HDFC Bank Suspends Senior Employee After Video Of Juniors Being Abused During Online Meeting Goes Viral

The video of a senior employee at HDFC Bank has gone viral, with netizens claiming that this reflected the "toxic" work culture of corporates, including the bank.

HDFC Bank has suspended a senior executive for abusing employees on a video call.

A senior executive of a West Bengal branch of HDFC Bank has been suspended for abusing his colleagues on a video call during an online meeting. A recording of the video has now gone viral. The suspended employee has been identified as Pushpal Roy, who was the cluster head at a Kolkata branch of the private bank. In the video, Roy can be seen screaming at his colleagues, seemingly his juniors, apparently as his personal score at the bank was getting affected.

He can be heard setting insurance sale targets for his team and threatening them with consequences if they failed to achieve them. The video of the meeting was widely shared and netizens slammed Roy and HDFC Bank for putting unrealistic pressure on Managers, who in turn take it out on juniors. Netizens also said that this was one of the reasons why executives missell insurance policies.

Twitter user Akshat Shrivastava said that it wouldn't be right to blame the manager alone. "Most sales teams are given difficult targets to achieve by the higher authorities. Sales agents/RMs are abused by customers, their bosses and their super-bosses. This target keeps getting more and more difficult by the year. If they wish to survive and feed their family: Sell, by hook or crook."

Replying to Shrivastava, an HDFC Bank employee, identifying himself as service manager Ajay said the employee concerned had been suspended. "...We at HDFC Bank have a zero-tolerance policy for any form of misconduct at the workplace and firmly believe in treating all our employees with dignity and respect," he said. He further said that a detailed investigation has been initiated, which will be undertaken as per the conduct guidelines of the bank.

 

Another Twitter user claimed that HDFC Bank is actually "one of the most toxic places to work". The user said that HDFC's certification from Great Places To Work, which claims to define a "great workplace" and certifies companies, was actually bought and demanded an investigation.

According to Roy's LinkedIn profile, Roy has been the vice-president of the Kolkata branch of HDFC Bank for nearly 16 years and has worked with PwC and ICICI Bank earlier.