Banking sector is slowly opening up more avenues for female candidates as every year more and more female candidates are joining in at various officer and clerical level posts at the nationalized banks across the country. The higher ranks are also being taken up by the women candidates and are claiming their position to be highly beneficial for the banks. Presently, the two topmost banking organizations in the country; SBI and ICICI have women heads. While Arundhati Bhattacharya became the first woman in the history of SBI to be the head of the organization,Chanda Kochhar became the MD & CEO of the most successful private bank in the country named ICICI. The women candidates at the top are viewing the needs and requirements of the women employees in banks and are taking up steps to make it a comfortable place for women to work.
Not only banks, the government are also giving guidelines making it easier for the women to carry on their work at the banking sector. Women have been allowed maternity leave of 1 year and sabbatical leave of 2 years. As women are subjected to keep a fine balance between the home and bank, they require certain facilities and these women in top administration understand the requirements well. The women in the banking sector have long been demanding a provision for them to work from home. This would make life easier for them and allow them to handle the work at home with raising children and caring the in-laws in between.
ICICI Bank launched ‘work-from-home’ programme for women
To give smiles in faces of many working women in the country, ICICI bank this year has developed an in-house technology in partnership with the students to IIT Delhi, which would allow the women to work from their home for one year. The technology would make sure that the data security and privacy are upheld while they work from their home. The technology would use facial recognition and allow only those women candidates who work in the bank to have access to it as it would scan their faces and ascertain before opening up. The ICICI bank has allowed to women in all ranks, apart from customer handling ones, to acquire the benefits of work from home technology that are in dire need of it. The women candidates who have recently acquired motherhood, or are pregnant or are suffering from any medical condition and are not being able to attend the bank would be able to take advantage of the facility. The technology has been named ‘iWork@home’, and a pilot of the scheme is underway with almost 50 women candidates of the bank.
This facility would help women to not getting forced to quit their jobs, in order to compel with their maternity and other familial needs..
Country’s largest lender studies if women employees can work from Home
SBI being the largest public sector bank in the country has over 45 thousand women candidateswhich is almost one-fourth of the total workforce in the bank. The numbers are growing as more and more women candidates are joining banking industry every year, due to the job security and growth attached with the job.
SBI is studying the technological feasibility of allowing women employees to work out of home for some functions. The bank’s IT department will advise the management whether it is possible to have systems in place for monitoring and supervising work being done remotely.
Arundhati Bhattacharya, MD and CEO of the bank said that she would be looking at ways to increase retention of women staff. This way of allowing women candidates to work from home would help them continuing with their work. This would decrease job quit among women candidates due to maternity or other social responsibilities and help in retention of women staff in the bank.
In future, the technological advancement like the one taken up by the ICICI bank would become the yardstick for other banks too, allowing the employed women workforce to carry on their work without any trouble. This would help the banks maintaining balance in the workforce and do not have to look out for further recruitments due to vacancies arising.
More and more such advancement in the technology is expected in the future and a bank of SBI’s stature is definitely going to look forward to incorporate them for the betterment of the employees working under the bank.
