StanChart GBS to move all of its 16,000 employees in Chennai to a new integrated campus by 2025
Neeraj Sinha, Chennai site lead and Head- Global Finance Services, Standard Chartered GBS India, at an interaction with businessline, in Chennai
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BIJOY GHOSH
Standard Chartered Global Business Services India (StanChart GBS), a part of the UK’s Standard Chartered group, will move all of its 16,000 employees from four locations, including Haddows Road, in Chennai to a new integrated 7.40 lakh sq ft facility at the DLF Downtown by 2025.
This means the sprawling 4.4 acre No. 1 Haddows Road property where StanChart GBS has been functioning for the last 23 years will be up for sale.
By 2025, StanChart GBS India is all set to consolidate its existing offices in Chennai into one future-centric workspace, Neeraj Sinha, Chennai site lead and Head- Global Finance Services, Standard Chartered GBS India, told businessline. He did not give the investment in the new campus, which will become the largest office of StanChart across the globe.
Seating ratio
The new campus will have around 7,000 seats. At present, it is a 100 per cent hybrid working model but employees need to come 2-3 days a week. This gives the seating ratio of around 50 per cent, he said. The hybrid model is here to stay, he added.
It will have a people-centric design focused on hybrid work patterns that would further enhance employee wellness, engagement and productivity with sustainable measures, he said.
StanChart started the GBS in Chennai in 2000 with a team of 700 to now 16,000 in the city and another 11,000 in Bengaluru . The bank was then one of the first multinationals to set up a Global Capability Centre (GCC) in India. At present, the GCC market is pegged at around $36 billion with a total of 1,430 and is estimated to cross 2,000 by 2025.
The Haddows Road premises are owned by the bank, and will eventually go out in the market, he said.
Sinha said the Chennai centre is the bank’s backbone for operations while the centre in Bengaluru is the technology hub. Globally, GBS has a total of 36,000 employees of which nearly 26,000 are in India, and the rest in Poland, Malaysia and China. Globally, StanChart has a staff strength of 95,000, he said.
‘Cornerstone of technology’
Of the 26,000, nearly 60 per cent of them would be in technology; 30 per cent in operations and the rest in functions like finance and HR. The HR or finance team in India manages the bank’s entire functions. The GBS in India will add nearly 2,000 employees a year while the attrition level was at 12-13 per cent, he said.
The GBS is at the cornerstone of technology and innovation that drives the bank’s operations across 53 markets and servicing clients across 64 markets. The Chennai centre covers the full suite of business and functional operations, he added.
The largest bucket for the GBS is technology followed by operations, finance and HR. The centre has core skills under the SCNXT – the innovation hub. The hub does a lot of front-ending for idea generation and also builds technology for the bank’s operations, he said.