Experiences of Work from Home during COVID-19 – Banking Sector

COVID 19 is perhaps the biggest challenge faced by the world in a long time and it has impacted
the economies and businesses across the world. Banking sector, being one of the essential
services and pillars of economic growth, faced an unprecedented challenge to ensure
availability of cash as well as other banking services to people whose incomes were adversely
impacted due to lockdown. The banking sector, both public and private banks, stood up to the
situation and ensured that the banking sector was operational and available wherever needed.
In the pursuit of providing seamless customer service in such challenging times, many of the
bank officials have also lost their lives.

The banking sector has also been appreciated by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on
Home Affairs on management of Covid has appreciated the efforts taken by the sector for
providing uninterrupted and seamless banking facilities during the pandemic outbreak as well
as lockdowns. The committee also hailed bankers as Covid Warriors.

The banking sector had to be agile and innovative to handle the pandemic situation effectively -
Following are some of the changes which were introduced :

1. Manpower hiring – Since business and collections were hit adversely and banks
expected muted growth or decline in earnings, most of the banks stopped manpower
recruitment immediately and in many banks, even replacement of resigned staff were
not provided which led to increased pressure on existing staff.
2. Increased focus on Digitalization – Since lockdowns prevented the salesforce from
reaching out to potential customers and even customers were hesitant from meeting
outside people even after lockdown was over, banks had no choice but to increase the
pace of their digital offerings. Video KYC is one of the examples which many banks had
started after Covid outbreak. End-to-end loan digital loan applications and account
opening and faster, secure and improved payment services were some of the other
changes.
3. Hybrid model of remote working - Customer facing functions working seamlessly from
branches, support teams working part remotely part on-site – Since banking is an
 essential service, most of the staff who are into customer facing roles had no choice but
to be available in branches for customer service at all times. However, to comply with
the government’s guideline of not operating offices at full capacity, non-customer facing
roles were allowed remote working. To make this successful, banks had to provide
laptops to these users along with technology like VPN to connect with the internal
systems. Prior to Covid, usage of laptops in support functions was very limited in most of
the banks.
4. Austerity measures - salaries, bonuses and other perks curtailed
During the pandemic, many of the private sector banks implemented salary cuts as part
of austerity measures to navigate through the challenging times.
● Kotak Mahindra Bank : 10%% salary cut for staff earning more than 25 lacs per
annum, voluntary 15% salary cut by leadership team, CEO foregone entire salary
and took a token salary of Re 1.
● Yes Bank : Upto 30% of CTC allocated as variable pay, instead of fixed
compensation.
● Indiafirst Bank : 10% salary cut in compensation for FY 2020-21
● HDFC Bank : No salary cuts, lower variable components, holiday club
membership for mid-level managers withdrawn
● ICICI Bank : 10% salary cut for Senior leadership
● Axis Bank : No salary increment to Senior management for FY 20-21
5. Focus on capacity building and trainings
Online learning became the norm in and after pandemic for the bank officials wherein
the banks leadership invested in training and capacity building for their staff. With more
and more digital tools available, the reach of these L&D interventions has increased
multifold for banks wherein the branch network is so diverse that it was challenging to
provide timely and consistent learning opportunities for the staff present across various
geographies.