Grocery shopping, grooming, karaoke, virtual desktops, cinema and dramatics will soon be a part of YES Bank employees’ breaks or after work hour sessions at its national operating centre in Chennai.

In a bid to make the workplace more informal, the mid-sized private sector lender has leased a four lakh square feet operating centre in Chennai and will offer employees, numbering about 500, the facilities mentioned. This centre will be operational in about eight to nine months. The bank added that it plans to increase the staff count at this centre to about 4,000 in 3-4 years.

The operating or processing centre will be a multi-purpose facility that can host project management workshops and stand-up meetings, among others. It will host a personality grooming facility and round-the-clock cafeteria aimed at increasing productivity.

Younger workforce

“Largely, our workspace is also getting younger. The average age is 31…As we grow, we have lot of younger workforce joining our bank as compared to other banks…We want to respond accordingly. The two aspects are having a workspace that is human-friendly and innovating,” said Deodutta Kurane, Group President, Human Capital Management, YES Bank.

The bank already has a processing centre in Gurgaon and Mumbai. “This is an addition to the two facilities, evolving from contemporary thoughts. We will look at expanding these facilities in other centres. Chennai was geographically more convenient and the city has a lot of skilled talent pipeline,” Kurane said.

The bank will also have YES Shoppe stores for the bank’s merchandise and household requirements, such as groceries. In addition, there will be virtual desktops that will allow employees to not stay dependent on a single piece of machinery for work needs. This will eliminate the need for physical workstations for each employee, with the entire database on the housed server.

“We are looking at creating facilities for productivity enhancement. We are creating more spaces to breakout. For instance, people can buy groceries, play music or groom themselves. It is kind of moving beyond the norm and giving some more conveniences… The ability to perform increases when the work environment is happy,” said Aseem Gandhi, Senior President, YES Accelerator, the incubator of such a facility.

Innovation lab

It will also house an innovation lab that will showcase the best-in-breed technology/digital solutions upcoming in the bank.

“We are also encouraging building of clubs pan-India for team bonding and activities that are not very tightly-controlled. The lighting, colour of cabins, seating arrangements, wall-video conferencing for meetings in the same office, etc, will be looked at. We want to create a centre with both a human touch and technology,” Gandhi added.

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