b TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Training enables the employees to explore their potential; development polishes that talent and skill, as well as it seeks the opportunities to use their expertise professionally. HBL exercise many kind of training and development programs for the employees. There are three staff training centres of Habib Bank in Pakistan located at Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. These centres are called Management Development Institutes (MDI). Every MDI has a faculty of staff with the principal as its head. The teaching staff are called directing officers. The principal is always a person of the level of Vice-President, with sound knowledge of all aspects of banking. The directing officers are well versed in their fields of specialty.

The various training programmes available at Habib Bank Management Development Institutes.

 Basic Banking Training.

 Training Course In International Banking.

 Short Courses Offered.

Basic banking training

This is the most important training programme available, with a duration of six months. This training is imparted to the newly recruited officers in Grade III & II.

Apart from them the newly promoted officers from clerical cadre also get this basic training.

In this programme the entire operations of domestic banking are explained to the trainees, in detail. The various subjects/courses taught in this program are, (1) Deposits (2) Advances (3) clearing (4) Bills (5) Remittances (6) General administration and staff matters (7) Business communication (8) Accounting

The main theme of this training course is that about 30 trainee officers are selected for a class. All the above mentioned subjects are not taught at a time but are taught one after another. For a week or two a subject is taught theoretically in the class room and then all the trainee officers are sent to various branches of the bank where they get a practical touch of all those taught in class-room. And the same method is repeated for all the subjects. At the return of trainees from branches, they are put to test by taking their examination. Question papers are mostly objective type, having one hour time duration to solve. All the papers carry a maximum of 100 marks.

Marking of the papers is done not by a single person but every directing staff is responsible to mark his own section of the paper, which is normally having 25 marks. This is done to keep the examination system transparent. Then the marks of papers are totalled and result declared. Answer sheets are handed-over to the trainees to look into the mistakes they have made and they are allowed to raise objections if they do not agree with the marking of their papers.

Those students who get failed in three subjects are sent back to their places of posting and are not considered fit for training. If they are fresh recruits they are sent back home during their probation period.

Pass percentage in examination is 60%. Those trainees who secure 70% or above marks are awarded one grade increment. Trainees getting first and second position in the group are awarded three and two grade increments respectively. At the end of six months training there is a passing out ceremony; and then all the trainees report back to their zonal offices for further placement in various offices and branches.

Training course in international banking

This is a three months training course in foreign exchange and International Banking. The first five trainees from various groups of basic training are selected for this course. In this programme only the dynamics of international banking and international trade are touched upon. The main topics of this course are (1) Imports (2) Exports (3) Inward remittances (4) Outward remittances (5) Foreign currency deposits.

These trainees after getting theoretical knowledge of the subject for a week or two are sent to foreign exchange dealing branches to get practical training of whatever they have learnt in the institute.

After completion of the said course trainees are posted in various foreign exchange dealing branches.

Short courses

Apart from the above, various short and refresher courses on various topics/subjects are arranged by MDIs throughout the year. Their time duration varies from three to 15 days. These course can be

- Short/refresher course on advances for officers dealing in advances.

- Short/refresher course in foreign exchange for the personnel working in foreign exchange department.

- Short/refresher course on audit, for internal auditors of the bank, in which various ways and means are taught to the auditors, how to carry out a successful audit of a branch.

- Short/refresher course for managers of branches to refresh their memories about the modus-operandi of how to better manage a branch.

- Short/refresher course for staff-officers and admin. officers, on how to manage human resources of the bank in a better way.

- Short/refresher course on business communication and presentation skills.

- Seminars on various new developments in banking industry, like new currency exchange rate system.

- Seminars on the introduction and process-flow of various new products of Habib Bank like Carore-Pati Deposit Certificates, Muhafiz traveller cheques, Visa Cards,ATM etc.

- Seminars on customer service, and complaint handling.

- Seminar on cash management.

These short-courses and seminars are held by Management Development Institutes in a continuous manner, and officers from various branches/offices are constantly coming to and going form MDIs.

Besides this the MDIs arrange training courses for clerical and non-clerical staff in which various functions of the clerical and non-clerical staff are taught; how to deal bank's customers in a better way. The non-clerical staff are trained how to give

courteous service to staff members and customers and how to take care of security of branch premises.

Apart from MDIs, zonal and regional offices also arrange short training courses at local levels, on various topics/subjects, according to the needs and requirements of the zone and region concerned.