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NEW PROMOTION POLICY GUIDELINES - DICTATE BY FINANCE MINISTRY

GOI vide its circulars in 1986 and 1987 had laid down certain guidelines for promotion process to be followed by Public Sector Banks. However, slowly each bank in the name of fine tuning started deviating from such guidelines. During last over two decades, most of the banks had started flouting these guidelines as a routine and introduced on their own new channels of promotion such as "Fast Track" and "Superfast Track". They created huge anomalies to serve the interests of the top management i.e. CMDs and EDs. People who were corrupt and toed the line of top management in sanction of loans etc were given out of turn promotions by changing the promotion policy at their will.

AllBankingSolutions.com had highlighted this type of mis-management in HR Policies on number of occasions, but HR Departments of Public Sector Banks and top management were totally blind to such suggestions and being arrogant, rubbished any such deficiencies. Such faulty HR and promotion policies has resulted that at the top level we have people who do not have vision, little knowledge and majority of them being corrupt. Some of such top level people who have done much harm to their respective banks, after retirement have even been employed in financial institutions, RBI and Vigilance Departments.

Finance Ministry has lately realised that slowly PS Banks are becoming fiefdom of CMDs and EDs as they had absolute authority in promotions and processes have already been tinkered to suit their requirements in each individual bank. Therefore, government thought it fit to interveneand issued draft guidelines sometime in October / November 2011 for views. Now on 5th December, 2011, they had issued the revised guidelines to all the PS Banks. Although, we are of the view that even this policy has many pitfalls, yet it is likely to put at least some brake on the absolute powers of CMDs and EDs who were till now promoting people at their will. The new policy if implemented sincerely is likely to reduce flattery to some extent. We give below the details of the new policy below:-

The channel of promotion and minimum experience requirement at various levels shall be as follows :-

Scale	Promotion Channel	Minimum Experience requirement (in years)	Maximum permissible_. relaxation by Board� (in years)	Minimum length of services (in years)
I to II	Normal/Seniority Channel	5	1	NA
I to II	Merit/Fast Track Channel	3	1	NA
II to III	Normal/Seniority Channel	5	1	NA
II to III	Merit/Fast Track Channel	3	1	NA
III to IV	Merit/Fast Track Channel	3	1	NA
IV to V	Merit Channel	3	1	12
V to VI	Merit Channel	3	1	15
VI to VII	Merit Channel	3	1	18

Cut off Date for Eligibility:

The cutoff date for determining eligibility as well as completed years of service will be as on the 1^stof April of the financial year (April-March) in which the vacancies arise.

Relaxation in the Minimum Required Experience:

No officer would be given the benefit of relaxation in the minimum required experience by the Board at two successive levels of promotion in Scale - III and above.

Promotion from Scale � I to II and II to III :

There shall be a requirement of minimum 75% marks in APAR for each of the years of service eligible for promotion in case of promotion on merit / fast track channel

There shall be a mandatory requirement of two years continuous service in rural areas for promotion from Scale - I to II, and a total of three years in rural / semi-urban areas, including the rural service in Scale - I, for promotion from Scale - II to III. For the seniority channel, officers who have put in more than the aforesaid service in rural areas will get an advantage of further relaxation of 50% weightage in minimum experience for each additional completed year of service while assessing their eligibility.

Promotion to Scale � IV and above

For promotion from Scale � Ill to IV and IV to V, it will be mandatory to pass an examination to test for computer literacy and computer knowledge.
For being eligible for promotion to Scale - V, the candidates should have been a Branch Head for at least three years. Officers recruited for specialized cadre would be required to have field experience in a branch or as branch head. In case of officers in specialized cadres, this requirement can be complied with over the next three years, beginning with 2013-14 when experience of one yea, and two years for the year 2014-15 would be necessary.
For being promoted to Scale-VI, the officer should have Regional / Circle Head or must have worked, in Scale - Ill to V, in the Regional / Circle Office for two years.

Process of Promotion :

It shall be mandatory to have a Group Discussion to assess the communication, conceptual and leadership capabilities for promotion to Scale - IV and V. For this purpose, a Board consisting of outside experts and officers of the Bank should be constituted with the approval of the Board.

Job Rotation :

Bank shall make appropriate job rotation policy giving exposure to all verticals for officers in Scale - V and VI and get it approved from the respective Board.

Written Examination :

Banks would be free to also have system of written examination for promotion at various levels as per their Board approved policies

Interview Committee and Broad Guidelines for the Committee for Selection :

The interview committee for promotion to Scales - V, VI and VII should have two outside expert with domain knowledge approved by the Board of the Bank for. each year.

During interview for Scales - V, VI and VII, weightage should be given to the following :-

a) Whether the officer has worked in different specialized areas of the banks.

b) Whether officer has been posted to different parts of India or has been only one / few Region / Circle.

c) Whether the officer has experience of working in the field as well as working in Regional / Zonal and Head Office.

d) Whether the officer has professional qualifications and has the officer acquired additional qualifications after joining the service.

Some Major Guidelines for Specialised Officers :

For specialist cadres, namely, forex, credit, technology, HR, wealth management etc., it shall be mandatory that prior to joining the main stream cadre, the officers joining these cadres should necessarily remain in that cadre for at least five completed years of service. Thereafter, the officer should gain experience of at least two years in field operations. There will be exemption from. posting to rural areas for these officers.

Officers recruited in the specialist cadre would be eligible for promotion in their respective cadre as per the eligibility and experience mentioned at pare 3 (i) above and shall be allowed to join the main stream in the event of completion of service as mentioned in pare 7(i) above. It must, however, be ensured that suitable replacements are placed in the vacancies likely to occur specialized cadres

Banks should ensure that before moving the officer to a field position or to main stream cadre, they develop the capacities of other officers of the bank in order to ensure proper functioning of that specialized vertical. No officer shall be moved to the main stream cadre / field positions without ensuring this cadres.

Other Requirements :

The zone of consideration for promotion should be strictly maintained at 1:3 ratio. However, in case, the required number of suitable persons is not available, the banks may enhance this to 1:4 with prior approval of the Board

The guidelines shall come into force with immediate effect and shall be operationalised after adoption by the respective Boards.

The above guidelines are likely to be implemented by each Bank after approval of the respective Boards. Therefore, all serving bankers should watch their interest in finalisation of promotion policies which can again be fine tuned to suit the ends of the top management by interpreting the new guidelines in their own way. All Bankers needs to be vigilant through their respective unions and ensure that while finalilsing the names of the TWO outside domain experts, only honest people are put on the Interview Committee.

We will be soon giving our own views on this new policy at AllBankingSolutions.com. Readers can also send their feedback or additional information on the above promotion policy at allbankingsolutions@gmail.com,

As and when the new policy is approved by respective Banks, we would like our readers to share the same with us so that we can upload the same on our website and our readers can compare the same with policies of other banks. This process will bring more transparency and will surely reduce corruption in promotion process which is all pervasive at present.

Disclaimer : The above details have been gathered by us from the feedback received from our readers. In case any reader has any divergent details / more details / additional information etc. the same may be sent to us at allbankingsolutions@gmail.com so that we can review and upload the same for benefit of our readers