Magnitude of Human Resource (HR) Challenges and Their Dependency on Select Demographic Diversity: Experiences from Commercial Banks in India

The present study is designed to explore the spectrum and variation of HR challenges in public and private sector banks in India through the self-perceived itemised scale. Further, the role of select demographic diversity on perceived HR challenges also has been assessed. The study follows the post-positivism worldview based on a self-structured questionnaire with 360 respondents of 2:1 ratio of the public and a private cadre of employees respectively. The survey followed the standard measures of 66 statements which is divided into two sections, namely seven demographic diversity indicators adapted from Elangovan, (2002); and Aldrin (2011) and 59 HR challenges have been traced from a comprehensive literature survey. The results of Exploratory Factor Analysis shows that eleven factors of HR challenges making a significant contribution explained 78.09% variance. Mann-Whitney U-Test concludes that managerial level; female; married employees; and employees with a rural background are the major concern with regard to different dimensions of HR challenges. While Kruskal Wallis (H)-Test using Chi-square statistics revealed that the age group of 56 years or more; employees who are just intermediate qualification; who possess work experience between 16-20 years; and employees with the highest level of income are more exposed to different dimensions of HR challenges. Public sector bank as compared to private sector bank are lacking in certain HR domain like salary & Rewards, employee welfare and career growth & opportunities of their employees.