Arguing that the Aug 6 letter to the ministry was not sent by employee associations but was an anonymous email, Sebi said the external elements had got junior officers to believe that they were underpaid and should get automatic promotions. The statement came in response to an ET report that quoted the complaint as saying “shouting, scolding and public humiliation have become the norm” at Sebi.
The complaint was sent by around 500 officers to govt. “It is unfortunate that some elements have attempted to diminish the significant capabilities of Sebi employees by instigating employees to believe that, as ’employees of a regulator’ they should not be required to have such high standards of performance and accountability,” Sebi said in a rare five-page statement.
Sebi’s clarification, however, is silent on the “toxicity” complaints that the officers said was at the core of their grievance.
Relating to the officers’ claims about unprofessional work culture, as mentioned in the letter to the Finmin, Sebi said such claims were misplaced. These could be because of instances such as ‘under-pitching of processing capability of officers by as low as (a fourth) of (their) actual capacity, mis-reporting of status of achievement of KRAs, shuttling of files between departments over a long period to avoid taking decisions, ‘adjusting’ appraisal marks of poorly performing officers to ‘somehow’ make them eligible for promotion etc, Sebi clarified. “In such instances, the officers concerned have been held accountable, given firm feedback, and corrective actions taken,” it said.
The clarification titled ‘HRA issues of staff misguided by external elements to target credibility of Sebi and its leadership?’ followed a day of hectic activity at the Sebi headquarters. A demonstration by the officers that was planned for Sept 5, has now been cancelled.
The statement said that there were demands from employees to increase the HRA by 55% over the allowance fixed last year. It also said that Sebi officers who “are already well paid” with the remuneration comparing “extremely favourably even with the corporate sector” would push up their annual CTC by Rs 6 lakh, or by around 17.6%, if the additional demands were met.
Sebi said that most of its employees had agreed with the new systems that are being put in place. These systems include finalising KRAs (key result/responsibility areas) at the start of the year, monthly MIS (management information system) reviews, annual performance review of each team by whole time members and the chairperson, promotion policy etc.
Adoption of technology to improve productivity across the organization was also one of the new initiatives within Sebi that employees have ’embraced’, the regulator said.