Mumbai: Indian industry’s scorching growth rates, especially in some of the new, emerging sectors, has resulted in businesses increasingly attracting talent from government establishments.
Companies in the steel, oil and gas, telecom, banking, insurance and aviation sectors, in particular, have hired extensively from government-run organizations.
People like Anish Arya, who is one of many public sector employees who have jumped ship. “I joined the State Bank of Patiala in 2003 and, about three years later, I left to join a private company,” he says. Though his stint at the bank taught him a lot—he worked in retail banking for two years and then spent a year in the forex and treasury departments—he knew that there was a limit to how far he could go over a period of time.
“The growth in the public sector is slow. That is the main reason for dissatisfaction,” he says.
It didn’t help matters that in the three years that he was with the bank, he also saw many of his seniors leave. “Attrition levels are quite high,” he says. “And now people don’t mind leaving the security of a government job to join the private sector because they get a better deal there.” Arya is now a financial application consultant for banking at a large global information technology company that he didn’t want identified.
Like Arya, S. Thangapandian, head, marketing, Essar Oil Ltd, started his career with a public sector company, Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd, where he worked for 12 years before shifting out.
“While the private sector has a performance-oriented reward system, the progression in the public sector is based on other factors, such as seniority,” he says, adding that the private sector also gives a lot more elbow room.
Thangapandian is one of the many executives that the Essar Group has hired from government organizations, mostly for its steel, oil, energy and construction businesses.
Adil Malia, group president, human resources at Essar Group, says there are some key advantages in hiring from public establishments.
“The government is a training ground for some of the best people,” he says. “They are involved in processes where the decision making takes into account the interests of every stakeholder. So, they are good at taking a holistic view.”
In some of these sectors, Malia says, the expertise lies in government employees because the sectors were handled mostly by the government. “If you want to hit the ground running, you have few options but to hire from public sector enterprises,” he adds.
The banking sector, for instance, has grown rapidly over the past few years. Currently, India has 88 scheduled commercial banks, 28 public sector banks, 29 private banks and 31 foreign banks. They have a combined network of more than 53,000 branches and 17,000 ATMs.
According to a report by Icra Ltd, the rating agency, the public sector banks hold more than 75% of total assets of the banking industry. Private and foreign banks hold more than 18% and 6%, respectively.