The present Paper has been taken up in pursuance of the deliberations at the 17th SAARCFINANCE Governors' Meeting held in Washington on April 12, 2008. The broad theme of the Paper is “Loss of central bank's human capital to commercial organizations and the appropriate ways and means to retain the best talent keeping in view the predefined roles and functions of the central bank”. While this Paper attempts to do a brief environment scan for central banks in general and analyze the broad trends in the evolving manpower turnover scenario therein, it primarily seeks to delve into the Indian context and the challenges faced in this regard by the Indian central bank, i.e. Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and the strategies that the Bank has adopted or needs to consider in response.

This Paper has been prepared at the Human Resources Development Department, Central Office of the RBI. The core internal team for preparation of this Paper comprised M/s Deepak Singhal, Vivek Deep, Suddhasattwa Ghosh and Ms. Anjali Parikh. With a view to build in definitive insights from the internal and external stakeholders along with a comparative analysis of talent processes in RBI vis-à-vis those in select Indian banks and a couple of leading central banks in Asia for making the present exercise more comprehensive, we have also taken related research inputs from M/s Hewitt Associates, India. The internal team is thankful to Ms. Vaishalli SDK and Ms. Mamta Dhawan of M/s Hewitt Associates for their assistance in this regard.

Far-reaching developments in the roles and activities of central banks and financial regulatory agencies in recent years have put a premium on appropriate manpower planning and personnel development, indeed the human resource function generally. Ensuring that the central bank can recruit and retain appropriately qualified and experienced staff is at the heart of this challenge. This is made increasingly difficult by developments outside the central banks and especially by competition for key personnel from the private sector.

In India too, banks and banking have changed substantially over the years. As we view matters in retrospect, one of the major landmark events which constituted strategic inflexion points in the history of Indian financial sector has been the reforms process that gained momentum in the early 1990s. These reforms have heralded a dramatic shift in the way banks functioned and operated in India. The changed overall environment and the internal compulsions to generate and sustain faster policy responses have given rise to the quest for greater efficiency and the need to reorient the central banking practices. This unmistakable urgency of realigning our organizational resources has indeed altered the way we view the whole gamut of key issues relating to our human resources, including the prime focus of the present exercise, namely, actual or potential loss of our human capital to commercial organizations.

While present attrition rates in Reserve Bank of India as in many other central banks are substantially lower than the current market average, in an environment sometimes somewhat stylistically termed as ‘war for talent’, central banks can perhaps no longer take a life time employment for granted.  Issues relating to how to attract talented people, how to nurture them, how to develop them and give them the necessary space have now, therefore, moved to the centre stage and today constitute the major concerns that we may need to address adequately in the near and medium term.

While these issues have always been important, it is just that the imperatives to address them squarely in substance were never so compelling. There have been broadly three catalytic forces that have brought about this changed perception of human resources: First, as the widespread use of the personal computer and the advent of the internet in the 1990s attained a critical mass, it marked a specific inflexion point which ushered in the Information Age. In this age, the intangible assets such as intellectual capital and talent have in a sense supplanted hard assets of the Industrial Age such as capital, factories and inventories. The new reality is that people are increasingly the principal assets of any organization, including central banks, and they are dependent not just on the sum total of their individual human capital, but also on how effectively they are able to draw out the best from their talent bank.

Secondly, in India as elsewhere, a host of new industries, some sector-specific like new generation Indian private sector banks and foreign banks and other sector-neutral like companies in the fields of information technology and media, have given rise to a supply demand imbalance. Today, these new industries are competing with the old for talent and have triggered the need for even our Bank to look afresh not only at its recruitment strategies but also how to develop and retain its talent.

Thirdly, there is the issue of ownership. While organizations own physical and financial assets, their ownership rights, however, do not extend to people.  In Indian financial sector, in the pre-reforms days, employment bonding, especially in the public sector, worked on what was termed the ‘psychological contract’ or the ‘loyalty contract’ wherein long term employment was co-terminus with employee loyalty. This in today’s world has been seriously undermined, spurred not in the least by a spurt in job opportunities. The old values of loyalty have eroded and greater demand for talent has changed the playing field for the search and retention of personnel. This is the new reality that the Reserve Bank of India, among others, has to contend with.
 
Operationally, while all central banks broadly engage in varied facets of public policy, each central bank has challenges peculiar to its circumstance. Different central banks face different economic environment, have different sizes and different work cultures. But everywhere central banks face the dilemma and dynamics of mapping the specifics of their outputs. The issues that come up in this regard relate to: (i) Gauging good public policy; (ii) Measuring performance in terms of Good/Bad public policy; (iii) Working out a set of internal metrics of measuring performances in respect of framing such public policy; (iv) Setting out and achieving targets within pre-set deadlines wherever possible; and (v) Revisiting and taking stock of the progress made in this regard on periodic basis.

Methodology

With a view to better understand and analyze the entire gamut of related factors and optimize on the range of views available as also situate these views in the broader context, the team has preferred a consultative approach to the task at hand. Towards this, besides studying the relevant internal policy documents prepared and practiced at RBI over the years at RBI, interface sessions were organized with some key departmental heads within the RBI and select former RBI officials. The team also had Focus Group Discussions with some RBI officials for the purpose.

A Diagnostic Approach

The key manpower issues that the current study mainly involves are: (i) Talent Attraction; (ii) Talent Retention; and (iii) Employee Attrition. Following the methodology mentioned above, the Paper has been divided into the following 4 sections:

• Internal Perspective

o Studying the attrition trends at RBI over the past 3-5 years

o Interviews and Focus Group Discussions with HR leaders

o Interviews with key departmental heads

Section 2:

o Inputs from key ex-RBI employees

o Talent Management at RBI

o Comparison of Talent Management practices with other Foreign Central Banks

o Comparison of Talent Management practices with other Commercial and Public Sector Banks

• Compensation Comparison with:

o Commercial and

o Public Sector Banks

This section lays down in brief the current role and responsibilities of RBI and looks at issues within RBI impacting attrition. Research focused on seeking answers to questions such as:

o What can be the possible people challenges in RBI?

o What is the Leadership perspective on the encountered challenges?

o What are the attrition trends at RBI over the past 3-5 years?

RBI: Current Roles

The Reserve Bank of India, established on April 01, 1935, is a large and complex organisation, when compared to most other central banks in the world. On a very broad basis, the present major focus areas of the Bank are: (i) Monetary Stability which involves conduct of monetary policy that promotes the achievement of sustainable long-term growth; (ii) Financial Stability which involves Regulation and Supervision to promote a safe, sound, competitive and accessible banking and financial system and stable financial markets; (iii) The integrity, efficiency, and accessibility of the Payment and Settlement Systems and Currency Management as a retail component of the payments system; (iv) Provision of Services such as banking and debt management to the Government, both Central and in States; and (v) Advising the government on economic issues and provide primary data related to Banking and Finance and Balance of Payments Statistics, amongst others. While the nuances of some of these roles that the Bank performs may undergo some changes, the broad thrust of this work content is unlikely to change in the near or medium-term.

Importantly, this multifaceted work content of the Bank also has wide segment-specific variations requiring vastly different competencies in terms of infrastructure and human resources. The organizational design of the Bank has accordingly been structured as a two-way interface between the environment and the internal capabilities and a resulting judgment on the direction the Bank from time to time chooses to chart, its positioning and the setting of goals at the Central Office level as well as for key departmental clusters and functional levels.

Some recent HR Initiatives taken by RBI

The onset of the overwhelming changes has indeed triggered an all-pervasive systemic, functional and technological change in our work life and is increasingly making us operate in radically new, continually shifting ways. The Indian central bank has been alive to the nuances of this fast-evolving external environment and the criticality and urgency of putting in place a complex of measures that seek to address some of the emerging trends and concerns.

While RBI, being an equal opportunity employer, has some limitations  in terms of not really having the flexibility of picking up bright young professionals from the campuses of leading educational institutions like many other organizations, it has been making efforts to put in place an appropriate mix of manpower resources by managing the existing stock through various policies for engaging people on the one hand and, on the other, embellishing this stock management approach with flow strategies like the Summer Placement Scheme, Lateral and Contract

Appointments in IT-related work-areas and, most recently, inter-institutional exchange of human resources.

Over the years, the Bank's regular recruitment policies have led to induction of various batches of Direct Recruit Officers representing a blend of graduates and post-graduates in different fields of study that has not only reflected the eclectic and professionally focused character of inductees but has also brought with it a varied assortment of competencies into the organization.

The Bank has also tried to make use of the Induction Programmes and other related training initiatives as vehicles that facilitate systemic and sustained enhancement to organizational culture and form a critical part of its strategy for managing talent in the institution. While this regular flow of young recruits in the last few years has given RBI extra comfort in terms of engaging them in technology and other innovations, it has also thrown up the challenge to afford them enough demanding opportunities to engage themselves productively.

i RBI has put in place a short-term secondment scheme with select foreign central banks for exchange of personnel.

ii In collaboration with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), RBI has set up an India Training Program facility, called IMF-ITP, in Pune, India where personnel from RBI, federal governments across India as also central banks and government authorities in countries in South Asia and East Africa take part in focused, high-end training programs.

iii The Bank has also from time to time designed incentive schemes for self-development including scholarships to acquire higher qualifications, web-based e-learning modules covering different critical work-areas customised exclusively for its employees, facility to pursue one’s own research, sabbatical scheme, deputation to other institutions, participation in national and international-level conferences and seminars and as well as reimbursement of fees for pursuing select categories of part-time & distant education courses.

Emerging Challenges

Interface & Focus Group Discussions with serving RBI personnel :

To understand the strengths of RBI as an institution, its key strengths and some areas of improvement which can help RBI become a more attractive employer brand, some of the senior leaders from the HR function were interviewed as part of this project and Focus Group Discussions were done with select other employees.

While these efforts of the Bank primarily deal with a core concern of the organization to balance optimally the quality of life on the work as well as personal front of its human resources in the context of working out productivity enhancing strategies, in today’s emerging context, these at times get misconstrued, especially by young recruits, as slow and laid back attitude of a conservative and largely risk averse institution. Fine-tuning its policies and measures with shifting trends and dynamics of the business world therefore throws up a huge challenge for RBI particularly in the context of its search for and retention of talent. Strengthening the RBI brand value as an employer and creating and communicating the right ambience and attributes for it warrants an ever-evolving openness on the part of the central bank to review and revisit its broad HR practices and polices from time to time.

The most obvious issue that bedevils a central bank like RBI is that of compensation. How does it attract new talent and match the salaries and the compensation offered by private sector and multinational employers? Compounding these problems seems to be the fact that the middle and junior management levels in the industry, where the relative attrition has been the highest, have seen the maximum wage hikes in the recent past.

Significantly, while as pointed out above, RBI is not in a position to offer compensation packages that are as attractive as other private sector banks/firms and in today's context money can always be matched and topped by competitors, a serious attempt perhaps needs to be made to understand and highlight an important dimension of the dilemma: the pay packet may not be the only compensation that attracts talent. This is especially so as the monetary, social and psychological needs of talent today are in a melting pot.

It is therefore crucial for RBI to effectively communicate to its prospective employees that the Bank indeed offers quite an attractive overall compensation package when the entire set of perks and benefits that its personnel are eligible for. Some of these components that need to be particularly showcased are: (i) Good Housing Facilities; (ii) Liberal Medical Facilities; (iii) Superannuation benefits notably Pension; (iv) Leave and Travel facilities; (iv) Furnishing/Communication/ Telephone, etc. as also other Perks.

While most employees are notionally aware of their likely career progression path in the organization, there are no formal career paths defined. While the younger officers of the Bank are particularly keen to see role enhancement, promotions, etc. based on performance, it is difficult at this stage to cater to such aspirations as the Bank has a mix of personnel whose aspirations may at times be contradictory and currently there is no systematic and formal succession and career planning paradigm that the organization has drawn up and chosen to pursue.

The organizational structure and the average age profiles at present suggest the possibility of acute stagnation at RBI in the near/medium term. For example, there are 89 Chief General Manager-rank officers at RBI today, the number of Executive Director positions, which is the immediate superior rank, are only 7. Similarly, down the line, the Bank now has 230-odd General Managers and given that the average age of General Managers and Chief General Managers is almost the same, there is virtually little scope of vertical movement at these two levels. This concern is equally, if not more acutely, valid for employees at the lower levels as well.

The pyramidical organizational structure at RBI in any case lends itself to a possible stagnated situation as the relatively large workforce at the entry level vying for very few positions at the top leads to bottle necks and resultant frustration amongst a large section of the officers. This inter alia impacts and heightens disengagement possibilities for the younger recruits prompting them at times to switch jobs.

While most of the Performance Management System frameworks are in place, there is an emergent feeling that the final ratings awarded at RBI do not often do enough justice to differentiate employees on the basis of performance.

The 'performance appraisal system' embodies the major difficulties with the traditional approaches. Such performance appraisal systems suggest tightly controlled, formal procedures that often limit the scope of discussion for officers and managers with their superiors. Some of the difficulties with the traditional performance appraisal systems at RBI are that most of their performance indicators are non-quantifiable, and if at all they are measurable, then the rating scales and quantifiable measures do not always reflect the true value of an employee. It has been found that most people managers tend to give high scores. The consequence is that the actual high and low performers are not differentiated and this inability to differentiate the good from the average turns out to be a huge de-motivating factor for good performers.

A career with the central bank in a country like India is in fact a commitment: a commitment to serve the nation through an institution whose policies and services make a difference to the entire financial world and touch the lives of millions. Also RBI affords an opportunity to work on a wide canvas of operations and its multi-disciplinary nature of work content ensures that the personnel are continuously facing new challenges and getting to interact with some of the best minds in the government and financial institutions and have substantial opportunities for personal and professional advancement.

As pointed out earlier in this Paper, it is imperative that this gets clearly communicated to the young talent in the job market. Till RBI gets effectively and clearly identified as an employer brand, attracting young talent may remain an increasing concern. This is in fact critical as effective recruiting is often the beginning of effective retention. Matching between tasks and talents is a challenging problem and it is essential for allocational efficiency that people get allocated to right occupations. Refashioning the recruitment process may well therefore be the precursor of an effective talent management strategy.

This may include identification of key positions and turnover risks associated with these positions, and competency/behavioural-based selection criteria that support the retention strategy and business drivers. Only a carefully designed and integrated set of initiatives that allow the employee to align himself with the organisational goals and objectives, map competencies for diverse work areas, build up capacities through a well-crafted and sustained strategy and draw out latent possibilities optimally would ensure emergence of leadership talent that is critical to any organisation’s prosperity and is therefore a central element of talent management.

The aim ought to be to align the current and future talents of individuals with the strategic challenges of our business. So while employees need to understand how to be more effective in their current roles, deliver specific business challenges, and pull together a personal development plan for shaping future careers, RBI as an employer too has to strategize how best to utilize the people’s talents and identify areas for internal development necessary for ensuring future success.

Research for the Present Study:

Figure 1

Some perceptions that have been hugely effecting this drop can be attributed to:

• Not so attractive compensation

• Perceived lack of a challenging work environment and a public sector mindset

• Not much clarity about likely role profile

• Long drawn selection process

• Uncertainty about potential work location

Having regard to the rapid strides in the development in the financial sector, the emerging challenges for the Bank and the concomitant need to equip its employees with upgraded skills on an on-going basis, RBI has continually sought to expand the scope of its capacity building efforts, both at institutions in India and abroad,  so as to encompass a larger variety of professional skills and knowledge which are of relevance to the Bank’s functions and which would also enable the employees to enrich their knowledge and skill base. The Bank has very soft and generous training budgets that allow foreign and domestic trainings for its officers on a regular basis and are considered to be a huge motivator for employees at RBI.

Attrition Trends at RBI

o Department of Banking Supervision

o Department of Banking Operations and Development

o Internal Debt Management Department

o Monetary Policy Department

o Department of External Investment & Operations

Some of the organizations which people have left RBI for:

o ABN Amro Bank

o HSBC

o Bank of America

o Centurion Bank of Punjab

o Tata Capital

o National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited

o Development Credit Bank

Interviews with key Departmental Heads in RBI:

Some of the departmental heads at RBI Central Office who were interviewed as part of this project felt that the major reasons for attrition revolved mainly around low compensation, disparity of levels amongst same-time entrants, fewer opportunities at the top, not-so-good employer brand, inefficient performance assessment system and lack of recognition.

Most of these resource heads were of the view that there is immense scope for HR initiatives at RBI especially in the context of building a great employer brand and progressing from performing a transactional role to a more developmental role in the life of the organization.

Some valuable suggestions offered by these business heads are shown in Figure 3 below

Figure 3

The general observation in this regard was that there needs to be a healthy mix of experience and youth, implementation of new age ideas, blending seniority and performance particularly while identifying candidates for higher positions, a sense of stability along with thought agility, heritage and vibrancy instilled in the culture of RBI.

Section II- External Perspective

Views of former RBI employees

For getting a sort of inside-outside perspective, some former RBI employees were interviewed.

They were unanimously of the view that RBI provides a robust and strong foundation and trains young minds to gain expertise especially in supervision-related areas. The central bank also provides a regulatory focus and hence the most sought after resources for other organizations particularly commercial banks are employees from RBI departments like Department of Banking Supervision and Department of Banking Operations and Development.

o Proactively identify HIPOs (High Potentials) and work towards retaining them

o Put in place systems and processes for performance evaluation

o Reward performers and provide opportunities for growth

Benchmarking with Talent Management Frameworks

To situate the present exercise in the broader context of emerging organizational Talent Management Frameworks, defined as a continuous cycle of Sourcing, Aligning, Rewarding and Developing Talent, this Paper has also sought to benchmark some of RBI's key extant HR practices against comparative external indicators. Towards this, some of the organizations whose indicators were taken note of include 2 other central banks in Asia. Of these, whereas Bank Negara Malaysia shared their relative details which have been cited accordingly in this Paper, the other central bank whose data have been made use of requested anonymity and has therefore just been mentioned here as Central Bank No. 2.

To help measure RBI's maturity status in terms of the various Talent Management Processes and also compare them with other 2 foreign Central Banks and Public Sector and Private Banks in India, a section of a Talent Management Survey questionnaire used recently for another Talent Management Survey across sub-sectors has also been utilized in the present study. For this, an audit interview was carried out where questions relating to each of the 10 talent management processes were put to the senior HR functionaries and based on their responses assessments were made regarding respective maturity levels of the organizations concerned.

1. Recruitment and Hiring Orientation

i Manpower Planning - Development of strategies to forecast requirement of manpower based on business needs and match the supply to availability of jobs in the organization.

ii Role Definition – Description of tasks and competencies required for each unique job in the organization

iii Recruitment Process – Process of finding the right person for the right job, using a formal staffing strategy and established process for hiring.

iv Employer Branding – Building and strengthening the image of an organization to its existing and potential employees as a Best Employer

i Performance Management System - Giving direction to employee efforts by setting on expectations and sharing feedback their performance, guiding development by providing opportunities to learn, contribute and grow

ii Rewards - Sharing rewards, including monetary incentives like performance linked pay, with the employees to promote a performance driven culture

iii Recognition – Non monetary forms of recognition for employees for their effort and contribution to the company

iv Training Needs Assessment – Assessment of who needs training and what kind of training is required to boost performance of employees and address their learning and development goals

v Training Delivery Process – Delivery of Training like developing objectives for training, allocation of a training budget and formalize a training calendar and communication of the same

vi Succession Planning – The process of identifying critical positions within the organization, building a potential pipeline of employees suited for these positions and grooming them to fill these positions in future.

Scale used for Process Maturity Assessment:

Stage I - Process is nascent; most processes ad-hoc or absent

Stage II - Process is developing; standalone processes existing

Stage III - Process is capable; processes developed and functional

Stage IV – Process is mature; fully functional integrated systems

This process audit questionnaire has been used to gauge:

Overall Maturity of Talent Management Processes at RBI

The processes found lowest in terms of maturity were the Performance Management System implementation, Rewards & Recognition, Training Needs Assessment and Succession Planning.

Benchmarking Talent Management Practices with other 2 foreign Central Banks

In addition to understanding what are their current attrition trends, people challenges and some of their key focus areas to combat them, the process maturity of the various Talent Management practices were looked at on the same grid that was used for RBI. Some of the key human resource-related indicators of these institutions are given hereunder. The possibilities that RBI may look at in terms of these indicators and initiatives are also listed out later.

Bank Negara Malaysia

o Lack of Career Opportunities & no formal process for Career Development

o Dissatisfaction from the Performance Management System

o Lack of Recognition

o Attracting Talent

o Leadership Development

o Retention of high performers

o Change Management initiatives

o Fixed pay is perceived to be lower than the marketo

o Benefits offered by the bank are considered to be one of the best

Retention of high performers is also the key concern for Bank Negara Malaysia and they usually lose talent to other Investment Banks.

The other Central Bank studied for the present benchmarking exercise is fairly mature on most of the Talent Management practices. It is considered to be a highly prestigious institution and an employer with best people practices.

Some of the successful people management initiatives undertaken by Central Bank 2 are:

Talent Management Process Maturity at Public Sector Banks in India

As mentioned earlier in this paper, a separate study covering 9 Public Sector Banks and 4 Private Banks in India had been taken up on Talent Management policies and practices in these organizations.

Talent Management Process Maturity at Private Sector & Foreign Banks in India

As for private sector banks in India, on an average, private banks have a score of 2.5 on 5 across various stages of talent management. This is the highest for any sector in the survey. The most developed processes in Private Banks were found to be Training Delivery, Flexible including Lateral Recruitment policies, Performance Management System and Rewards. Most Private Sector banks had fully IT enabled Performance Management Systems, with defined timelines for goal setting, appraisal and feedback. Among these, many multinational banks had training programs for managers to conduct appraisals and feedback. Most banks had very good training facilities with well defined training budgets and calendar. All the multinational banks were found using Variable Pay aggressively to motivate and retain high performers. Some of these people development initiatives have been quite successful and have made possible for the employers to be perceived as good Employer Brands in the industry.

As mentioned earlier in this Paper, the present study, particularly the Talent Management Process Maturity observed at select foreign central banks as well as some public, private sector and foreign banks in India as part of this, bring out certain possibilities which RBI may need to consider and work on in the near/medium-term. These are :

• Putting in place well-defined processes for Training Needs Identification, Training Delivery, Managing post-Training Utilization and Effectiveness and overall Knowledge Management in the institution;

• Identifying and using these and other tools to make RBI be perceived as a great place to work, learn and grow in;

• Work out focused placement strategies for identifying and deploying personnel in key work-areas keeping in view their skill-sets/feedback so that the Bank can have a reasonably large pool of human resources with well-developed expertise and experience in such important work-areas;

• This has to be coupled with well-thought out job rotation system to build breadth and afford the personnel a wider view and better appreciation of organizational-wide issues;

• Career development and planning for individual officers in the institution needs to be clearly defined and thoughtfully designed keeping in view the employees’ aspirations and interests, performance level and potential, and the organization’s requirements;

• Take a re-look at and re-work the Bank's (i) Recruitment Policies building in more flexible including Lateral Recruitment policies at least in select work-areas like the Research departments and the Technical areas, keeping in view the extant legal and other related administrative provisions; (ii) Performance Management System, making the Performance Management System fully IT enabled if possible, with defined timelines for goal setting, appraisal and feedback; (iv) Compensation Package including possibilities of introducing Variable Pay; and (v) Recognition and Rewards System ;

• Put in place technology initiatives touching various segments in the Bank’s operations with a view to not only enable efficiencies in transactions but also a complete re-look at the way the Bank has been managing its personnel. The need now is to utilize the potential of various software initiatives introduced in the Bank, especially the Human Resource Management System (HRMS) package, to serve Management Information System (MIS) needs of the Bank as a tool of talent management for helping to draw out from its staff their very best through better placements, training and succession planning. Typically, this will help the Bank in finding suitable people by role and competency, compare people by current role or for that matter identify suitable candidates for a vacancy;

• The focus of RBI's human resource management policies needs to be on facilitating a transition to a learning environment that lays stress on developing functional, inter-personal and leadership skills, creativity and communication capabilities as well as the ability to work effectively in a cross-cultural work environment and with cross-functional teams;

• There is an increasing realisation that it is not functional skills alone or intellectual capacity that matters, but leadership qualities, the ability to straddle different functional areas, businesses, and cultures, that decide the agenda and the pace of execution and delivery in a modern organization. This has to be supplemented by effective and regular mentoring by such leaders that would help unblock communication channels across the organization and enable individuals to constantly learn and upgrade their skills as also obtain guidance in their personal and professional growth;

• As this Paper has brought out before while the traditional psychological contract of long term employment for loyalty may have been undermined, strictly quantitative solutions may also not necessarily be the answer. Today, the ‘loyalty contract’ is being replaced by a complex mix. Given the obvious constraints that the central bank in a country like India in terms of the latitude that the organization realistically has on designing a very liberal pay structure, there are a host of non-monetary benefits that the Bank may think of and offer ranging from job content, work exposure, project challenge, working at the cutting edge, working with a charismatic leader, dynamic work environment, early leadership roles, visible or high-profile assignments, cross-functional roles, training facilities, opportunities for personal growth, opportunities to build a resume in a particular work area, community bonding, location benefits or for that matter independence and space amongst others; and

• Talent management is today a broad mandate. More than ever before, organizations need to be prepared to be collaborative, supportive, and nurturing of their people while at the same time being more exacting. Standing as central banks like RBI do at the cusp of major role shifts and organizational transformations, every successful talent management strategy would have to be the right mix of a set of ‘push’ – motivation, recognition, career progression, capacity building and drawing out plans - and ‘pull’ – more tangible factors like higher pay, better benefits and heftier perks - factors. Misalignment of mutual expectations, person-job mismatch, perception of poor career advancement prospects and work-life imbalance can be huge setbacks which the central bank can ill afford.