Shariah Training: Addressing Gaps for Employees’ Development in Islamic Banks

Abstract

There is evidence to suggest that not all employees who work within the Islamic banking system are fully convinced of its objectives and underlying philosophy. A good number of them have conventional banking background with little operational knowledge of Islamic banking. At the same time, acute differences between employees’ theoretical and practical understanding highlight a dire need of training to which we call Shariah training. This lack of training results in employees’ poor attitude towards Islamic banking. Such ambivalent attitude in employees is primarily caused due to lack of understanding Islamic rules, regulations and standard operating procedures (SOPs) and the way they should be conducted contrary to conventional banks. A thorough yet brief conceptualization to highlight the need of Shariah training and its organization wide role is given in this study. The study also draws attention to understand the impact ofShariah training in establishing employees’ efficacy, attitude and banking practices.For this, the role of Shariah training is bifurcated under four distinct yet interrelated categories i.e. Shariah compliance role, awareness creating role, product development role and process development role. This development will enable Islamic banks to better understand their employees’ need (from training perspective) by clearly differentiating it with conventional banks. Furthermore, the use of Shariah training will improve employees’ attitude and perception towards Islamic banking by bridging the gap between employees’ theoretical and practical knowledge of Islamic banking.