It is now possible for public sector bank employees to climb the career ladder faster. Keeping in mind the shortfall that is expected at the top in the coming years, banks are tweaking their human resource policies.

According to studies conducted by different banks, around 340,000 employees will retire in the next 10 years.

To compensate for this and support expansion, banks have to look at employing 500,000 to 700,000 people in the next 10 years.

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To start with, some banks have introduced a fast-track promotion channel through which a deserving employee can rise much faster as compared to the traditional route.

Union Bank of India's fast track channel can promote a scale-1 employee to scale-5 in 11 years.

"Thus, if a person joins our bank at the age of 23-25 years, he/she can be an assistant general manager by the age of 35-40," said chairman and managing director M V Nair.

The bank has promoted 548 employees through this system in the last four financial years.

"This amounts to 11 per cent of total promotions in the period," said Nair.

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To take the shorter route, an employee must clear written tests, group discussions and personal interviews.

If cleared, he/she becomes eligible for a higher position earlier than the time taken through the traditional route.

Other than this, the bank has been recruiting laterally in a big way.

In the last three years, it has employed 5,000 people laterally.

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Bank of Baroda has also introduced a fast-track promotion channel.

"Currently, the average age at the general manager level is 50 years. Fast-track promotions will help bring this down by around 10 years," said general manager Ulhas Sangekar.

The retirement age for bank employees is 60 years. Faster promotions will increase the number of candidates eligible for higher posts.

Apart from this, BoB is in talks with business schools for tailor-made courses.

"Once that is done, our bank can recruit the entire lot of students who undergo the course designed for our bank," said Sangekar.

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Usually, BoB employees undergo specialised post-recruitment training.

The committee under Anil Khandelwal, the former chairman of BoB, to look into issues related to human resources in public sector banks had pointed out that in the next five years, 80 per cent general managers, 65 per cent deputy general managers, 58 per cent assistant general managers and 44 per cent chief managers would retire.

To address the issue, the committee had proposed a comprehensive strategy for succession planning and leadership development.