types of grades (instead of marks on 100) divided into AAA, AA, A, B and C in the order of excellence.

D Thomas Franco, prominent union leader, said computer data cannot measure performance in the bank as is the case being made out by BCG.

Franco is Joint General Secretary, All India Bank Officers’ Confederation, and Vice-President, All India State Bank Officers Federation.

Being part of a service industry, the bank is expected to deliver public service, including implementation of government programmes and policies.

‘No easy task’

“Managing the performance of an individual is not an easy task and requires many skills. Narrowing it down to CBS (core banking solution) data will not work,” Franco said.

Use of available CBS data to measure performance could even encourage stray elements to manipulate the data, which will affect institutional interest.

The alternative is to continue the present appraisal system (Annual Appraisal Report Format) with better transparency and a half-yearly review.

It is a sound system and takes into account the self-appraisal based on budgetary achievements and other non-measurable but verifiable achievements.

It has evolved scientifically over a period of time and covers business performance, house keeping, inspection, audit reports and other areas.

Many of the works executed by officers are simply not measurable, Franco said. He took exception to the fact that the unions were not consulted before assigning the work to BCG.

Cross-selling

Inclusion of cross-selling income as a key result area will make the employees divert bank deposits and lead to mis-selling of products to achieve targets at the cost of the bank’s image.

Incentives for cross-selling are already generating undesirable results, he pointed out.

E-learning as a key result area will make staff divert their time on self promotion at the cost of institutional interest.

The BCG proposal says that ‘request for transfers will be not be entertained for staff with a grading of B or below’.

This is unacceptable since transfer is governed by a transparent policy bilaterally discussed and agreed upon, Franco stated.

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