If you can’t find them, educate them. Even as India marches along on the 9 per cent growth path, companies have started feeling the dearth of manpower to keep pace with the growing demands of a growing economy. Now, with the objective of becoming talent self-sufficient, some companies like ICICI Bank and Crisil are turning educators. It’s too soon to call it a trend, but it could well become the norm in the years to come: companies running professional courses tailored to their job needs.Taking the lead in this training-cum-hiring option is ICICI Bank, which, along with NIIT, has set up the Institute of Finance, Banking and Insurance (IFBI) to turn out financial services professionals. Says S. Venkatesh, president, IFBI, which is offering a Post-graduate Diploma in Banking Operations (PGDBO): “The banking sector currently employs 900,000 which is expected to increase to 1.5 million over the next five years. Recognising that the growth of this sector may be limited by a scarcity of talent, IFBI is looking to groom entry-level professionals in banking and insurance.” It’s a win-win for all. Graduates get a professional education, get paid a nominal stipend while studying; and when they complete their course, some of them even get absorbed by the company. Companies get people who are job-ready. Says Venkatesh: “The need of the hour is to create academic programmes that combine knowledge, skills and the application orientation required by new-age banks.”IFBI’s PGDBO is a six-month full-time programme, with three months of full-time classroom work and three months of internship. Placement of the first batch is a formality. Says Venkatesh: “ICICI Bank has agreed to recruit all students of the first batch as officers on successful completion of the course. “Even for subsequent batches, ICICI plans to give provisional letters of appointment to chosen candidates, a placement model that IFBI plans to sell to other banks also. Another organisation that has taken a similar approach to hiring is credit rating agency Crisil. Crisil Certified Analyst Programme (CCAP) is a two-year course equivalent to an MBA (finance). The company takes on students as interns, who work for four days and study on the other two days, earning a monthly stipend of Rs 8,000 in the first year and Rs 10,000 in the second.After two years, Crisil will absorb them as management trainees, at a minimum starting salary of Rs 5 lakh a year. Says R. Ravimohan, chief executive officer and managing director, Crisil: “The idea is to increase our manpower, not that we are facing a shortage. Also, the current hike in salaries is alarming. In 2003, we paid a B-school student a starting salary of Rs 4 lakh, that too on a ‘zero day’ offer. Now, we are willing to pay Rs 10 lakh, that also to non-toppers. We are being pushed down the ladder.”Since the Crisil course is customised to meet its needs, it focuses on the finance part of an MBA. Says Ravimohan: “We have eliminated the non-finance part, and have introduced a lot of quantitative analysis and mathematics. We also take up case studies from Crisil so that the student learns and gets groomed according to Crisil’s nature of work.” Neither of the ICICI and Crisil course is certified, though the latter is looking at an affiliation.
