The Evolution of the State Bank of Travancore as a Learning Organisation - The Role of the Trainer and Innovative Methods of Training

Banks have come to know that human resource is the most important asset, and have evolved many methods to tap the most intelligent youth through campus recruitment and with the help of professional head hunters. But, the real challenge is retaining them for a longer period in the organisation, and the stress would be experienced when the top strata would retire in a few years of time. They need a set of well-informed, skilled and dedicated work force to keep the business level high and also to boost the image of the banks. Here lies the importance of training the personnel to develop their career as well as change their attitudes. Training centres and trainers play a crucial role in this area. The present study envisages uncovering the efforts of the State Bank of Travancore, the premier bank of Kerala, to evolve itself as a learning organisation. It also explores the possibility of developing a conceptual model of a learning organisation, depicting various stages, identifying the characteristics of a learning organisation, the role of a trainer in building a learning organisation and the innovative training methods that can be adopted to improve the effectiveness of the training system.