Page 134 - A Banker Down the Rabbit Hole

On further probing why they were deputed for that programme, they told
that Branch Head was under pressure from Higher Office to depute at
least one officer for this training from his branch. Owing to work pressure
of the related officer, another unrelated person was deputed to comply.
So, the training was for the "sparables" in a way. In this scenario, 40%
training efforts were made ineffective and resulted into wastage of scarce
resources.

Views of the top brass on utility of Training
The top brass would always suggest to measure the training effectiveness.
But this process was considered very costly, time consuming and intrusive
by the operational managers at branches.

Whenever there would be need for cutting costs across the board,
training system was the first to be scrutinized. Senior executives at Head
Office would be very happy to reduce training man hours or to close some
of the Staff Colleges.

More than one reason for reduced training effectiveness

i. Reward was not given for taking keen interest in learning while
under training and no reprimand was made for not taking interest.

ii. Post-training evaluation to check the level of knowledge or skills
acquired or attitudinal changes brought was not done that further
accentuated the problem.

iii. Study was not conducted on post training improvement in
performance of the participants at their respective work places.

iv. Staff College- A Cool place: "No obligation" Staff College was
considered to be a cool place by the trainees.

Employees had no obligation to meet the training objectives. They felt
happy to be away for a while from monotonous and stressful branch
office routine and would consider it as a paid holiday or a pleasure trip.

A Banker down the Rabbit Hole | 131