GrameenPhone (GP) is the largest cell-phone operator in Bangladesh. GP was given the cellular license in 28th November 1996 by the ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. Later in March 26th 1997, they offered their service in Dhaka city and gradually covered the entire country. GP, in collaboration with Grameen Bank, is aiming to place one phone in each village to contribute significantly to the economic uplift of those villages. GP's basic strategy is coverage of both urban and rural areas. In contrast to the "island" strategy followed by some companies, which involves connecting isolated islands of urban coverage through transmission links, GP builds continuous coverage, cell after cell. While the intensity of coverage may vary from area to area depending on market conditions, the basic strategy of cell-to-cell coverage is applied throughout GP's network. GP employ's a large number of employees who are young, dedicated and energetic. GP knows that the talents and energy of its employees are critical to its operation and treats them accordingly.
Human resource strategy:
The number of total staff is more than 1500. The company wants to increase training for its support staff to increase the ability to fix a problem on the first service call and to reduce the period of time consumers have to wait for technical help. GrameenPhone Ltd wants to recruit top talents in every department of the company.
Human Resource Planning (HRP)
3.1 Human Resource Planning:
Human Resource planning is the process of getting the right number of qualified and competent people into the tight job at the right time. Putting another way, HR planning is the system of matching the supply of people internally and externally with the openings the company expects to have over a given time frame. The quality of the candidate and his/her expertise are deciding factor how GrameenPhone will succeed in achieving its visions, objectives and tasks.
Human Resource planning in GrameenPhone must be a part of the Company's overall plan. When drawing up Human resource plans, it is important to take the following factors into consideration:
Potential/expected workload and expertise requirements and to ensure the optimum and effective utilization of the Human resources for the entire Company, both for current and future requirements.
Possibilities for greater efficiency through reorganization and the use of tools/facilities, and making adjustments during expansion and contraction.
Employee turnover/employee mobility
Potential transfer, promotion, periods of leave etc and design and implement plans to help achieve manpower objective.
Human Resource planning should start at the beginning of the year so that HR can co-ordinate Human Resource planning process at the right time. Also necessary budget provisions are important factor to look into.
3.2 Classification of Employees
Regular Employment: Career with GrameenPhone starts with a regular employment; which is permanent in nature.
Contractual Employment: This type of job is project-based in nature. Working hour remaining same as regular employment, the contract is made for a certain period of time, with a fixed salary paid at the end of the day/month. The employment ends when the contract expires.
Part-time Employment: Students are encouraged to apply for this type of job. Working hours are adjusted to match their class schedule and company need. This job also ends upon the completion of contract.
Internship: Upon the completion of graduation courses, students are assigned internship projects in their area of concentration. Under the supervision of a regular employee, they work for the company for three months to generate a report on the project findings and recommendation.
Industrial Attachment: Students from Engineering/Technical institutes spend some time in the company to get real life exposure related to their theoretical knowledge. During this tenure, technical experts in our company guide them accordingly that helps to enhance their knowledge.
3.3 Job Description:
Recruitment process ideally begins with the analysis of job description and person specification for that job. A job description and analysis of person specification provide the foundation for stipulating the job title and salary scale of the position. Person specification defines the education, training, experience, and competencies required by the job holder. The person specification is vital, because the key part of the person specification, established at the beginning, is used in structured selection interview.
Job description is the basis of GrameenPhone's recruitment, selection and placement, training, performance appraisal, salary administration, promotion and other personal actions for its employees.
Job description is prepared by respective Head of the Department and a copy of it is sent to HR. in case there is any change in the duties and responsibilities, then job description must be revised. A copy of the latest job description is kept in employee's personal file.
The appointing authority and the line manager shall ensure that each employee has an appropriate and updated job description stating clearly the context, purpose, organogram, duties and responsibilities of the employees and person specification.
A copy of the job description is provided to the employee when he/she is appointed, promoted, newly assigned or when deemed necessary.
Chapter 4: Recruitment & Recruitment Policies
4.1 Recruitment sources:
An effective recruitment always starts with the correct selection of sources of human resources. A recruited employee who has not the right skill can not perform effectively. As a result the overall performance level is sure to deteriorate which has significant effect on the Company performance. Therefore, GrameenPhone has been on continuous search of effective recruitment sources.
Internal sources: It is GrameenPhone's policy to give preference to appoint internal candidates provided that the employee is suitably qualified for the vacant or new position and also meets the existing and future requirements. Appointments may be made by the way of promotion, upgradation, secondment or transfer with the approval of the authority. No one is allowed to apply for appointment during probationary period. Promoting internal employees on the basis of succession planning may also be looked into. "As a usual procedure, job vacancies in GrameenPhone will be advertised through internal notices to the concerned offices.
External sources: Whenever job vacancies are required to be circulated outside, the main objective will be to attract a pool of candidates to apply from which qualified candidates for job vacancies can be chosen. Here are a number of external sources that will be used by the company:
Newspaper advertisement: Vacancy announced will be circulated by publishing advertisement in the national newspapers. The newspapers that are widely circulated will be chosen for publishing advertisement, one in English and one in Bangla.
Request to other organizations: In some cases, if deemed necessary, GrameenPhone may request other organizations to circulate job vacancy among their employees. Job vacancy advertisement may be posted in their notice board as well.
Employee referrals: Employees of the Company may refer prospective job seekers to HR Department. There are professional or technical jobs which are frequently harder to fill. Employees with hard-to-find job skills may know others who may meet the desired job requirements and do the same work. In such case, employee referral method may be useful.
Walk-ins and Write-ins: Often Job seekers arrive at HR department in search of a job. They are walk-in people. Write-ins are those who send their curriculum resume for suitable position. Both groups may be asked to fill up an application blank. Their relevant information may be kept in active database file for any suitable position in future. Based on their suitability, they may be called for interview against any vacant position.
Website: Modern information technology such as websitehttp://www.grameenphone.com also is utilized for advertising job vacancy of certain senior positions.
Other: Depending on circumstances, other professional/employment agencies, educational institutes, technical institutes and journals may be chosen to give wider coverage of job openings.
The role of HR personnel is very important in dealing with external job seekers because the outsider individuals draw an impression about the company on the manner their candidature has been dealt with. HR department should greet the candidates in a pleasant manner, provide with pertinent information about job openings, and treat them with dignity and respect. If so, the applicants are expected to develop a listing positive impression about the company.
4.2 General recruitment policies:
GrameenPhone is committed to recruit suitably qualified and experienced
Bangladesh citizens for vacant positions by way of:
Implementing effective and appropriate recruiting, screening and selection procedures,
Identifying and implementing standard selection procedures that are relevant to education, skills, training, experience and knowledge necessary for successful job performance,
Conforming the hiring procedures to country's law and in line with the Company's requirements and financial situation.
From manpower requisition/publishing advertisement step to placement step, a total of 29 working days will be required.
Individuals between the age of 18-57 years can be hired as regular employee of GrameenPhone.
Under no circumstances a regular or contract employee of any other organization is allowed to undertake regular, long-term or short-term contract employment in GrameenPhone.
All appointments in GrameenPhone shall conform to its existing position with Grade and Salary level.
In the spirit of internationalism, GrameenPhone may recruit senior employee from abroad in case suitable national employee could not be hired, upon approved by Board of Directors.
The employment status can be changed from regular to contract or vice versa depending on the situation arising from Company need or a situation that arises on the ground of performance.
The GrameenPhone internal applicant will be entitled to normal perdiem and travel expenses, according to the Company policy, for the interview held in other than his/her place of posting.
HR and the concerned line manager will maintain absolute confidently of the implementation of any part of the recruitment process. No query will be responded or no information will be provided regarding the status of any recruitment until the entire process is complete.
It is an important role on the part of HR to evaluate the effectiveness of recruitment methods, short-listing criteria, testing tools being used etc. an evaluation is useful to validate hiring steps and subsequently adopt better selection procedures for the Company.
Chapter 5: Selection
5.1 Selection:
Selection process includes series of specific steps used to decide who should be hired. Selection process begins when recruitment ends subject to sufficient number of applicants obtained who are willing and able to do hold the job. The purpose of the selection interview is to collect information about a candidate and assess how far he/she can perform in the job.
Selection process involves screening and appraising the applicants in a systematic manner. Those who are found not suitable for the jobs are excluded from selection tests. During selection process, GrameenPhone focuses on performance-related issues whether the applicant fulfils the job requirements and can do the job. The Company uses a multiple cutoff technique including series of screening devices.
Short listing of candidates
Short listing is done on the basis of appraising information on the application form in the light of job specifications of a job being advertised. How far a candidate meets the job criteria will critically be reviewed. The short listing method should be qualitative one where managerial judgment plays an important role.
Short listing depends on the nature of job. Before short listing of candidates for tests, job criteria are set by HR and line manager. There are general and technical job criteria that a candidate has to meet for consideration of next step of selection. HR determines general criteria while line manager determines technical criteria. Although both the type of criteria is important, however, it is the nature of job that determines which type of criteria should give more weightage than other.
Short listing will be done by evaluating the following:
Educational qualification: whether the candidate has the required education qualification
Relevant job experience and required skills: how far candidate's most recent job experiences and skills match the job requirements of the position in question.
The candidate may have irrelevant job experiences and skills that will not be considered during short listing.
The following situations may provide some guideline during short listing:
Situation
Short listing decision
Highly relevant job experience and meets all or most job criteria and length of past job experience fully or fairly satisfactory
Should be considered
Moderately relevant job experience and meets most or fairly moderate level of job criteria and length of past job experience is fully or fairly satisfactory
May be considered subject to the number of candidates based on above are not up to the desired number
Irrelevant job experience, meets little job criteria and length of past job experience is fairly satisfactory or unsatisfactory
Should be considered
GrameenPhone follows a standard set rule of short listing of candidates. For one position the number of candidates for written test should be more than 8. The number of candidate in the oral test should not be more than 4-5.
