GMG Airlines Limited started its journey in April 1998, with a vision to provide “first class all the way” service to its valued customers. In July, 2009 GMG group joined with the BEXIMCO group with a vision to become the major airline company in Bangladesh by 2011. So many business strategies have also changed after joining with BEXIMCO. The business has expanded in many ways and also man power has been increased to fulfill the organizations goals and objectives. Here HR plays an important role since, employees ultimately brings profits for the organization by their skills, abilities and knowledge and HR brings the employees, motivate them, train them to become more efficient and so on.
In this report, my topic is HR policies at GMG airlines limited ie, what type of activities are carry out at HR and how they are being carried out and why. First I have discussed the selection process of employees. There are some stages in the selection process and all types of candidates or all departments does not have to go in the same process, like some has to face preliminary interview, or written test and some only gives the interview and starts their training. It basically depends on the type of post, because the job of Pilot is different than the job of an executive and the work of cabin crew is different from a security officer.
Then I have discussed about the recruitment strategies, which GMG follows. They basically do both internal and external recruitment. Initially, when there is vacancy or there is a need for recruitment, then we first look for candidates from internally, who can perform the task if there is any then, we promote him/ her and recruit another one to replace that place, like from assistant manager to manager. But if we see that, no internal employee are there to fulfill the job requirement then we go for external recruitment straightly. I have also discussed what sorts of methods to use for both external and internal, the source, how we communicate in the advertisement and so on.
Origin Of The Report
The report was assigned to me as a requirement of the project program, a prerequisite for the completion of the BBA Program at BRAC University. The proposed topic of this project report is ―Human Resource policies at GMG Airlines Limited.”
The objectives of this report are:
- To study the organizational aspects of GMG Airlines Limited.
- To assess in-depth task the HR department carry’s out at GMG Airlines Limited
- To find out how employee are motivated to do their job .
- What type of training are given to whom and why.
- How employees are recruited and selected at GMG etc.
- To find the problems and give recommendations by analysis and observations.
With these objectives the report also acknowledges the importance for HR policies, recruitment, selection procedures, staffing etc in GMG Airlines Limited to remain ahead of domestic airline in today’s competitive airline industry.
Methodology
To prepare this intern report on HR policies I have collected information from both the primary and secondary data sources
Primary Data
Most part of the report is basically covered by primary data since HR policies are not disclosed in their web site so from my own practical job experience in last three month I have prepared the report and also some information are collected from my supervisors i.e., HR manager and some colleagues.
Secondary Data
Secondary data sources where the internet and some articles of GMG airlines.
GMG Airlines, Bangladesh’s premier international airline started its journey in April 1998 with a vision to provide ―First Class All the Way‖ services to its valued guests. Inspired by Nobel Laureate poet Guru Rabindranath Tagore’s metaphorical ―Golden Deer‖ or Shonar Horin is not only GMG’s symbol but signifies their unquenchable thirst to strive to achieve the unachievable by offering traditional Bangladeshi warmth & hospitality coupled with
world class reliability, efficiency and safety standards.
In the 19th century Bengal’s Nobel Laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore in his famous song ―Amar Sonar Horin Chai ‖ spoke of a Golden Deer that he had set his heart to. The deer was illusive, quick and her vivacious pace was impossible to cope with. While many have thought of Rabindranath’s quest for the ―Golden Deer‖ as a symbolism of his desire to strive for the freedom of India from its Colonial masters, the GMG Group, in the highly regulated environment of the 1990s, took this inspiration to symbolize the freedom of the sky’s of Bangladesh. Since its maiden flight in April of 1998, GMG Airlines has tenaciously paved the way for the development of the private airline sector in Bangladesh spearheading a sea of regulatory change since its birth. Today the private airlines of Bangladesh have achieved true freedom of the skies due to GMG’s vision & the tenacity to overcome impossible odds and all of us at GMG strive to offer our guests a truly memorable experience of traditional Bangladeshi hospitality.
In July 2009 the GMG Group, a well known Bangladeshi business conglomerate involved mainly in the manufacturing sector in Bangladesh for over fifty years, joined hands with the BEXIMCO group, Bangladesh’s noted largest industrial conglomerate with a vision to be THE major airline of Bangladesh by 2011 on the basis of the unbeatable combination of GMG’s experience & BEXIMCO’s financial strength and, most important of all, a shared
vision for excellence. At present there are about 1200 employees working for GMG including contractual and outstation employees GMG has recently been awarded traffic rights to most of the South-East Asian region, the
Indian Subcontinent, the Middle East & even to United Kingdom. We look forward to
serving you over our fast growing network along with our promise of ―First Class all the Way‖ hospitality, at all levels.
GMG Airlines is turning over a new leaf to deliver international standard service. That means on the dot time management, state of the art aircraft and service that we would want ourselves. Imagination with hopes, with dreams of something better, something greater, something more grand than grand itself we have redesigned our organizational structure and our management to bring our offerings on par with the leading standards of aviation.
GMG’s new face, new logo epitomizes all that they aim to instill into the new corporate philosophy of GMG airlines. The edge of imagination, backed up by a steely vision, ardent professionalism, and the relentless drive for perfection is where we want our corporate culture placed today. At GMG they urge you to embark with them and to explore new
destination where your imagination takes anyone.
Our New Managerial Team, whom we have put together, epitomizes decades of international experience in the aviation industry. A business is in essence its people. And a winning business must thereby have a winning team. Our goal is to excite and at the same time to provide comfort. We have redesigned our services and restructured our management to bring our offerings on par with the leading standards of aviation.
Fleet Information Of GMG
GMG Airlines, the largest private commercial carrier in Bangladesh has been successfully operating for the last twelve years since 1998. At GMG, we are turning over a new leaf to deliver international service. Serving 8 international destinations along with all the domestic routes available, it is the largest private airline of Bangladesh. In our quest to be a major player in the global market, we are going through an ambitious expansion scheme by
establishing new flights in the Middle East, Far East & Europe.
GMG Airlines currently operates a fleet of Boeing 767-300ER, MD 80 (82, 83) and Bombardier Dash 8 aircrafts. To accommodate the increasing demand of air transportation in Bangladesh, GMG is expanding its fleet & routes rapidly.
Alongside getting a completely new makeover, GMG Airlines has acquired the newest asset for its arsenal, the Boeing 767-300ER with a seating capacity of 264 passengers. This aircraft also boasts a business class with fully reclining seats for maximum comfort whereas the economy class seats will also provide more leg room and comfort in comparison to the narrow bodied aircrafts used previously. While our passengers take delight on embarking on journeys to new destinations with this B767-300ER, we are busy inducting more wide-bodied state of the art aircrafts for ensuring the very best for them.
The MD 80 (82, 83) has served GMG’s foray into the field of international flights ever since getting permission from civil aviation authority of Bangladesh to operate globally. The MD 82 and MD 83 has a seating capacity of 153 & 150 respectively.
The Bombardier Dash 8, previously known as the de Havilland Canada Dash 8, has a seating capacity between 37 to 50 passengers depending on the variant and is a globally renowned ideal aircraft for short haul flights. GMG operates the Dash 8s from Dhaka to destinations such as Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar, Jessore, Sylhet & Kolkata (India).
Some Basic Standards At GMG Airlines Ltd
There are some standards and expectations that help develop conducive work environment at GMG Airlines, which includes keeping of personnel records, dress code, Business Days and attendance, public holidays, smoke free environment, salary slip, Care of equipments and supplies and Confidentiality of company’s information. Each dimension is briefly described below.
Personnel Records- It is important that the personnel records of the employees are accurate. In order to ensure issue free benefit eligibility HR department request the associates to promptly notify to HR department about any change in name, home address, telephone number, marital status, number of dependants or any other pertinent information that tends to change from time to time.
Dress Code- The management of the company experts its associates to present a clean and professional appearance in line with the company dress code. All traffic officers, customer service officer, sales employee who face the customer face to face, Pilot and Cabin crew have to wear specific uniform on duty and GMG provides this uniform free of cost during their joining and all other employee who are working at the back office (Head Office) doesnot have any specific uniform but all male has to wear formal shirt pant with tie and all females are allowed to wear sarees or selwar kamiz. Western or casual dress is not allowed, except during hartal.
Business Days and Attendance- The work schedule spans over five working days in a week from Sunday to Thursday where as Friday and Saturdays are off days being the officially declared weekend, The office hours starts from 10:00AM to 6:00 PM. These time and days are appropriate for the head office employees but for Airport service, such as Cabin Crew Pilots security officers etc do their duty based on their roasters so that flight operations can run smoothly.
Public Holidays- Apart from weekend on Fridays and Saturdays all public holidays are observed at GMG Airlines limited. Smoke free Environment- The environment inside the office no employee is allowed to smoke. If they want to do that they can do it by going outside with a little break.
Salary slip- In the first week of month GMG pays their salary into the salary account in the bank and the slip is given to each employee to know the exact amount.
Care of equipments and supplies- Associates will be responsible for the safety of companies’ properties including Office premises, equipments, gadgets, PC’s laptop accessories and all items that are instrumental in ensuring fulfillment of the official obligation. The company have the right, to deduct the money from the salary of employee of any one destroy something intentionally.
Code of Ethical conduct- The Associates are bound to adapt any attitude at work place that is based upon courtesy care, grace, respect, kindness, politeness and tolerance. Any act repugnant to the corporate norms of good conduct and morality shall be viewed very seriously and disciplinary action shall be taken against those who are involved in such act.
Confidentiality of company’s information- In every company, there are some confidential information which the employees cannot spread outside, even there are also information which one department employee cannot share to other department employee and these are strictly followed and if any kind of information is leaked then investigation is done and disciplinary action or may be even termination occurs against the individual.
HR Policies
The main part of the report starts from here, the overall HR policies at GMG Airlines Limited. First of all I have discussed about the stages of selection process and here I explained how different kinds of employees are selected. Then I have discussed about the recruitment strategies that is what sorts of strategies they take to fulfill a job vacancy. Then one of the most important part comes, and that is Motivational Factors. Here I have explained what sorts of benefits are given beside salaries to the employees to keep them motivated and stay in the organization. I have also discussed about the training procedure of GMG Airlines Ltd including the training content. Then I have discussed about staffing and performance appraisal ie, how employees are evaluated for their salary increment, promotion etc. These are the most important segment of HR policies and I have explained those in detail, beside these there are some other policies like HR budget, salary structure etc of all level employees and these are confidential so I was not allowed to disclose those policies in my report.
Stages of selection process at GMG Airlines Ltd.
1. Initial screening
At the first stage we collect the CVs of candidates and then do the initial screening and information provided on the CV are compared with the job description and specification to check whether the candidate is suitable for the specific job or not and the purpose of this initial screening is to eliminate the application forms which do not fulfill the asked
requirement or have fake information. Here we focus on the ―red flag‖ areas- that is whether the application form that has incomplete information, gaps in employment history, several job moves, short period of employment, regression in job title, obscure colleges and universities attended, questionable certificate, poor presentation of resume and also check whether the candidate has conveyed a positive image or not, evidence of contribution has given or not logical presentation carefully written or not, or whether it is generalized or specific. We try to
HR Policies ignore some information so that we don’t select candidates based on biasness; such as race, sex, religion, spouse children information, physical defects etc but it depends on the post for example, cabin crew must have a minimum age requirement and also should not have any physical defects , but for a normal executive for example Finance or in HR department, physical defects like marks in face or appearance can be ignored but not serious handicap candidates.
2. Preliminary Interview
In the second stage, they take a premiliraly interview to checks if the job applicant has accomplished either the Employee Information Sheet or Application Form. Using this as a basis, the interviewer then would ask the job applicant certain questions to check, clarify, or communicate information to the job applicant. Then, information about the company like its organizational goal and philosophies, people behind the organization, company history and products, environment for work, opportunities for growth with the organization are discussed. These interviews are not taken for all positions. These are mainly used for cabin crew and pilots because, for cabin crew standard height, weight and appearance is required and candidates often provides pictures of self which are graphically modified and doesn’t have that much similarity with the real appearance, so to check that we take a preliminary
interview. Moreover, this types of interviews are also taken for the pilots just to have an idea about the candidates since Pilots are paid high amount of salary so before the operation test informal interviews is taken.
3. Employment Testing (Written test/Flying Test/Computer Test)
In the third stage, Employment tests are taken for job applicants to evaluate the skills characteristics that cannot be measured using references, application forms, or interviews. Written test are conducted to find out the ability, knowledge and skills of individual related to the field where he/she is going to work but special emphasis is given in English and mathematics skills. The test to give job applicants should be those that work or is relevant to the position. Employment tests based on personal characteristics intended to be evaluated can be classified into: intelligence, aptitudes, interest, personality, and achievement or proficiency. It also includes work sample test. This written test is taken mainly for the engineering department employees, Computer Test is taken Catering, Sales and Reservation Department employees and Flying Test is for Pilots (both First Officer and Captain).
4. Main Interview- Type’s of Interview
a. Structured Interview – The structured interview ask for specific information. The questions give more emphasis on the habits and character traits of the person. Here the interview questions are arranged based on the education related and the job the candidates are going to do and a structured is maintained to every candidate.
b. Unstructured interview – In unstructured interview, the sequential or pattern of question vary from candidate to candidate. Everyone is not asked the same types of questions and the interviewer randomly ask question to the candidates whatever comes in their mind to test their commonsense , intelligence, conceptual and analytical ability and so on and are openended and require a narrative answer.
** Normally for most job vacancy GMG use a mixture of structured and un-structured interview. Because 100% of any one doesn’t reflect the full quality level of individual candidate.
c. Group Interview – This interview is conducted by panel or committee of three or five interviewers sitting as a panel. The manager of the department concerned is usually a member of the group of interviewer. It is used for the positions where, good leadership and interpersonal skills are required, so that they can recognize the most stress taking person but this process is very much time consuming, so they are follow in very rare cases.
d. Stress Interview- Here four to five interviewers are present and do conversation with only one candidate and here the interviewer ask questions in such a way that creates a stressful situation for the candidate, like two or more interviewer ask questions at the same time to check whether the candidate has the capacity to answer all the questions with full patient or not. These sorts of interviews are normally taken for the candidates who will directly face customers for giving direct or face to face service like customer service employees, cabin crew, and sales candidates. For other post they normally do not use this interview pattern.
5. Candidacy
It is also known as assessment test. This test includes in basket exercise, different types of management games, leaderless group discussion to test who has more leadership skill in a group. Case studies are also done here like different types of cases are given to the candidates to make proper judgment and solutions to check their analytical and conceptual ability. These tests are normally given for the managerial level. But, this test occurs very rarely- only twice in last ten years this test was taken
6. Verification
In this stage, GMG Airlines do reference check to verify the accuracy of the data furnished, to uncover any damaging information and GMG check over phone the relationship or of the referred person furnished in the CV and ask if all the information provided on the CV is correct or not by phone. We also sometime visit the candidates past organization or universities, if there is any doubt.
7. Final Selection
In this stage, GMG Airlines offers the candidates who have successfully passed all the above tests by telephone at the initial stage and then provide the appointment letter.
8. Physical examination and background investigation
GMG Airlines, perform medical examinations through a certified diagnostic center or hospital to check whether the candidate have any contagious diseases like Hepatitis B, Tuberculosis or HIV/AIDS and to determine whether the candidate has physical capabilities of performing the work or not. Drug and alcohol test is also done. These test are only taken now for pilots and cabin crews, because if they are not physically fit will not be able to perform their duty effectively. And for other department, these test are not performed at present but they are planning to introduce it for all employees of the organization. Because it is important to keep a record of candidates’ health for future insurance or compensation claims.
In this stage, background investigation is also done to check the criminal records and credit check and for that a police clearance certificate is required for the ground service employees, like the employees who are performing the duties at the airports which includes Pilots, cabin crews, customer services employees, securities officer, loader/ cleaner, also traffic officers and all employees in engineering department employees who work at Airport.
9. Job Offer
Finally the candidate who has passed all these stages successfully are given the final job offer and appointment letter is given to the candidate with joining date.
Some Policies of Probationary period:
- Every Associates will be on probation for a period of six month (except contractual employees) from the date of joining.
- During the probation period, employment may be closed by either side with or without any notice period.
- Associates are not entitles to take any leave during the probation period, if anyone fails to attend the office for any emergencies then it would be considered as leave without pay.
- Upon successful completion of the probation period, employees are notify in writing of the confirmation of employments by the approval of department head and HR.
- After confirmation, employment may be terminated without assigning any reason by giving one month’s salary and also the employee can leave with immediate effect by surrendering one month’s salary to the company.
- Unsatisfactory performance entitles extension of probation period and it is also mention in the appointment letter so that employee cannot blame for extending probation period.
Recruitment Strategies At GMG Airlines Ltd
Recruitment is the process of locating individual with sufficient qualification and number and encourages them to apply for jobs. The purpose of recruitment is to ensure a sufficient pool of applicants from which the most qualified individual may be selected. Two types of recruitment take place at GMG Airlines. Both the external and internal recruitment; based on the situation they take either from external or from internal employees for a specific post.
External Recruitment Process
The objective of external recruitment process is to identify and attract job applicants outside the organization. Based on the organizational and administrative issues, the external recruitment is done. In GMG, they use their in-house agency ie, they don’t recruit employees from other external agencies; rather they have their own HR department who do the selection and recruitment activities. In case of administrative issues, the company selects recruiter who has strong interpersonal skill, knowledge about the job and organization and the carrier development program and are enthusiasm about the organization and they are mainly the HR manager or Head of HR. If required GMG also provides short training to the recruiter (HR Manager) how to take proper interview, to improve interpersonal skill, inform laws and regulations of the company, knowledge about the job analysis, which includes job description and specification and how to select a candidate, more appropriately.
Some strategies of external recruitment at GMG Airlines.
Open / targeted recruitment- In Open recruitment, anyone can apply for a specific position and the very little requirement is mentioned in the job specification. And it is used when large numbers of applicants are required eg, for customer service officer, any qualified graduate can apply for them but they must have in them good skill for handling a customer. But there are some positions, where they used targeted recruitment where they mention clearly what sorts of candidates they are looking for like, years of experience, specific educational background, demographics in terms of gender, age, etc. And most of the time they prefer targeted recruitment because open recruitment is more costly and time consuming, since it takes more time to sorting out the right application form an here also highly qualified candidates are overlook or the highly qualified candidates are often discourage to apply for a job; so they use most of the time targeted recruitment like, when they give advertisement for cabin crew, they mention some factors like height, minimum education requirement, ie, HSC and so on.
Recruitment source- We recruit higher school graduate like HSC or A Levels pass candidates for Cabin crew, for loaders under SSC are taken by GMG but for peon minimum SSC pass is required. We mainly recruit from different colleges and universities in Bangladesh and also from abroad and also recruit from their competitors and from other
organizations like telecom sector, FMCG etc and mainly from other airline companies specially for Pilots and security employees because for these a bit experience is often required. They also often recruit from unsolicitated applicants, who physically walk into the organization and submit their resumes, without any advertisement. We also take interns and if their performance is up to the standard or above then we make them permanent employees but these intern students are taken only for engineering, marketing and information technology departments.
Recruitment method- We mainly do advertisements which we put in internet and news paper, with the job specification and description, so that the right candidates apply for the job. We also sometimes visit different universities to attract the qualified students to apply for GMG and also collect CV’s from those universities. We also recruit from interns because it is less costly and less time consuming than other methods, and it also becomes easy for both parties to make the proper decision. The candidate can understand whether he/she is suitable for the organization for the job or not and also the organization can understand the candidate’s skills, knowledge and abilities and whether he/ she is suitable for the post or not.
Communicating the message – GMG doesn’t use any traditional type of message where the advertisement gives vague information about the job and organizational environment. Like ―unlimited growth opportunities‖ etc. rather they prefer a mixture of realistic job preview which explains the level of hardworking is require with the targeted like person job matching message, where job descriptions are given in details with the job specification or requirements to apply for the position so that the candidate can understand whether the individual can fulfill the requirement of the job or not. Beside this two, some sorts of attractive message are also there, like the employment branding for example, executives, managers etc.
Internal Recruitment
The objective of internal recruitment process is to identify and attract applicants from among individuals already holding jobs with the organization. At GMG, they also hire employees for a position within the organization ie, promote an individual based on his or her performance and often shift from one department to other keeping the position same like a marketing executives to sales executives. These occurs in some situations like when a manager thinks that he or he is not suitable in the existing department and may be suitable for another department so then the manager offers the candidate and also it occurs when a candidate apply for working in different department like from customer service to cabin service. Then a interview is taken and if he or she is selected then the candidate is transferred. Promotions mainly depend on the performance and outcome of the candidates. When there is a vacancy
initially GMG thinks that is there any employee who is suitable for promotion or not and if they find out that anyone is not suitable then they go for external recruitment. Both close and open internal recruitment takes place at GMG depending on different situation. But at a time both are not used. For Close recruitment, the employees are not aware that the company is searching candidate for a specific position and for Open system, the candidates are aware
about this.
Organizational Issues:
In-house / External recruitment agenciesIn-house means that the selection and recruitment process are done by the HR department of the organization and the external recruitment agency means that the organization give the
responsibility to the third party for their recruitment and selection activities and for that a payment is given to them by depending on how many candidates they have taken from them. GMG till now follows in-house strategies for all employees but now they are planning to use third party agency only for hiring Pilots because, like other professionals such as accountant or simple graduate, experienced and expert Pilots are not so available. Since, they are trying to expand their business so more Pilots are required and only through other Pilot’s references, or from some CV’s its getting difficult to hire Pilots.
Individual/ co-operative recruitment alliancesIndividual recruitment alliances means when one company hire or take employees only for them and for the whole year and co-operative recruitment alliances means a group of
competitors share the employees and this is mainly used where seasonal goods are produced, like in summer employees will work for one company and in winter for other company. But airline company is not that type, so they follow individual recruitment alliances strategy ie, hire employees only for them.
Centralized/ De-centralized recruitment
The recruitment of external job applicants can be centralized or de-centralized by the organization. A centralized recruitment function is one for which recruitment activities are coordinated, by a central group ie, HR professionals. A de-centralized recruitment system is one where recruitment activities are coordinated by individual business units or individual managers. In most organizations a recruitment function is centralized. Though some interference like the job description and specification are given by other departments so that HR can hire, the right people for the right place and this strategies are also followed by GMG Airlines Limited.
Relationship between Job and Person based structure.
In job based structure, the organization pay salary to the employee based on the hierarchy level of the job or how much contribution the job is giving the organization for achieving its goals and objectives. Here they value compensable factor, pay increases through promotions; managers focused is to link employees is to work promotion and placement. And employee’s focus is to seek promotion and to earn more pay. Whereas skill based structures link pay to the depth or breadth of the skills, abilities and knowledge a person acquires that are relevant to the work through training or years of experience etc. Here they value skill blocks, manager’s focus is to use skills efficiently and employees focus is to seek skills. Structures based on skill pay individuals for all the skills for which they have been certified regardless of whether the work they are doing requires all or just a few of those particular skills. In
contrast, a job based plan pays employees for the job to which they are assigned and doesn’t give that much importance to the person’s KSAOs.
These are many ways to structure the pay system but practically no organization chooses only one structure to pay their employees by following the theories exactly written in the books and etc. GMG basically follows both of these in a mixed way depending on situation and job category. GMG in most cases initially when they recruit and select candidate for any post, they pay compensation and salary based on job structure. There is a range for each job such
as for fresher graduate in entry level positions (Executive) their salary range is between BDT 17000 to BDT 20000 and the candidates are given amount between these ranges then depending on performance salary increases in each year. But in special cases they pay salary on person based structure like some days before a guy came from a renowned university from Australia with good educational background and result and he had no experience and was just a fresh graduate so in that case GMG paid him initially BDT 25,000 which exceeded the range of job based structure. Staffing Staffing is the process of acquiring, deploying and retaining a workforce of sufficient quantity and quality to create positive impacts on the organization’s effectiveness. It is the mutual process by which the individual and the organization becomes match to form the employment relationship. The implication of the definition are organization and individual prospective, which includes organization emphasizes staffing as activities undertaken to
further the attainment of the organizational goals and individuals look for job that are rewarding and individuals are also effected by their experiences in the staffing process.
Staffing is a process that establishes and governs the flow of applicants into the organization and within the organization. Scope of staffing includes activities that form a relationship between employees and the organization.
GMG gives importance of staffing because staffing is a vital activity from three prospective, the organizational strategy, HR department and the individual manager. Staffing fulfills the organizational strategies in the way that it anticipates and fulfills the organizational work force needs in ways that contribute to achieving the missions and objectives. The HR department has a key leadership role in designing and managing staffing systems for the
involvement of managers at critical points and for ensuring compliances with laws and regulations. The individual manager will need sufficient numbers and types of employees for smooth and efficient operation to their work unit.
The job-person match is very important for the organization and also for the individual employee because, if a individual is not suitable for a specific job then the outcome will not be fruitful which will ultimately hamper the organization and also the individuals career. So GMG, is trying to recruit the right person for the right place, eg if a individual is introvert and always like to stay at office and have finance background, so in that case if GMG recruit that person for sales then it won’t be appropriate because for sales different characteristic is required like the person has to be very social to some extent extrovert and also has to visit lots of places. So if GMG recruit that individual for sales job, he or she would not be able to perform well and the organization will face problem. So person-job match is very important in staffing process.
Job-Person Match diagram
In the same way person-organization match is also very important. If a person is so much ambitious then they should join in such companies where the career growth is very high and it is also related with organization culture like some people says from Islamic religion point of view that banking business is not right according to the religion regarding interest rate or if a person does not like to smoke but apply for a tobacco company then it would be very difficult to adjust with the organizational culture. If a tobacco company recruits an individual for sale who hates smoking then he or she will face difficulty to convince the customer to smoke because it doesn’t go with the person’s ethics and characteristic. So in case of GMG the employees should have a interest in aviation industry since it is very different from other organizations and also must love traveling related benefits then, it would be easier to motivate the candidate for GMG Airlines.
The following shows Person-organization Match diagram
Motivational Factor
Internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested in and committed to a job, role, or subject, and to exert persistent effort in attaining a goal. Motivation is the energizer of behavior and mother of all action. It results from the interactions among conscious and unconscious factors such as the (1) intensity of desire or need, (2) incentive or reward value of the goal, and (3) expectations of the individual and of his or her significant others. So GMG try to motivate their employees because they believe employees ultimately help them to be in this position today through their productive and efficient work. So different kinds of monetory and non-monetory benefits are given to their employees to make them happy, being more committed and to bring success for the organization.
Transactional:
Cash compensation (basic pay)- Salary is mentioned in the appointed letter with all breakdown, like basic salary, house rent, allowances, conveyance based on the position and other things like grooming allowances are given to cabin crews only. Upon satisfactory completion of the probation period, a basic monthly salary is set which grows with a increment of 10% every year. Monthly salary is paid into bank account. Salaries are paid on first week of each month; other allowances are deducted such as Income Tax and Provident Fund.
Bonus
GMG also pay bonus in two festivals, Eid-Ul-Fitar and Eid-Ul-Azha.Both permanent and probationary employees get this bonus. Only the basic salary is paid to them. Foreign employees get this bonus in their festivals like in India they get it in puja but contractual employees are not entitled to get this festivals bonus.
Cost of living adjustment- GMG perform periodic adjustments, that is increase in everyone’s basic wages on the basis of changes in what other competitors are paying for the same work, change in overall cost of living such as due to inflation or changes in experience or skills, regardless of performance or when company takes new strategy. But, it does not happen regularly, on very rare situations, like when Beximco bought majority share of GMG Airlines Limited.
Long term incentive
At GMG long term incentive are given to the employees who perform very good continuously for 5-6 years. It is normally given to the mid and top level employees in terms of cash or gives option to buy GMG Shares at lower prices.
Benefits
Employee Benefits is defined as indirect and direct cash paid to an employee. Some benefits are mandated by law (such as social security, leave for emergency or compensation etc), others vary from firm to firm or industry to industry (such as health insurance, life insurance, medical plan, paid vacation, pension etc.) GMG often reviews their employee benefits to ensure that benefits are competitive and in line with their employees needs. Employee benefits include:
Paid Leave- When an employee successfully pass the probation period and becomes a permanent employee of GMG airlines, then they entitle to four kinds of leaves, like maternity leave for four month, sick leave for seven days, annual leave for fourteen days and casual leave for seven days. So in total they get twenty eight days paid leave, beside this if any employee wants to take more leave, like for marriage they can take that but that would be
considered as leave without pay. Usually they don’t need that because these twenty eight days are enough for an employee for recreation and for emergency purpose.
Free Tickets- After completion of probation period, when the employee becomes permanent, then they are entitle for free tickets and the tickets are given to the employee, parents, spouse, spouse’s parents and two unmarried children up to twenty one years old like, 100% eight free tickets, 75% eight free tickets are given to the above employees plus 50% unlimited tickets. These are applicable to all low and mid level employee and for top level employees, they get unlimited 100% free tickets these includes both international and domestic flights. For the
contractual foreigner employees, the policies are different based on negotiation and position.
Insurance- GMG provides life insurance now only for the pilots and cabin crews that is if any kind of accidents occurred, their family would get compensation for that.
Medical- A permanent employee also entitle to get medical benefits or allowances, if any accident occurs during his or her duty and for that a specific amount is allocated depending upon the position or rank of the employee, otherwise no allowances or facilities for medical checkup is given to the employees.
Retirement benefits
GMG provides a package of retirement benefits that brings an opportunity for an employee who would serve the company for twenty years of employment with GMG.
Provident Fund & Gratuity
The Staff Provident Fund Scheme is a voluntary contribution scheme. The employee will be entitled to join the scheme upon completion of the probation period. The employee will be entitled to benefit from the scheme after completion of ten years service & payment will be made upon resignation, termination, and retirement. This is only applicable for the Top Management employees.
Mobile Bill
A corporate SIM card is given to the employees and monthly flexi load is done by GMG; this is only applicable for the managerial and above employees at GMG and the amount of mobile bills depends on the rank and necessity of individual employees.
Relational Return (Psychological):
We know money is the most powerful tool to motivate employees. But beside these, other psychological matters also needed for the employees to be productive at their work which includes recognition and status, employment security, opportunity to learn through training and practical experiences of doing job to increase KSAO and challenging work. And GMG try to give these psychological supports to make them loyal and productive employee for the organization.
Training at GMG
The term training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. Every organization is required to improve the KSAs and core competencies of their human resources. This is to arm them with the needed characteristics in response to unprecedented changes and needs of the industry. In addition to the basic training required for a trade, occupation or profession, observers of the labor-market recognize today the need to continue training beyond initial qualifications: to maintain, upgrade and update skills throughout working life. People within many professions and occupations may refer to this sort of training as professional development. Some commentators use a similar term for workplace learning to improve performance: training and development. One can generally categorize such training as on-the-job or offthe-job:
- On-the-job training takes place in a normal working situation, using the actual tools, equipment, documents or materials that trainees will use when fully trained. On-thejob training has a general reputation as most effective for vocational work.
- Off-the-job training takes place away from normal work situations — implying that the employee does not count as a directly productive worker while such training takes place. Off-the-job training has the advantage that it allows people to get away from work and concentrate more thoroughly on the training itself. This type of training has proven more effective in inculcating concepts and ideas. Training differs from exercise in that people may dabble in exercise as an occasional activity for fun. Training has specific goals of improving one’s capability, capacity, and performance. GMG provides training mainly in four sectors, those are Cabin Crew, Call centre employees, Sales/ Reservation employees and Security employees and other employee learn the job by doing like, human resource employees, finance, and so on. In case of Pilots, GMG also provide them training but in a different way. According to rule, the Pilots have to renew their license after every six months and they are sent to Spain to renew their license by giving some test and attending some training seminars. And these are not controlled by HR department. HR only carry out the procedures and the rest are done in Spain and after coming back HR just receive the renewable license of individual Pilots.
Cabin services (Cabin Crew)
The Cabin crew selection mainly start from this training because after selection, they need to do, one month training (theoretical and practical) and if they pass, with a required marks, then they are selected for final employment as cabin crew. The training includes:
– Introduction to the Aviation Industry and about the company.
– The Cabin Crew Profession and about the aircraft.
– Crew Member Coordination and Communication skills.
– Customer Service which includes food serving, cleaning and helping passengers
– Safety and Emergency Procedures
– Medical Training
– Introduction to Dangerous Goods and Hazardous Materials
– Aviation Security
– Service Procedures
– Swimming
These trainings are given for one month to the selected candidates by professional instructors and the whole training process is controlled by the HR department.
Call Center
Here employees have to provide information over phone about GMG which includes flight schedules, tariff of tickets, details about packages and so on. And the theoretical training is conducted by HR department and the practical work ie, using software’s is handled by marketing department. Classroom lecture includes, how to develop communication skills, how to behave with customers over phone, provides details about GMG airlines and so on. These training is held for one week and controlled by HR and the use of software training is conducted by marketing department for three weeks and in the training period the payment is made on monthly basis. And after completion, of training period they start their real job.
Sales and reservation training
These training also conducted by HR department except the use of software. In the class room lecture the contents includes, provide knowledge about aviation industry, about GMG airlines, about the competitors, details about tariff rates and packages, how to make networks and sale the service, how to convince the customer including business clients, how to develop presentation and communications skills, how to make proper appearance to attract customers and so on. These theoretical training is held for one week by professional in structure and rest
practical training is conducted by sales department.
Performance Appraisal
A performance appraisal, employee appraisal or performance review is a method by which the job performance of an employee is evaluated (generally in terms of quality, quantity, cost, and time) typically by the corresponding manager or supervisor. An evaluation of how well an employee performs his or her job compared to a set of predetermined standards is a systematic review of a person’s work and achievements over a recent period, usually leading to plans for the future. It is the evaluation of an individual’s work performance in order to arrive at objective personnel decisions. At GMG once the employee has put in around one year of service, except probation period, performance appraisal is conducted by every department manager and the head of the department checks the appraisal of all candidates and sends it to the HR department. Based on these appraisal future promotions, incentives, increments in salary are decided. At GMG performance appraisal takes places once in every year. They follow behavior scale anchors system i.e., eight points is denoted which includes as follows:
– Work process (how much the candidate follows rules and regulation of the company).
– Attendance & Punctuality
– Work performance- quantity of work
– Work performance- quality of work
– Job attitude
– Team work and co-operation
– Communications skills (Oral & written)
– Motivational Level40
Out of the above points each has a distinct answer with point stated eg, Work process
Suppose out of these two points total mark is 18 and if an individual get 3, in work process and 7 in attendance and punctuality then the total mark is 10 out of 18. In this way, basically the total mark is calculated out of these eight points.
Problems & Recommendations
At GMG Airlines the main policies rules, regulation decisions are taken by the Top management. We Executives just have to note down the points and elaborate them for policies. We are not allowed to participate in the decision making session. Now a day’s big companies specially MNC’s encourage employee participation since they know much better about the employee and the overall environment and if they are involved they also try to implement that efficiently but at GMG it is not done if we do any kind of significant complain then they may be they consider it and try to solve it but they don’t allow middle level employee in any decision making process. So I think GMG should introduce it and this strategy will help to fill the gap between Top and Middle level employee and also lots of
ideas will be gathered from different employees and management will be able to understand the problems of the employees and make a good solutions. Still now GMG is not using high quality software at HR department like other companies. We just store all information through MS office applications and here is some possibilities to
loss of information so if GMG starts to use those kind of customized software then it will be easier to keep all records of each employees and the overall process would be efficient and faster.
Training is given only in four sectors which include cabin crews, call center employees, sales /reservation employees and security officers and other department employee learn the work by doing and for that reason initially these employees face a big problem to understand the job clearly and for that often do mistakes. So I think, these employees should be given at least two days orientations program which will explain the candidates overall job description like what to do how to do, the rules and regulations of the work and so on. It will make them mentally prepared to start the job and also will help them to understand the main theme clearly.
Turnover rate at GMG is very high especially for last four years. Less qualified workers are staying in the organization and productive and qualified workers are leaving for better opportunities and this is creating huge problem in the overall work process at GMG. I think, the motivational level of employees is not that high. Specially in middle level employees because I think, they are not motivated for low benefits. Tickets are given to them but for all
this is not an attractive benefit; so I think some other benefits should be given to the middle level employees and also salary structure should be increase to decrease the turnover rate and can become productive and stay in the organization by giving fruitful outcome. Right now, written test and physical examination are not done at GMG airlines excepts some few departments so I think GMG should introduced it as soon as possible so that right
employee can be taken because always it is not possible to judge an employee through interview. Sometimes written test like English, Analytical test, mathematics test is also required to judge a caliber of an individual. Medical test is also a very important factor specially HIV/ AIDS drug test, hepatitis B since these can be spread easily among people and drug addicted people also influence others to be addicted, which is against the social norms. So I think it should be introduced soon.
Conclusion
In Bangladeshi Airline industry GMG Airlines Limited is still in the top position and largest company within local companies for their quality of services, products, employees, customer relationships, and brand values. So I can conclude by saying that I have learned many things from my department and about my job in last four months and during this period I have got huge experience about the corporate culture, got idea or how people deal with co-workers how to solve different kinds of problems of employees, practically learned how to read other people’s psychology since this is a very important part of Human resource and so on. In this report I have mainly discussed about the HR policies of HR department at GMG Airlines, which includes selection process, recruitment strategies, training, performance appraisal, some standards at GMG etc. Many people said that the real life is very different from theory, but I would say that most of the theories are applied in real life. I have learned, about the selection, recruitment, etc in theories in different HR courses and I have got huge similarities with the practical work life and those theories and knowledge helped me a lot to understand the practical job much faster since basic concept is same. Since now airline company is facing huge competition not only with the local companies but also with the giant multinational companies like Emirates, Saudi Airlines etc, so it has became very important for GMG to bring a change in their business in terms of strategies, so it has join hands with BEXIMCO group mainly for the financial support and business knowledge. And now GMG is expanding their business so I think they will be able to achieve their objectives and goals very soon and for that we all are trying our level best to achieve that through efficient man
power and also trying to motivate the employees to become more productive and loyal to the organization since the overall strategy at GMG is changing so also more benefits will be given to the employees so that the turnover rates decreases and employees are motivated to work efficiently.
