Saying ‘YES’ entrepreneurship!!! To YES BANK enlightens its employees with its entrepreneurial eloquence…

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Protected by regulations, the ‘medieval era’ of Indian banking industry is passé. Rapid transformation from sarkari banks (read nationalised) to multinationals (catering to the elite few) has seen the sector reaching its new avtaar. But the ‘tipping point’ for this transformation is undoutedly the opening up of the sector to private players, which heralded a new dawn for the banking industry of India. Post liberalisation, a number of banks started operations in the country, to capitalise on the burgeoning demand of retail banking. In 2004, two seasoned banking professionals, Ashok Kapur & Rana Kapoor laid down foundations of YES BANK. The bank filled the all important gap created by nationalised & MNC banks. Associated with the finest pedigree of global institutional private equity investors – CVC Citigroup, AIF Capital & Chrys-Capital, YES BANK commenced operations as a full fl edged scheduled commercial bank in India. Despite being a young player in the banking arena, YES BANK has set for itself big targets, like being a core facilitator in the build up of a ‘New- Age India’. The bank engages each ‘YES BANK’er to accelerate its growth and these partners, on their part help to provide the customers of the bank, a delightful banking experience.

In an interactive tête-à-tête with B&E, D.R. Kurane, President, Yes Human Capital, says, “You need to understand the role of HR in a service industry. Industry to industry, things are very different. So you need to ask – what drives business? It could be marketing, product or pricing.” But the real difference between a potential customer and a real customer is the service that you offer him. And in a service industry, it is undoubtedly the human capital. YES BANK too lays a greater emphasis on strong Employee Value Proposition of ‘Creating & Sharing Value’ through its high quality human capital. Adds Kurane, “You would visit a hotel on account of its service and not necessarily on the account of its food only. Service comes only from human capital and their importance is extremely high. Financial industry is based on trust and our bank is such an entity and our people are the face of the bank. So a financial institution like a bank is critically linked to its people.”

YES BANK epitomises an entrepreneurial enterprise and identifi es ‘right people’ as the only tangible trait to create a competitive advantage in this cut-throat competitive banking sector. Needless to say that the main objective of the HR functionary in YES BANK is to construct a team that is world class and possesses exceptional talent. A high performance culture, combined with transparent performance management process has been the key differentiating factor for this new-age entrepreneurial start-up venture. The bank encourages leadership and vastly uses meritocracy as a strategic tool to remunerate outstanding competency and performance. The bank propagates a performance management system that is both clear and convincing, juxtaposing the corporate objectives with the employee goals. The employees of YES BANK have a special affinity for the bank because they are not merely employees of the bank but also co-owners as they can own the bank’s shares under the ‘Stock Option Scheme’.

Elucidating the USP of the bank, Kurane points out, “We offer highly entrepreneurial atmosphere to our employees and I think, the excitement is that of a start-up. What is unique is that we are an Indian bank and we are going to make it the best in its domain. We provide an extremely challenging environment for the people. What is typically on offer is a canvas where a guy can work.” YES BANK continued focus on building the requisite talent bench strength has been complemented with the right kind of training given to its employees. Says Kurane, “Training and development is paramount to the growth of our bank.

For this, we have a grid, called the time and competency grid. In this, for a class of employee, there are certain mandatory trainings that s/he must finish. For instance, by the end of the first 30 days, an employee should be through with the induction programme, by the end of 180 days, basics of operations should be completed et al.” The bank is all set to put the training modules on an elearning platform. This will allow the bank’s employees to display knowledge of the product, skill of selling & the right attitude. Emphasising the need for online training, Kurane says, “We have around 3,000 employees spread across 55 different branches, across 52 different places. Since it is virtually impossible for HR to be present physically in 52 different locations, so the moment an employee is inducted, he is tracked. This leads to internal certification & is reflected on the performance of the employee, so training is of paramount importance.”

YES BANK has constituted various initiatives to showcase the bank’s tangible investment in human capital. Programmes such as YES Entrepreneur in Action, YES School of Banking, YES University and School Relations, YES Mentor have helped to enhance employee value and build a world-class team. Enthuses Kurane, “The YES Entrepreneur in Action is a unique & tangible investment in human capital where a promising person is encouraged to take up an activity and the bank actually sponsors him.” YES School of Banking is a longer term commitment to the human capital and all training and development modules that happen in YES BANK fall under this. Kurane says, “It’s not a physical entity but a virtual entity. We would like to be a talent provider or talent pipeline for the banking sector in general. YES BANK would run courses in banking management etc. and some of the students could be absorbed by us too. We would like to a part of the talent provider for the industry.” YES Mentor in Kurane’s words “is meant to extend the organisational care at a semi formal way.” YES University and School Relations aim at establishing contacts with the academic world. “The idea being that we want to run banking related courses in colleges or institutes. Through this, we would like to have an upward/downward linkage. We are talking to MBA institutes where a senior person would go and teach,” states Kurane.

Little wonder that YES BANK today aims at becoming a virtual HR organisation, banking on its supreme systems & enterprising employees and is closely partnering with Korn Ferry & Hewitt to guarantee the smooth functioning of its organisational structure. In an industry such as banking, where trust plays an important role to accrue more customers and goodwill in the market place, YES BANK is banking on its people to win over people!

B&E edit bureau: R. Prasad

B&E research bureau: Surbhi Chawla

Banking On The Yes

YES BANK received the Continuous Innovation in HR Strategy award at The Indiatimes Mindscape Employer Branding Awards 2007.
YES BANK was honoured with the Global HR Excellence Award for Innovative HR Practices at the Asia Pacifi c HRM Congress 2007.
YES BANK was awarded the ACNielsen CIO Jury Award for Technology Innovation in 2006.
Promoter Rana Kapoor was awarded the ‘Start- up Entrepreneur of the Year 2005’ at the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2007

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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