Banks need to push digital plans now: ex-RBI Deputy Governor
He said as lockdown prompted many organisations toadopt work from home culture, human resources aspects may betweaked to focus on outcome rather than attendance.
Covid-19 crisis provides an opportunity to revive,re-invent and move more banking products and services to thedigital platforms, he said.
Customers are hesitant to deal with paper currencyor visit the branch premisesat this point; this would helpin digital push, Khan said.
"We need to expand other customer-facing productssimilarly. Whatsapp is being used in a big way, even by oldpeople though they are not digitally savvy. We need to learnthe right lessons from such tools and plan our strategieslike DoingBankingfrom Home to reach out to customers acrosssegments, he said.
He was addressing on "Covid-19 Pandemics & BCCP inBanks: People Perspectives" at the Institute for Developmentand Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) throughvideoconferencing.
According to him, there is a need to move fromstrict individualistic hierarchies to hybrid, distributedworking models aimedtowards teamwork and collaboration.
Banks should identify and benefit from employeeswho can multi-task even as reskilling employees, especiallythrough e-learning, can help create a multi-skilledworkforce, he said.
Asserting that data confidentiality andinfrastructural challenges are critical in the bankingindustry, Khan said many banks lack common sharedrepositories and databases, which have now become important.
After the experience of lockdown which forced manypeople to work from home, which poses its own challenges,Khan said, HR aspects may be tweaked to focus on outcomesrather than attendance. Technology can be exploited toensure employees professional and psychological well-being."
In parallel, the banking industry has to flag theregulatory, legal and taxation-related issues that may arisefrom work from home (WFH) and other distributed and flexibleforms of working landscape, he added. GDKNVG NVG