STAFF ACCOUNTABILITY

he word "Staff Accountability" (SA) sends chills downthe

spine in the officers in banking industry. Perhaps
nonein the world is so obsessed of this than Banks. A Doctor's
diagnosis may go wrong; a judgment may get reversed in higher
court; Accidents may happen. but banker cannot go wrong. A
banker is expected to be correct in every transaction, every
time. Even a machinewil! have a marginof error in-built. But,
not a banker!!

SA process is essentially a process to understand "why a

failure occurred", to plug in the loopholeand to improve upon
the systems and evolve systems and procedures to obviate
such failure. One of the elementsof SA is also to punishthe
erring official as a deterrent and to have demonstrativeeffect.
But punishinghas gained misplaced importance than anything
else. This has becomea tool to find out "who did" and trying
to find scapegoats, than "why it happened", without learning
from failure. SA becomesa fault finding process to terrorise
the officers. Perhaps staff accountability is the most heard
word in banks.

We have come across with umpteeninstances where the very

objectivity is sent to oblivion, ending up with listing out irrelevant,
elongated aberrations as lapses, constraining the banks to
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initiate disciplinary process and imposing punishment. For
example, whenan account goes bad, instead of identifying the
cause and reasons for that, the investigatingofficials try to
dig from the day one, even after multiple renewals, trying to
research with the only intent of finding faults and deficiencies.
Few IOS become detectives, go beyond brief, and stand in the
shoes of Disciplinary Authority

Perspective is the most often forgotten part of SA. For

example, while canvassing the business, the functionaries try
to look uponthe strengths of a proposalto garner business.
Whereas at the time of SA, the perspectiveof 10 is to find
out the weakness and loopholes! The themes are poles apart.
While Officers handling a proposal would not have had the
luxury of adequate time to process an advance, the investigating
officer(s) will have all the time in the world to find out
loopholes, sitting on the papers for weeks and weeks, leisurely.
IOS and everyone in the system try to apply "today knowledge"
to "Yesteryear incident".They forget that the officials handling
the transactions wouldnot have the benefit of hindsight and
might have taken a decision under live, obtaining circumstances,
unlike the 10 who is doingnothingbut a post-mortem.It is
not unusualthat the Investigating Officials becomepolicemen
and harass the functionaries! Another menace in banking industry
is out-sourcingof SA work to retired officers whoconduct
Accountability Study without being accountable for such studies!

Effective solutionto these issues can only be from us within

the system. Each of us has to think, apply our mindwhile
conductingStaff AccountabilityStudy. Every 10 shouldask
question to himself, "had I been in that position, wouldthis

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have not happened?"Most of the issues will get resolved with
this one question. Next importantaspect wouldbe segregating
the aberrations (which do not attribute to incident) and lapses
(which are the possible causes for the incident). Staff
Accountability should revolve around the lapses and not the
aberrations! This wouldbring downthe numberof allegations,
charges and even the punishment.

We should not forget that accountability study is not an

academicstudy. It has huge ramification. It may put life of
many into jeopardy. The external agencies like CBI, Police
pick up their input from internal proceedings. A casual approach
to Staff Accountability may not only be reputationalrisk to
the Banks, but the lives and career of manyofficers and their
family suffer.

Banking industry is nothing but a pressure cooker. Mother of

of staff is at its peak. Bankingis a
all problems,inadequacy
peculiar industry where business doubles, staff halves!!
Engineeredfrauds are the order of the day. Technologyhas
becomea tool to perpetrate fraud. In such circumstances, we
must be empathetic towards functionaries who shoulder the
responsibilities of business building. Else, they lose confidence
in functioning. Banking suffers. So also the society! For these
reasons, Staff Accountability should be very objective.

We must rememberthat - "If we try to cut a handfor each

mistake, there will be no hand to work". Better we save the
hands!!

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