Case: Indian Overseas Bank: Triggering Change Client: Yogaish Chand Jain Summary: In July 2013, Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) changed it’s four-tire structure and introduced a fifth tier, the National Banking General Management office. Essentially, an additional later was added between the regional office and central office. That same year, Yogaish Chand Jain was named national banking general manager (North). Jain was responsible for ten northern regions and eight states, including Delhi (537 branches and almost 5,000 employees). Problem: Across the workforce, there was an “experience gap”. There were two distinct generations: experienced “older” employees who were nearing retirement and newer employees with a drastically lower tenure. The new employees brought an academic sophistication to IOB, but lacked the overall experience that the older generation employees had. Additionally, the younger group failed to jump in and make hard decisions and were slow to learn. The older employees were growing apathetic towards clients and lacked overall client focus. Overall, motivation was lacking among both sets of employees. Theorize/Analyze 1. Organizational Alignment Model – Rock, Chapter 4 a. 10 components that need to be in alignment: Objectives, processes, people, change leadership. i. Jain made sure his message aligned with his objectives by clearly articulating the campaign strategy and the goals associated with the new campaign. ii. Jain had a clear process in place for his campaign, as well as measuring the success of the campaign and ensuring regional managers were champions of the change. 2. ASPIRE Model – Rock, Chapter 5 a. Assess the as-is, set goals, plan programs, implement initiatives, recognize results, evaluate effectiveness i. Jain was able to clearly assess the current state and quickly identify the problem between his employee base and their clear needs. He was also creative in motivating and driving change through the use of a campaign that created friendly competition. During the campaign he clearly identified the goals and recognized results through a weekly recognition system. 3. Barrier #3 – Black, Chapter 7 a. Value of Champions- Jain valued the older workforce through having them help with train and work with the younger workforce, as well as leveraging regional managers as the champions of the campaign changes. This was his way of showing the value of the older generation. Jain failed to identify champions in the Delhi region as proven by the campaign results and feedback provided after the campaign. b. Launch Sites- Jain did not provide additional material for people to leverage during training. He relied solely on the older workforce’s knowledge
c. Charting Progress- There were regular updates given related to progress during the campaign. Jain also recognized the top employee of the week. d. Communication Plan- Jain shared an initial email roll out of the campaign, what the purpose was, and what it was measuring against. Jain did not regularly communicate with the entire 5,000 population with progress updates. Recommend •
Barrier #3, Black Chapter 7 - Jain did not select the right champions to support the change in Delhi. There were sensitivities within the capital that required a different approach.
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ASPIRE (Control), Rock Chapter 4 - Measurement is another area of opportunity for the sustainability of the change. If Jain measured closely, he would have recognized the lack of engagement within Delhi and could have changed his approach midway through the campaign, versus waiting for the campaign to end to recognize that the campaign was ineffective in that region. Additionally, Jain had good controls in place to motivate employee behavior around the friendly competition (ie: bonus structures for points, incentives, weekly winner), but what was not address is how this would translate into the long term culture of IBO.
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ASPIRE (Rewards), Rock Chapter 4 - In thinking about the sustainability of change, Jain should ensure there is a rewards and recognition set up that aligns to the behavior he wants to see within each region. Going a step further, he should ensure there is regular accountability of these metrics/behaviors and tie it into a rewards based compensation structure.
