Following the recent incident of a senior employee being let go after reports of him berating junior employees emerged, HDFC Bank MD and CEO admitted that the experience of working at the bank could be better on several counts.
“We are cognizant that the experience of working with HDFC Bank can be better on several counts, especially culture,” MD and CEO Sashidhar Jagdishan said in the bank’s annual report for FY23.
“There may be instances where some people managers might transgress our defined way of working. We have the resolve to nip this in the bud, both by way of training/counselling and appropriate action, to ensure that the same is not attempted by anyone else,” he said.
Increased attrition observed
While the bank still has some “distance to traverse on this front”, steps taken by the bank will go a long way in reining in attrition in the coming years, Jagdishan said, adding that the bank has seen increased attrition in FY23, of which bulk was in the ‘non-supervisory staff’ levels including sales officers.
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Jagdishan attributed the attrition to the post-COVID phenomenon, which might have prompted the younger workforce to “recalibrate what they ‘want from their lives’”. This, according to him, has led to increased attrition across all sectors and especially BFSI.
The employee turnover rate for HDFC Bank was 34.15 per cent in FY23, higher than 27.60 per cent in FY22 and 15.48 per cent in FY21. The bank had 1.7 lakh employees as of March 2023 of which male employees accounted for 77 per cent. The bank hired over 85,0000 employees in FY23.
The attrition rate for female employees was 34.15 per cent and for male employees 34.16 per cent in FY23. In comparison, the attrition rate had been slightly higher for female employees in the previous two years.
On Monday, CFO Srinivasan Vaidyanathan had said that the highest attrition of 40-50 per cent was seen in entry-level positions, whereas the rate for levels above that was mid-20 to 30 per cent.
“With the growing demand for skilled talent in IT and digital technologies, there are also very high attrition levels witnessed in the IT segment and frontline staff,” the annual report said.
As per an HR trend analysis by consulting firm Aon, the overall attrition rate in the banking sector was 24.7 per cent between January 2022 and September 2022, the bank said, adding that people’s ability to now work from anywhere has made the talent landscape “borderless and far more competitive”.