Axis Bank plans to increase headcount by 10% in FY17

Axis Bank, India’s third-largest private sector lender, has decided to step up hiring. After going slow on hiring for two years, the lender would increase its headcount in the next financial year by 10 per cent, said Rajesh K Dahiya, group executive (human resources), Axis Bank.

The bank had increased its headcount to 42,420 in March 2014 from 21,640 in the corresponding month in 2010. The number of employees, though, fell in 2014-15, despite the bank increasing the number of branches from 2,402 to 2,589. By March 2015, the headcount dropped to 42,230. However, the employee base rose to 47,876 by December 2015.

In the last financial year, the management had said the drop in manpower was due to the fact that more and more transactions were happening on the digital medium, reducing the number of employees needed at branches.

Dahiya believes despite the shift to the digital medium, advancement of the physical footprint was still required. “While we keep on talking about the digital footprint, the physical footprint will have to increase a lot. There is a huge vacant space that needs to be filled up. We will be offering more branches next year. We’re also having a different approach to delivering to our customers. So some of our formats, like Burgundy (a service specially for high net worth individuals) will expand,” he added.

Apart from this, employees will be added in the digital and analytical teams as well. In the coming year, the lender will also be focusing on hiring more from the semi-urban space. As a result, graduate students would be in focus.

Axis Bank is not the only private sector lender that has stepped up hiring. HDFC Bank hired 8,333 employees in the first three quarters of this financial year, which is 11 per cent of its total workforce.

Experts say private sector banks have started focusing on hiring to manage competition, which is likely to come with the small finance banks and payments banks beginning operations later this year or early next year.

Axis Bank