The training and development function plays a further enhanced role and holds more importance, as it deals with knowledge workers and intelligent customers in the service industry. In the banking sector, the training and development function holds a key responsibility by helping employees to upgrade their performance on a continuous basis. This paper analyzes the status of various training and development practices in banking sector in India. Further it focuses on how the training needs are assessed, how much budget is allocated, what are the different methodologies used, how training is evaluated, etc., by these public sector banks. The study is limited to public sector banks in Hyderabad only.

Today's investment environment is complex, dynamic, and challenging. It's not superior infrastructure or technology or the deposits which keep it ahead of competition, but its ability to manage investments. The bank's ability to manage its investments requires knowledge of investment markets and instruments, as well as an understanding of the regulatory, accounting, financial, and economic forces that affect investment performance and how they all interrelate to each other. Having understood this to be a prerequisite, the greatest resource of any organization is the potential of its people. It is the basket of competencies that its employees possess, which differentiates one organization from the other, in fact, a successful one from all the rest in the race. Employees who are motivatednot simply instructedare a bank's true assets.

But the fact is that employees do not come ready-made, fitting to the organizational requirements. They have to be shaped and developed and tailored in terms of their skills, attitudes and behaviors in order to stay compatible with the organization's culture and goals, thus, contributing to its productivity and profitability. Precisely speaking, they have to be trained. Beginning from the policy of the organization, the basic rules of the job, to key concepts, to team performance, to catering to the rising customers' demands, training is a necessary tool without which viability, if not success, is impossible in this era of cutthroat competition.