Business on the road to recovery, lenders step on the hiring pedal

Anticipating business growth as the economy opens up fully, banks and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) have ramped up hiring plans with an increase of as high as 30-35% in recruitments from a year earlier, especially of those on the technology side of the business.

Private lender HDFC Bank, which aims to reach 200,000 villages in the next 24 months, has plans to hire more than 2,500 people in the next six months, while the Shriram Group is hiring 5,000 across its many companies.

ICICI Home Finance is looking to onboard 600 employees by December while Kotak Mahindra Bank, too, has resumed hiring closer to pre-Covid levels.

The Shriram Group is recruiting mainly in the south and north India, across tier 3-4 cities. Shriram City Union Finance is expanding its gold loan business, while Shriram Housing Finance is expanding primarily in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

"With normalisation returning, we are strengthening functions such as sales, credit, collections and support for supporting our growth plans across the group," Shriram City Union Finance managing director YS Chakravarti said. "We are acquiring talent across diversified portfolios such as home loans, APF (approved project finance) and cross-sell verticals. At Shriram Life Insurance, we are developing the distribution models that would help us expand our rural presence and tap the rural customer segments."

Financial institutions had brought hiring to a halt as they dealt with the aftermath of the first and second Covid wave. With businesses returning to normalcy and growth expected to pick up in the festive season, companies are adding to their full-time workforce to be ahead of the competition.

Also, with the increased emergence of technology, banks and non-bank lenders have ramped up hiring in the technology and fintech space.

"Even as hiring has resumed closer to pre-Covid levels, our focus has shifted towards hiring of new-age and digital talent with the necessary skillsets; these could be in the areas of digital, IT infrastructure and analytics," said Sukhjit Pasricha, group chief HR officer, Kotak Mahindra Bank.

ICICI Home Finance plans to conduct recruitment drives across its pan-India branch network in sales and credit, enabling the company to cater to the increasing demand in the affordable housing segment.

"We see growth opportunity in the affordable housing segment across 530-plus locations we are present in," said Anirudh Kamani, MD, ICICI Home Finance. "Our pan-India recruitment drive will aid our growth plans as we focus on hiring local talent for our branches."