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StanChart, Grindlays in rejig mode

Debjoy Sengupta

StanChart Bank and StanChart Grindlays Bank have jointly undertaken a restructuring drive to implement a hub-and-spoke arrangement for all its regional head offices. The banks are consolidating their back-office operations whereby the ratio of workers between the back-office and front-office will undergo a dramatic change, said sources in the bank.

In consequence, the banks will witness a sea change in the nature of responsibilities of employees. At present, manpower allocation is heavily skewed towards a larger back office and smaller front office. After restructuring, the ratio will see a reversal in favour of the latter, sources added.

As part of the process, StanChart Grindlays Bank and StanChart Bank will be transferring its back-office operations from all centres to Madras. After transfer of the workloads handled by the zonal processing centres, as they are technically called, the centres will operate like any other branch office in the country.

"The merged entity will recruit another 1,000 employees to support its back-office operations at Madras", said the official spokesperson of StanChart Grindlays Bank, Niel Chatterjee. "A bipartite agreement signed with the union does not allow staff to be transferred to other centres," he explained. The bank's Madras office not being adequately manned to handle back office operations for all its branches, will require fresh recruitment at its Madras office.

Although the process of aligning operations between StanChart and StanChart Grindlays Bank will take another six months, StanChart has already moved its administration department from Calcutta to Madras last month. Shifting of the fixed deposit department, accounts maintenance, and remittance section are on the anvil. The whole process is slated to be completed in another couple of months.

Meanwhile, the account payable unit at StanChart Grindlays Bank has already been transferred to Madras. The unit was responsible for employee provident fund services, salary payment, leave calculation along with a host of other employee payment-related functions. Next on the list is its corporate department, said sources in the bank's union.

The realignment at the banks has resulted in an ideal workforce of 132 clerical and sub-staff at Grindlays Bank and 173 employees at Grindlays bank, at departments christened banking service division and resource management division, in Calcutta. The total number at Delhi and Bombay being 60 and 50.

According to unions at the bank, these employees have not been provided any assignment and have been kept idle for more than two years. Meanwhile, services like door-step cash delivery, cash management, retail lending, and marketing were being sourced from agencies such as Oxford Securities & Detective Agency, Cash Transit in Operation Pvt Ltd, Pamac Pvt Ltd and Excello Properties Pvt Ltd. The unions argue that the idle workforce could always be provided these job, instead they outsourced the services from private agencies on a regular basis.

While StanChart Grindlays has around 1,400 employees, StanChart has another 500 staff. Of this as many as 1,400 are eligible for its recently-announced early bird retirement scheme, 300 being from StanChart and the balance from StanChart Grindlays. It is expected that the transfer of department will result in another redundant workforce group of 500.

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