A Synopsis of Training History and Recent Training Programs of Grameenphone Ltd

Executive Summary

People always want to be in touch with others. Cell phone is a very popular instrument for this contact purpose. Alike other countries Bangladesh also waved away by this Cell phone. Cell phone industry of Bangladesh has getting vast expansion from the end of the Twentieth century. Grameenphone is the largest Cell phone company in Bangladesh which first introduced various innovative services and acquired the largest number of subscribers in this country. It also has the largest network coverage in Bangladesh. The fast growth of this company created the largest contribution to the Government exchequer in direct and indirect taxes.

Maintaining the leading position with 43% share in the market, GP needs to ensure its consistent services to its customers. This will not be possible without efficient work force. Technology in the telecom sector changes frequently. Also employees need to exercise their technology knowledge to provide better service. For that reason GP has a dedicated department under Technology division named Partner Management. There duties were to maintaining relation with partners and arrange trainings for GP employees.

GP has several technology partners. Major of them are Huawei, Ericsson, NEC. They are providing technology supports to GP and related trainings to the employees. There are some other vendors providing trainings such as Actix, CiscoValley, ESI India etc. These trainings provide theoretical or practical sessions or both of them. For practical sessions, GP switch rooms are used which is located in Kaderia Tower near Mohakhali. From others GP depends on external venues. Some training is held inside GP-House based on the availability of venue. GP also arranges foreign trainings but these are few in numbers and very few employees get the opportunity. Technology trainings are for the seven departments of the technology division. Non-technical trainings are open for all. Training has three levels based on their covering topics, complexity and importance. They are advanced, intermediate and basics.

GP is going to introduce its training portal. For that reason they want some backend training history database. The main element of this report is the training database from January 2007 to April 2011 which will be used in the portal to show the history. The analysis of the database is an important part of the portal showing all about the performance of GP training arrangement team so far. The evaluation of trainings held during January to March 2011 can give an overview of the effectiveness and lacking in several areas. Some recommendation is made after close observation and working in the process. These provide the area of improvements for the training arrangement team.

The training providing activities were handled by several employees in this long run. So data was so scattered and not in the similar format. There were a lot of missing data that can’t be recovered now. These data was ignored when analyzing the database. The analysis shows that, in the period total 528 trainings were held and 7383 employees were trained. More than 400 trainings were technical trainings held in Bangladesh with foreign trainer. 208 trainings were intermediate and 154 were basic. Most of the employees from operation took trainings. Highest number of system engineers took trainings with deputy superintendent engineers in second position. 472 trainings were 1-5 days duration with 268 as local. Equal number of foreign and local trainings with more than 10 days duration was held. Though in 2009 less training were held than in 2007, in 2009 more training hour is provided as trainings in 2009 were more in duration. Intermediate trainings were more successful than basic trainings held during January to March 2011.

GP has taken the initiative to significantly improve the training process and facilities. For that reason the training portal, dedicated training venue, training library etc will be developed. The recommendation made in this report can also help them to improve the training quality and effectiveness.

Operating Coverage of GP

Overview of the Training Process

Before the end of training an evaluation about the training arrangement and all other facilities are done by providing a questionnaire to the participants. Most of the trainings take place outside the GP-House, very few takes place inside GP-House. Mostly trainings are conducted in a suitable restaurants situated in Gulshan area. Whenever there is a practical session or there is a full practical training the trainings are held in Kaderia tower near Mohakhali where GP has its switch room. This is a restricted place and to arrange trainings here requires more efforts because permission regarding entry, arranging food and other facilities requires more time and effort.

 The general process* to arrange trainings in GP is given in the nest page:

Literature Review

GP is well known for its better network and continuous service. GP tries to use the latest technology of the world. To adopt such technologies and to maintain the present technologies, frequent training is needed for the engineers of GP. GP emphasizes in this issue seriously and have a complete department to provide such trainings. These trainings have a high standard in terms of trainer, training books and other facilities. GP doesn’t compromise in this regard and works to improve its training quality continually. It designed several types and levels of trainings for different level of employees.

In GP, trainings have two types.

1. Technical: These trainings are provided to technical people to improve the technology.
2. Non-technical: These trainings are provided to improve employee’s leadership skills, language ability, stress management etc which can improve employee’s capabilities in diversifies areas.

GP trainings have three (3) levels.

1. Basic trainings: To provide any new concept introduced to the employee or to give initial knowledge about something.
2. Intermediate trainings: Most of the trainings are under in this level. It discusses vast knowledge about something.
3. Advanced trainings: Provided to selected employees on selected topics.

Trainings are of 3 types based on the venue.

1. Foreign Trainings: The venue is outside Bangladesh and trainer is foreigner.
2. Local Trainings: Trainings are held inside Bangladesh but the trainer is foreigner or from outside GP. Most of the trainings in GP are local in nature.
3. In-House Trainings: The trainer is usually an employee of GP who is experienced. These trainings are casual in nature.

GP has a switch room in Kaderia Tower from where total network is being controlled. That place is known as test bed.

 Analysis of the Training History

Total Number of Employees Trained By GP

The training history of GP started from the year 2003. But for the training portal mainly the last 5(five) years data is used. Below is a simple scenario of the number of employee those had taken trainings in different years. It can be found that in 2008 highest number of employee had taken trainings. The number was also huge in year 2007 and 2009. At that time, GP was in the growing stage of its huge operation. So employees were trained frequently to provide the best service to the customers. In 2011, about 11%* of the total employees have been trained by GP. The average person per training increased every year. At present GP accommodates 20 employees in each training. This trend had started from 2011. Before that it was 12 in 2007 and gradually increased to 16 in 2010. It’s an indication that training facilities are increasing in GP every year.

Table 1: Total Number of Employees Trained

Yearly Training Distribution based on Training Venue

From January 2007 to March 2011 a total of 526 trainings were held. Among them highest number of training was held in the year 2008. But gradually the number had been declined year by year. One reason for this decline can be that, before 2008 the company was at its growing stage. So vast training was held till 2008. In the year 2010, the number of training was very low. Every year most of the trainings were local trainings. The percentage of trainings held in different venues in a year is also mentioned in the table. Number of foreign trainings decreased significantly from year 2007 to 2011. Now a days GP is emphasizing on in-house trainings. Because, GP wants to create trainers from their employees. The number of in-house trainings had a declined trend from 2007. In 2010, a good number of in-house trainings were held. From the year 2011 GP is determined to increase the number of in-house trainings. The process in on going and GP has targeted to provide at least 25 in-house trainers in this year.

Table 2: Training Distribution Based on Venue

Yearly Training Distribution based on Training Type

GP trainings have two types. Technical and non-technical. Technical trainings are provided to engineers on technology related topics. On the other hand, non-technical trainings are provided to all types of employees regarding general issues like leadership skills, English efficiency, stress management etc. After 2009, data regarding types of training is unavailable. There are few data missing for the period of 2007-2009. Those are mentioned as undefined in the table. Before 2010, Most of the trainings provided were technical in nature. In 2008, highest number of technical training was provided that is 157 trainings which is 93% of the total trainings in that year. Number of non-technical trainings declined significantly from 2007 to 2009. The number was 29 in 2007 to only 4 in 2009. This vast number of technical trainings indicates that how much importance GP had given to improve its technical issues like better network and others. Again, non-technical trainings indicate that GP always cares about its work force and consider them as its best asset. GP continuously works to make its human power more effective and capable.

Table 3: Training Distribution based on Training Type

Yearly Training Distribution based on Training Level

In GP, they have 3 training levels. Advanced, intermediate and basic. Intermediate trainings are more in numbers. These trainings deal with all important topics which in general important for everyone. Basic level trainings are used to give introductory knowledge to the employees when advanced level trainings are complex in nature. So far a total 208 intermediate level trainings have held during January 2007 to March 2011. Then basic level trainings were held which were 154 in number. Advanced level trainings are very few in these days. Most of the intermediate trainings were held in the year 2008. In this year a good number of advanced level trainings were also held. There were a lot of missing data about the training level in the year 2009. All the missing data is given as undefined in the table. The percentage of different levels of training based on the total training in that year is also mentioned in the table.

Table 4: Training Distribution based on Training Level

Department wise Distribution of Trainings

Based on Venue:

Employees from the 7 departments took part into different trainings happened in different venues during the period of January 2007 up to March 2011. In this case there are a lot of data missing, those are mentioned as undefined. But it can be find out from the rest of the data that mostly employees from operation took training. But employees from implementation took part into foreign trainings than others, whereas highest number of employees from operation took part in both local and in-house trainings. In local trainings, quite similar number of employees from both operation and PDD took part. Though Operation is a huge department consisting huge number of employees and an important part of the network management activities, the employees from other departments must also be trained well. Especially the participants from Assurance are very low. LTSB, PFCM, PM is new departments but also their participation must be increased. Below is the total data summary.

Table 5: Department wise Venue of Trainings

Based on Year:

Now we have to deal with seven departments of technology division. Before 2010 there was different department structure and for that many departments went to other divisions including technology division which is kept black in this database to keep the remaining data fair. Below is a picture of number of employee in different years under the seven departments in technology division. In the undefined portion there can be huge number of employees those belong to any departments in this division. But due to lack of data it was difficult to detect them. Employees from operation department took highest trainings so far where as PDD is in the second place. Another important thing is that employees from assurance is very poor than other departments.

Table 6: Department wise Distribution of Trainings in Different Years

Position wise Distribution of Different Levels of Training

A specific Training is not for all level of employees. There are three levels of trainings and these trainings are provided to different level of employees that is of different designation of employees. Below table shows the data of which designation employees took which level of trainings. For example, advanced level trainings were provided to mostly deputy superintendent engineer and system engineers. Highest number of system engineers (2902) took trainings so far. Quite similar number of system engineers took basic and intermediate level trainings which is far ahead than other designation employees. A good number of deputy superintendent engineers took advanced level trainings but very few had taken other trainings in comparison with system engineers. Mostly deputy superintendent engineers and system engineers took trainings than others. Additional, deputy chief engineers and engineers took less training than. Missing data is mentioned as undefined in the table.

Table 7: Position wise Distribution of Different Levels of Training

Duration wise Training Distribution

Most of the trainings in GP are not more than 5 days. So far about 472 trainings were held that have duration of 5 or less than 5 days. There were a good number of long trainings in comparison with 6-10 days training. In comparison between foreign and local trainings, foreign trainings were mostly more than 10 days also there are few 6-10 days training. Most of the local trainings were short duration trainings. The more the duration of training the more topics it can include and the more elaborative the training is. The percentage of trainings of different durations based on their venue is also given in the table to get a clear overview.

Table 8: Duration wise Training Distribution

Department wise Total Training Hour provided based on Year

Below is the list of the total training hour provided by GP to the employee of the seven departments of technology division. A full training day is considered 7 hour. Avoiding the undefined data employees from operation did a total 37891 hour training where employees from PDD did 20902 hour. This training hour is important because based on this it will be decided that which employee has to give trainings rather based on how many trainings he had taken. Based on data from the below table the charts are showing total training hour based on year and departments.

Table 9: Department wise Total Training Hour provided based on Year

Type wise Level of Training Distribution

Below table shows the scenario of training types and levels provided to employees since 2007. Non-technical trainings were provided to less number of employees. Most of the employees were provided technical trainings among which intermediate and basic trainings were more in number. A good number of employees were given advanced level trainings also. The difference employees who had taken non-technical and technical trainings were huge in number. More non-technical trainings should be arranged to make all types of employees more efficient.

Table 10: Type wise Level of Training Distribution

Cost Distribution per Training Hour:

Table 11: Cost Distribution per Training Hour

Training cost related data is available for only the year of 2007 and 2008. Based on the available data it is found that, average cost per employee hour decreased significantly in the year of 2008. The number of foreign trainings in 2007 was 68 which decreased to 44 in 2008. Foreign training cost a lot than any other type of training. In 2008, a total of 101 local training were held which cost very low. For these reasons, cost per training hour decreased in 2008 than 2007.

Analysis of the Evaluation of Training

During the internship period (January 10 – April 10) the data summary of trainings are in the following page:

An evaluation sheet (Annexure-A) is used to take feedback from the training participants. Through this evaluation sheet they want to get an overall picture of the training arrangement and the effectiveness and usefulness of the training. Based on the evaluation of the participants of the training they try to improve the trainings quality and all other facilities. This evaluation sheet is provided just before the end of the training. The participants can rate the training in several fields. The highest ranking is five (5) which represents excellent and the lowest ranking is one (1) which is poor. They can add comment for each and every question. There is also a provision to give generalized comment about the training overall. (See the evaluation sheet in Annexure-A) All the participants’ evaluation in different sections is being averaged to find out the overall performance of the training in the below three broad sections.

• Overall Course Module: It has three questions regarding the importance of the training, the performance of the training team and the other facilities like course materials etc. The evaluation of a participant in these three questions is averaged to find out his evaluation of the overall course module and by averaging all the participants rating the evaluation of overall course module for training is being found out.
• About Trainer: There are five questions under this section where the participants need to evaluate the trainer. Their ranking in these questions are averaged to find out the overall trainer evaluation.
• Overall training arrangement: A participants rating on all the questions is being averaged to find out overall training arrangement and all the participants rating is averaged to find out the training’s overall arrangement.

Now considering all the basic level trainings the following data is being calculated. Below table shows the mean, largest and shortest values in the individual questions and the three broad sections.

(See Annexure-B for details)

Similarly the mean, lowest and largest value of the evaluation of the intermediate level trainings is below (See Annexure-C for details):

If we compare the mean of these two levels of trainings in different aspects we can find that there is very similarity with the value of mean, highest and lowest evaluation about the course module. In both levels of trainings it varied between 3.85 to 3.9 which are near about 4 and 4 indicates a very good evaluation. Participants gave almost similar type of evaluation for the importance, effectiveness and facilities of the trainings. But on the other hand, there is a huge difference about the trainer in these two levels of trainings. In the intermediate trainings the mean evaluation is 4.30 which is very good to 4.98 which is near about excellent when on the other hand in basic level trainings it is 3.87 that is moderate to near very good (4.45). Also intermediate trainings get 4.1 in overall training arrangement from the participants but basic level trainings have got a value of below 4. Overall these values indicate that intermediate level trainings were more effective and more successful according to the participants. The trainers of intermediate trainings also get better evaluation from the participants. On the other hand, basic level trainings were less effective and have got lower evaluation from the participants. A training that got less point in overall course module and about trainer also got less point in overall training arrangement. 6 basic trainings out of 10 were evaluated below 4 in overall training arrangement and 4 basic trainings were evaluated above 4. So the success of basic level trainings was 40%. On the other hand, 5 intermediate level training out of 10 was evaluated below 4 and 5 were evaluated above 4. So in the case of intermediate level trainings the success rate is 50%.

Department wise Evaluation of Training by the Participants

Now to find out a pattern, the trainings (both basic and intermediate levels) that got below 4 in overall training arrangement is taken and the participants were from which department is being find out. Below is the table that shows the percentage of employees from different departments in the trainings that got below 4 and above 4 in overall course module (See Annexure-D for details).

 There is a major difference between the participants of Operation, PDD and Implementation. The participants from Operation ranked most of the trainings below 4. On the other hand, participants from PDD and Implementation evaluated trainings well in most cases. That means that the employees from Operation department is facing more problems with the trainings and trainings are not meeting their expectations. To overcome this scenario an open discussion regarding the training process and facilities with the employees of Operation can be done. This will identify their problems and the training arrangement team can improve the quality of the training in future. Another important finding is that, those training that got below 4 rating is conducted mostly by Huawei and very few is by Ericsson. On the other hand, training those got more that 4 was conducted by several vendors like Huawei, Actix, ESI, Ericsson etc. That means that depending on different vendors to provide trainings is better than depending on few vendors. Also, the trainer performance is important. There were a good number of basic level trainings that had been taken by such trainers those have a poor communication skill. Participants faced a lot of problems to understand them. This eventually reduced the overall effectiveness and contribution of those trainings to the improvement of the participants. The training arrangement team must be careful when choosing the trainer and also about basic level trainings to improve the quality.

 Month wise Evaluation of Trainings

Following is the evaluation of the two segments of trainings happened between January to March. It is showing the evaluation of the overall course module, overall trainer and overall training arrangement (See details in Annexure-E, F and G).

In the month March, evaluation of the participants about the training is below four. It indicates moderate. There are several reasons for this evaluation. In March, most of the trainings were held in Kaderia Tower where training facilities are not available but practical sessions have no other suitable location. Some venue and trainer related problems happened in some training which ultimately reduced the overall rating of these months trainings.

Findings

So far in this report, the training data from January 2007 up to March 2011 is analyzed and based on that several findings have come out. Those findings are given below:

1. 1.      Total 7,383 employees were trained. Highest 2,452 employees were trained in 2008, then in 2007, 1811 employees. Only 937 employees were trained in 2009. In 2011, 11% of the total employees are trained.
2. 2.      Total 526 training were held, highest 168 in 2008. Most of the trainings (293, 56%) were local; very few (17%) were in-house trainings.
3. 3.      During the 2007-2009, most of the trainings were technical (88%) with highest in 2008 (157, 93% of total). Non-technical trainings were very few (10%) than technical trainings.
4. 4.      The arranged trainings were mostly intermediate level trainings (208, 40% of total)). Advanced trainings (60) were less in numbers than basic trainings (154).
5. 5.      Employees from operation mainly took part in trainings (1638, 22% of total). Though employees from operation took part in local and in-house trainings (343) than others, mostly employees from implementation (80) took foreign trainings, then PDD (37) and then operation (25). However from assurance participation in all types of trainings were very low.
6. 6.      After 2008, participation from operation had increased a lot than other departments in trainings. In 2007 and 2008 highest participants were from implementation. Highest number of employees was trained in 2008 (33%).
7. 7.      Highest number of system engineers (2,902) took trainings so far.  A good number of deputy superintendent engineers took advanced level trainings (312) but very few had taken other trainings in comparison with system engineers. Mostly deputy superintendent engineers (1336) and system engineers (2902) took trainings than others. Additional, deputy chief engineers and engineers took less training than others.
8. 8.      Most of the trainings (472, 90% of total) have duration of 1-5 days among which local trainings were highest in number (268). Percentage of local and foreign trainings become almost same as the duration of trainings increased. Both 8 foreign and local trainings were held with more than 10 days duration.
9. 9.      Total 151060 training hours have provided. Highest in 2008 (51723) but second highest was in 2009 (34902) though in 2007 more trainings were held. But trainings in 2009 were more in duration and larger based on training hour. Highest training hour (37891) was provided to operation and then PDD (20902). Here a lot of data was not available.
10. 10.  Average cost per training hour decreased to $3.67 in 2008 from $13.84 in 2007. The reason is foreign trainings decreased between these two years.
11. 11.  Intermediate level trainings were more successful during January-March, 2011. The trainer was more effective in intermediate trainings than the trainer in basic trainings. The overall training arrangement got moderate (3.87) rating for basic trainings but in intermediate trainings it got very good rating (4.10). This difference is made actually by the difference in trainer’s rating.
12. 12.  The trainings consisting mostly participants from operation (65%) got a below 4 rating. Participants from PDD (44%) gave above 4 ratings to trainings. It shows that employees from operation are facing problems regarding training model.
13. 13.  The monthly evaluation shows that January and February trainings were very good (4.1). March training were below 4 (3.8) for some venue and trainer related problems.

Recommendations

In the internship period, a total of 29 trainings were held. Arranging and organizing these trainings gave a clear view of the training process. Working closely in these trainings have showed several problems regarding training arrangement. Sometimes there were multiple trainings held in several locations. In some trainings participants complained about several issues where the arrangement team had few to do to improve that. There were few common problems in some training. There were a lot of limitations of the arrangement team regarding training facilities. Yet several things can be done by them to increase the effectiveness of the trainings. Based on the experience gathered in those three months the following recommendations can be given. By following and improving these issues the trainings in GP can be made more effective, successful and participants friendly.

1. Careful about choosing trainers: The training arrangement team must choose a trainer who has better communication skill with good knowledge about the topic. Without having a good communication skill a knowledgeable trainer adds a few values to training.
2. Appropriate training material must be arranged on time: The vendors are responsible to provide training materials for each training. They provide at the beginning day of the training. Sometimes the training materials arrive late or after the training starts. Getting the training materials that is specially books must arrive before training starts so that the participants get an overview about the training and know that what they are going to cover in the specific training. This supply of training books must be ensured before the training starts to increase the training effectiveness.
3. Practical sessions must be given more emphasis: Technological trainings sometimes require practical sessions. To do such practical sessions participants need to move to Kaderia Tower where switch room of GP is located from the training venue. Sometimes trained don’t cover the practical sessions properly which reduces the effectiveness of a training. Practical sessions are very important for technology trainings. Trainers need to give more emphasis on practical sessions as because participants get more opportunity to learn. In addition, more training with practical sessions can be arranged to keep the employees more knowledgeable.
4. Venue environment must be calm and all arrangements must be done: Participants faced several problems in the trainings held in March regarding the training venue. Most of the trainings are held in restaurants, which is normally a crowdie place. Sometimes insincerity of the restaurant authority creates problem. Again there are unavoidable circumstances like sudden problem in air conditioner, power failure etc. These types of problems are uncertain but the restaurants must be proactive to reduce the chance to happen such problems.
5. Co coordinator must be present at least at start and end date and introduce trainer to all: The main coordinator must visit the training venue during the training session. Its better he or she must be present there at the starting of the training to introduce the trainer with the participants and discuss about any problems or query they have or not. This will increase the participants’ motivation.
6. Select a coordinator from the trainee to communicate with the arranging team: In the last few training some communication problems had happened between the participants and the coordinators. It is also one of the reasons of the low evaluation of the last few training. To reduce such communication problems one thing can be done, selecting a training coordinator from the participant’s end to communicate with the arrangement team regarding any problems arises during training. These will facilitate fast communication and fast problem solving from the arrangement team’s side. This method was tested in few trainings and it worked well.
7. Training schedule should be circulated before training: Proper training schedule for trainings should be fixed before training. That is whether the training has any practical sessions, if yes then where and when these things should be fixed before the starting of the training. This information should be communicated to the participants and the trainer through the vendor. Who will decide these things must be fixed. Whether the trainer or the vendor or the training team.
8. Arrange transport: Not all the trainings are held in GP-House. Most of them are held in any restaurant near Gulshan-1 area. Practical sessions usually held in Kaderia Tower near Mohakhali. Sometimes venue is in other places like Dhanmondi or Mohakhali. Participants are told to arrange their own transportation to reach to the training venue. This creates problem for them. They often argue for transportation facilities. Though arranging transportation creates a lot of complexity for the arrangement team but it will really help the participants. Transportation can be arranged from the training arrangement team and participant can be asked to communicate with the drivers.
9. More communication needed: The training arrangement team has very few human resources. Sometimes there are two, three even four trainings continuing at a time. It becomes really difficult for them to coordinate all these trainings at a time. Participants need to understand the limitations. They need to cooperate with the training team properly. Frequent decision change, participant name change, schedule change etc creates a lot of problems for the training arrangement team to ensure all the facilities regarding training. All the parties must understand this and communication should be make more effective regarding all issues.

Conclusion

GP always wants to provide quality trainings to its employees to make them their ultimate asset. GP trainings have a good standard and well known about its overall facilities. It has a good long term relation with its partners and never compromise training quality. Sometimes extra pressure of training, any sudden circumstances and limitation of the team reduces the effectiveness of the training. But the steps that have already taken to improve the future trainings facilities will reduce those problems. This report will give them an overview of the trainings, their so far performance and will provide necessary information regarding training portal.

It is always expected that this report would help them to improve some issues and work as training history summary for Grameenphone Ltd.

Bibliography:

Grameenphone (2011). Number of base stations in locations, coverage of country’s population, number of EDGE/GPRS users, amount invested in network infrastructure. Retrieved from

        <http://www.grameenphone.com/about-us> on May 26, 2011.

Grameenphone (2011). Vision, mission, objective, values, brand promise. Retrieved from

        <http://www.grameenphone.com/about-us/corporate-information/our-brand> on May 26, 2011.

Grameenphone (2011). Products of GP. Retrieved from.

<http://www.grameenphone.com/products-and-services/packages>  on May 26, 20111.

Grameenphone (2011). Internet Packages. Retrieved from.

<http://www.grameenphone.com/products-and-services/internet/internet-packages> on May 26, 2011.

Btrc (2011). Subscriber of GP and Banglalink. Retrieved from.

        <http://www.btrc.gov.bd/newsandevents/mobile_phone_subscribers/mobile_phone_subscribers_april_2011.php> on May 26, 2011.

Grameenphone Ltd (2011). Annual Report 2010.

Grameenphone Ltd. (2011). Grameenphone company profile and corporate presentations (unpublished).

Dhaka: Grameenphone Ltd.