Manipal Academy of BFSI plays a key role as a training partner for major private sector and public sector banks in shaping the future workforce of the BFSI industry. It trains about around 10,000 recruits for banks every year. Business Line spoke to Balasundaram Athreya, President & Head – Campus Operations, Manipal Academy of BFSI and emerging trends in hiring by banks and future prospects. Some excerpts:
What are the emerging trends you see in the recruitment for bank jobs? How has been the interest of job-seekers in the BFSI sector?
The BFSI industry employs around 15 lakh employees in the country. At the entry-level, where we supply about 10,000 people annually, we’re noticing some trends. The top third of graduates increasingly find better opportunities elsewhere as BFSI roles shift towards sales and relationship management rather than desk jobs. On the other hand, the bottom third of graduates are often unemployable or untrainable, lacking the basic competencies that the industry requires. This leaves the middle third of graduates, who traditionally sought BFSI jobs. However, we’re observing a decline in the quality of candidates, particularly in communication skills, confidence, and English proficiency.
How serious is the concern over the decline in the quality of human resources? What skill sets are needed for bank job aspirants today?
While the decline isn’t drastic, attracting top-tier talent to banking has become more challenging after Covid-19. As for the industry, there are three primary roles in banks – customer-facing roles like sales and relationship management, operational roles like branch or regional operations, and analytics, audit, and compliance. Increasingly, the focus is on customer-facing roles. These roles demand financial product knowledge, interpersonal skills, and customer-handling abilities. The increasing emphasis on sales and relationship skills turns off many people who once saw banking as a stable, desk-bound nine-to-five job. Today, process automation is another factor. As technology advances, process roles are decreasing, and banks need employees with more customer-facing and sales-oriented skills.
How has women’s participation in bank jobs been? Are banks making any special efforts to onboard women staff?
Women now comprise 30-40 per cent of the workforce across private banks, marking a significant increase from the 15-20 per cent seen in the pre-Covid19 period. Banks like Axis Bank made it a point to send out at least 2-3 batches in a year as women-only to us, which is a direct result of the vision and policy of the bank. The increase in the number of women in the workforce is driven by two factors. First, the number of women graduating every year has increased. Second, banks also aggressively pursue diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, which they see as strategic for the future. Banks recognize the long-term benefits of having a diverse workforce and are actively hiring more women.
Manipal Academy has been a major training partner for banks. How is it going, and what are the plans for the future?
Right now, the flagship program we run is the entry-level probationary officer program for four major banks in the private sector – ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, and Kotak Bank. In the public sector, we run similar entry-level probationary officer programs for IDBI Bank and have completed programs for the Bank of India. In the past, the Academy handled public sector clients, including Bank of India, Andhra Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Indian Bank, Syndicate Bank, Central Bank of India, and others. We continue to manage IDBI Bank’s entry-level probationary officer program. This year, we might also handle programs for the Central Bank of India. Our private sector customers are sustained, long-term partners. For instance, ICICI Bank has been with us for 15 years, Axis Bank for 12 years, and HDFC Bank for 6–7 years. Kotak Bank has just started now and is growing rapidly. Our flagship program, co-created with banks, covers areas like products, people and processes. Banks recruit candidates through an entrance exam and interviews, then send them to us for campus-level training. These candidates, typically graduates, undergo a training program followed by an internship and on-the-job training before becoming full-time employees.
Published on February 5, 2025
