Recruitment and Selection Process of SQUARE Toiletries

Recruitment and Selection Process of SQUARE
Toiletries Limited

Today’s Business world is changing very rapidly. Every company in each and every industry takes different strategies to survive in this dynamic world. Most of the companies are now using different HRIS in their operation to make their business more effective and efficient. Even some companies start business transforming program to get competitive advantage over their competitors. This report is really made to present the work life condition of SQUARE Toiletries Ltd. This report is a study on work climate, supportive management, and job satisfaction and employee work effort in the context of SQUARE Toiletries Ltd. Here I have tried to find out the relevance with these three tools on the job life of an employee. I have also focused on the current HR practices that STL is performing to make their employee more productive.

Objective of the report:

We have prepared this report based on two purposes:

Primary Objective:

The report aims to provide information on the procedures of Recruitment and selection techniques followed by the SQUARE TOILETRIES LIMITED through HR department.

Secondary Objective:

(a) To have a clear view about what is actually happening in the area of HRM of the selected business organization.

(b) To collect information and insight about the Recruitment & Selection function of the organization.

(d) To relate the theoretical knowledge with the Recruitment & Selection process of Square Toiletries Ltd.

Company Overview

SQUARE today symbolizes a name – a state of mind. But its journey to the growth and prosperity has been no bed of roses. From the inception in 1958, it has today burgeoned into one of the top line conglomerates in Bangladesh. SQUARE is a Bangladeshi industrial conglomerate. The industries under this group include Textiles, Pharmaceuticals, Toiletries, Consumer products. Services provided by SQUARE include Health care (Hospitals), Information and Communication Technology. Square toiletries limited (STL) started in 1988 as a division and ISO: 9001 certified company. In 1994 square toiletries limited began its journey as a private limited company. Now STL is the country’s leading manufacturer of international quality cosmetics and toiletries products.

At present, STL is the country’s leading manufacturer of international quality cosmetics and toiletries with 20 brands and more than 55 products covering a wide range of categories like skin care, hair care, oral care, baby care, fabric care, scourers, male grooming and OTC.

Currently STL is employing over 2,000 employees ensuring their consistent welfare and security. Due to its sociable working environment and highly motivated employee, STL is enjoying one of the lowest employee turnover rates. STL emphasizes on equal employment opportunity resulting in 38% women employees. Besides, STL also provides employment opportunity to physically challenges persons.

Besides core business functions STL has long been taking active part in different activities like employment generation program for vulnerable community, financial aid to disadvantaged and natural disaster affected people, helping acid victims, tree plantation, creating mass awareness on health and hygiene issues, supporting in education and various local community programs and many more. Square Toiletries Ltd. Symbolizes innovation. STL is the pioneer for bringing in new products and packaging concepts in Bangladesh. Currently, STL is carrying out its production in its two fully automated plants at Rupshi and Pabna.

Square Toiletries Limited (STL) launched its operations with Jui Coconut Oil, which virtually pioneered the branded Pure Coconut Oil market in the country. Today, STL has over 42 product lines and an annual sales exceeding 2.00 billion taka and has now become one of the leading local toiletries companies in Bangladesh. STL manufactures and markets a wide array of consumer toiletries products ranging from Hair Oils, Toilet Soaps, Fabric Care to Winter Care and Summer Products, Baby Care, Dental Care and Shaving products, among others. The company also markets Feminine Hygiene products manufactured by its sister concern, Health Products Limited (HPL). STL is now one of the largest toiletries manufacturers and marketers in the country, and with popular brands such as Jui, Meril, Kool and Chaka, it operates successfully as a major player in this competitive marketplace.

Corporate Social Responsibilities:

Square Toiletries Limited believes that it is their obligation to work for the welfare of society. In spite of being a commercial organization STL doesn’t always opt for profit, rather it tries to be even more focused towards the fulfillment of its commitments to society.

Employment Generation

Employing over 1200 permanent employees ensuring their consistent welfare and security
Emphasis on equal employment opportunity resulting in 38% women employees
Maintenance of sociable working environment which results in lowest turnover rate and a highly motivated workforce

Investment in Bangladesh

Square Toiletries executes all its investment within the country boundary. It exports its products but none of its production plants have been set up abroad
STL emphasizes foreign currency inflow to the country
When the country was leaning towards being flooded by offshore products, STL raised its voice and initiated movements against these marketing aggressions

Tree Plantation

STL has taken an active part in tree plantation programs since 2002 throughout the country.

Commitment towards Underprivileged Society

Square Toiletries gives monetary support to underprivileged society
STL gave financial aid to Naksha Training centre, where vulnerable women are vocationally trained for operating sewing machines
STL also provided rickshaw vans to unemployed people for income generation
The company extends financial aid for medical treatment to distressed people and employees
Square Toiletries also provides employment opportunity to physically handicapped persons.

At present Square Toiletries is giving employment opportunity to a number of employees who are physically challenged Responsibility towards the immediate neighborhood and the residents Square is deeply involved with the communities where it operates, and hence has an intense sense of responsibility to its neighbors.

School in Pabna – Square Kindergarten
Library in Pabna – Ananda Gobinda Library
Ambulance to Pabna Municipality
Tree Plantation in Pabna
Job Opportunity for qualified neighbors
Disaster Management during Flood, Cyclone etc.

Patronizing Sports

Square Toiletries is always committed to patronize the country’s most emotional corner – sports, especially cricket. Sponsorship of 1st Division Cricket Tournament in 1998, 1999; Meril International Cup One-Day cricket tournament among Kenya, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in 1997 – these are some bright examples of Square’s commitment towards the development of cricket.

In addition to the most popular games like Cricket and Football, STL always attempts to encourage less popular but promising games like Table Tennis, Badminton etc.

Patronizing Culture

Meril-Prothom Alo Taroka Jorip – country’s most honoring & luminous event – a once – in –a year award giving program in the field of “culture and entertainment” has been being sponsored by Square Toiletries Limited for several years.

Creating Mass Awareness

STL, under the sanitary napkin brand “Senora” is continuously working to create mass awareness through School Promotion Program. This awareness program highlights information about female health and hygiene and guidelines to get rid of the complexities arisen from menstruation. Every school program has been accompanied by a female Gynecologist to answer personal health and hygiene related queries of the girls and also provides free treatment to the students.

Helping the Acid Victims

Senora also stands beside acid victims. A joint social campaign was conducted with Prothom Alo where Senora contributed Tk. 1.00 from the monthly sale of each pack of Senora to “Prothom Alo Aid Fund”for the rehabilitation of the acid victim women. Now Senora is working with Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) to work for the acid victim women in a more concentrated manner. Senora already assisted 10 victims by ensuring income generating schemes.

Running Campaign

Meril Splash & Persona Inspiring Freshness
Meril Revive Busy’der Easy Show
Meril Prothom Alo Puroshkar
Jui Pencil’e Aka Juri
Meril Baby Adore Gora Bhobishshot
Meril Night
White Plus School Dental Health Program
Zerocal World Health Day Rally

Toiletries Sector of Bangladesh

Locally produced toiletries now play a significant role in a sector that has been dominated by imports in the past. Most of the products in this sector are common consumer goods which have a large demand in the domestic market. Imports of cosmetics and toiletries are targeted mostly to the middle and high-end segments of the market. Most of the local customers are quite happy with the domestic products as long as product performance is satisfactory and the price is reasonable. While most of the manufacturers focus primarily on meeting the demands of the local market, some firms have started exporting cosmetics and toiletries products from Bangladesh.

International brands play a dominant role in the upper-end market of Bangladesh, where quality ranks above pricing among the factors affecting purchasing decisions. Most local manufacturers are producing lower-priced toiletries and perfumes with their own brands, and focus on the middle-to-low price market segments. The production figures of major toiletries firms over a five-year period suggest that all the major firms have experienced steady growth.

Many domestic industries, long accustomed to tariff protection, are finding it difficult to adjust with the changed competitive situation resulting from the reduction/removal of tariff and other non-tariff barriers. Smuggled goods from neighboring countries through the long and porous border are adding to the difficulties of domestic producers. Moreover, some firms think that the trade liberalization have made them vulnerable to increasing competition with foreign firms. Competition from domestic firms has also increased substantially.

Although the toiletries industry consists of a large number of firms, Table below clearly shows that seven firms possess 95 percent of the market share for toilet soap, laundry soap and detergent.

Market share of major toiletries and cosmetic firms of Bangladesh

Recruitment and Selection Process of Square Toiletries Ltd

Human Resource Planning in STL:

Planning is the core area of all the functions of management. It is the foundation upon which the other three areas should be built. Planning requires management to evaluate where human resource of the company is currently, and where it would like to be in the future. From there an appropriate course of action to attain the company’s goals and objectives is determined and implemented.

Every organization has employment planning. STL has also its employment planning. They usually forecast their personnel needs based on their mission, strategic goals & objectives & technological and other changes resulting in increased productivity.

Although there are several methods to predict personnel needs, but they use managerial judgment because it gives the more real world scenario for personnel needs. They think that the other methods can not give the accurate situation of the personnel needs. These are basically graphical methods, which can not measure the actual personnel needs. But managerial judgment method depends upon the change in productivity, market conditions etc.

Recruitment and Selection process in STL:

STL is looking for top-caliber people who want the flexibility and resources to grow in their career. If you’re the kind of person who has always stood out, SQUARE offers a place where you can continue to excel. No matter what your field or range of interests, there are vacancies where your talents can likely be applied and developed. It has thousands of diverse people from different cultures and backgrounds working in a variety of different jobs in different fields

Merit is the sole criteria for selection.
Attitude is given as much weight age as functional competencies.
Panel interviews comprising of Functional Head & HR Head.
Sources for recruitment are through campus, consultants, employee referrals, internal job postings and the internet.
Positions in MT, Brand executive, Operation managers etc involve written tests.
Candidates’ past records verification is an integral part of our recruitment process.
Medical fitness is pre-requisite for all positions.
We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, community, religion or sex.

Recruitment process:

A responsibility for recruitment usually belongs to the HR department. This department works to find and attract capable applicants. Job description and speciation provide the needed information upon which the recruitment process starts. The functions of the recruitment office of STL are given below:

Need Assessment
Defining the position description
Checking the recruiting options
Advertisement
Screening and Short – listing Applications
Written test
Selection interview
Employment decision
Pre- employment medical check-up
Offer letter
Orientation
Placement
Follow –up

Source of Recruitment:

Bangladesh is done in four ways depending on the job category of the vacant position. Therefore, the recruitment process of this organization is classified into four types, which are done based on the job grade/ group. These are as follows:

Entry-level management
MT (Management Trainee)
Mid or / and senior level management
Graded staff / Non- management staff

Internal Source:

There could be a person competent for the required job working within the organization. If there is, the existing manpower is then shuffled to place the selected person in the new post. If there is no such person inside the company, then the management goes for the second step.

(a) Job‐posting programs:

HR departments become involved when internal job openings are publicized to employees through job positioning programs, which informs employees about opening and required qualifications and invite qualify employees to apply. The notices usually are posted on company bulletin boards or are placed in the company newspaper. Qualification and other facts typically are drawn from the job analysis information.

The purpose of job posting is to encourage employees to seek promotion and transfers the help the HR department fill internal opening and meet employee’s personal objectives. Not all jobs openings are posted .Besides entry level positions, senior management and top stuff positions may be filled by merit or with external recruiting. Job posting is most common for lower level clerical, technical and supervisory positions.

(b) Departing Employees:

An often overlooked source of recruiters consists of departing employees. Many employees leave because they can no longer work the traditional 40 hours work week. School, child care needs and other commitments are the common reason. Some might gladly stay if they could rearrange their hours of work or their responsibilities .Instead, they quit when a transfer to a part-time job may retain their valuable skill and training.

Even if part-time work is not a solution, a temporary leave of absence may satisfy the employee and some future recruiting need of the employer.

External Source:

All the above options being considered, the company goes for external recruiting if needed. Those who best meet the skills, qualifications, experience and competencies required for the position should fill vacancies. Therefore, if there is no candidate within STL, Bangladesh who is suitable for the role, external advertisement should be placed to attract the potential candidates followed by the selection procedures.

Advertisement:

The Company gives advertisement in national dailies (both Bangla and English) to attract the talents from the market. STL, Bangladesh puts two types of advertisements in the newspapers. It sometimes keeps the identity concealed in the ads, mentioning a GPO BOX number only. The purpose of the concealed identity is to avoid the unwanted pressure from the stakeholders for the employment of their desired candidates. But this way the company may lose the talents out there in the market who would have applied for the same post had they known the name of the organization. This is why the company kept the identity open in their recent job advertisement when the quality of the candidate was a very important factor to consider. By revealing the STL identify, the company attempts to attract the best potentials among all the others.

Employee referrals:

Employee referral means using personal contracts to locate job opportunities. It is a recommendation from a current employee regarding a job applicant. The logic behind employee referral is that “it takes one to know one”. Employees working in the, in this case, are encouraged to recommend the names of their friends working in other organization for a possible vacancy in the near future.

Employment Agency:

An agency finds and prescreens applicants, referring those who seem qualified to the organization for further assessment and final selection. An agency can screen effectively only it has a clear understanding of the position it is trying to fill. Thus it is very important that an employer be as specific and accurate as possible when describing a position and its recruitment to an employment agency.

Walk‐ins and Write‐ins:

Walk-ins are some seekers who arrived at the HR department of STL in search of a job; Write-ins are those who send a written enquire .both groups normally are ask to complete and application blank to determine their interest and abilities. Usable application is kept in an active file until a suitable opening occurs or until an application is too old to be considered valid, usually six months.

Consulting the CV Bank:

The unsolicited applications stored in the data ban. If the quality of a person matches with the requirements mentioned in the position description, then he / she is called for interview.

Selection Process:

Selection is the process of gathering information for the purpose of evaluating and deciding who should be employed in particular jobs.

Screening and Short‐listing Applications

The responses to the advertisements are sorted and screened. The CVs as well as the Covering letters are judged. In the covering letter, the style and language of writing, the emphasis put on the areas asked for tin the advertisements and the quality of the letter (whether it is specifically tailored to the advertisement or just a standard response) are the aspects that are judged. Different weights are assigned to the selection criteria mentioned in the man specification depending on their relative importance. (for example, educational institutions like IBA, BUET are given the highest weight among the local ones and the foreign universities of UK, Australia, etc. are put at par with the best of the country). Based on the presence of these factors to the desired extent (experience, educational degree, computer literacy, etc) the cumulative weights for all the applicants are counted and the short list of a sizable number of the top most candidates is generated.

However, the HR officials also study the CVs with the respective line manager to check whether any valuable deciding parameter is missed that are mentioned in the CVs. Then the candidates selected in the short list are called for the written test.

Written Test

Written test is not a regular part of the normal recruitment process. It is conducted as and when required. Previously no written test was taken for the management employee; the applicants had to go directly through the interview process. After the introduction of the manager trainee program, the written test before the interview process has proved to be effective and a useful tool to select the desirable candidates. The written test includes psychometric test, test on behavioral competency, and written test on communication skills. The candidates are called for the preliminary (first) interview based on their performance in the written test.

Selection Interview

The interview process is a three-tier one. A preliminary interview is conducted which follows the “elimination method”. After that, the second interview takes place with a very few number of candidates. Then the finally selected person is called for the final interview. The interview time is kept convenient for the candidate especially if s/he is working elsewhere at the time of interview. In that case the chosen time is after the business hour.

Reference Check

Reference checks allow obtaining information and opinions regarding the person’s character, quality of the work and suitability for the position. It is an opportunity to validate the information received from the candidate via their resume and the interview. Speaking to the candidate’s manager or other people whom they have worked with should also check internal candidates. The opinion of a referee who has worked can for an extended period is likely to be more accurate than the assessment from one to two hours of interviewing.

The candidate’s immediate supervisors are needed to be contacted. Permission should be obtained to contact the candidate’s referee especially if their current employer is contacted. It is not unusual for a candidate to be uncomfortable with the organization’s speaking to a current employer. If they are uncomfortable, an alternative person other than the current employer has to be chosen by the candidate (work colleague, for example). Unless the candidate is a graduate or school leaver with no prior work experience, only contact work related referees should be contacted. At least two reference checks should be done, however the more the better.

There is a sample reference-checking guide that is more or less followed. It is important to prepare a reference check guide that asks the referee about the key skills, competencies and experience required for the position. Reference checks need to be done by line manager or personnel of the HR department.

During the interviews, the candidates would have given some examples of incidents, tasks or projects that can be asked about. The referee should be asked what the candidate did in those examples, which ascertain whether the information received from the candidate is consistent with that of the referee.

Subjective questions may not always be a reliable guide; however it can be useful to get the referee’s opinion on areas such as quality and quantity of work, strengths and weaknesses etc.

Employment Decision

If the candidate has no problem with the stated terms and conditions of the job and the organization mentioned and discussed in the final interview, s/he is offered an application blank. The application blank is a standard format of employee-information that includes all the information the organization needs regarding the personnel. The candidate has to fill this blank and submit this to the company along with a CV.

Pre-employment Medical Check-up:

After submission of the application and the CV, the selected person has to go through full medical check-up that guarantees her/his physical fitness to perform the job successfully. A medical practitioner who uses a physical capability analysis that assesses the candidate against the physical capabilities documented for each role conducts the medical. A medical is also appropriate for internal candidates if they are applying for positions that require different physical capabilities.

Offering the Role:

Once the health check-up is done, the candidate is given an offer letter specifying the salary package, job responsibilities, utilities that will be provided by the organization. Even at this stage the selected candidate has the chance to withdraw her/himself from the job offer. s/he is always free to discuss whatever difficulty may arise regarding paystructure/facilities, etc. the door of HR is kept open for any sort of relevant discussion.

Verbal offer:

The verbal offer of the role to the candidate is given once the medical and reference checks have been successfully completed. The discussion should cover the following:

Tell the candidate that you would like to offer them the role.
Congratulate them.
Tell them the remuneration package that is being offered, including superannuating.
Ask them if they are happy with it.
Ask them if they verbally accept the position.
Tell them that we will be sending them a written letter of offer and introductory package.

Written letter of offer:

A written letter of offer must be forwarded to the candidate. Once the candidate has verbally accepted the position, the appropriate letter of offer is organized. This letter should be sent to the candidate within two days of making the verbal offer. An introductory package will be sent to the successful candidate, along with the letter of offer. At least one week before the person commencing in their new position, an appointment notice will be placed on notice boards and/or the internet.

THE RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION PROCESS OF STL

Problems Finding:

There were few problems I had noticed during my Internship period. The process of calling potential candidates is vaguer. They recruit Sales Representatives in a huge numbers that sometimes really difficult to manage in the time of their written test examination. We the Interns monitored all the written test examinations for Sales Representatives and the guideline for taking the test is not appropriate sometimes.

Confusion arises during taking attendance and checking whether there are participants who are not being selected for the examination.

Participants come to seat for test through references from other departments of STL, that sometimes not verified by HR dept. at all. Therefore, Interns need to take all the responsibilities to verify from the HR department that reduces time.

It also happens sometimes when there is huge like above 500 candidates apply for Sales Representative post, they do not get written test’s information timely as it is kind of absurd to call all the participants personally and update the information. Therefore they have been informed through messages via phone that sometimes are not understood clearly by the participants.

The seating arrangement for written test for huge numbers of candidates is not sometimes manageable. They have one training room that sometimes can not accommodate huge pool of candidates. In that time we need conference and canteen to manage seating arrangement which is really hard to monitor at the exam time.

During the time of training period for Sales Representatives, problems arise in terms of training schedule. Sometimes managers get busy with their official work that they cannot make time for training session. It also happens sometimes that the managers, who are supposed to take training classes, are not well-informed about the topic and come late in the class that consume more time and create hazards.

Sometimes the ad given for the vacant post is not appropriately specific in terms of the minimum educational degree, preferred institutions and other necessary criteria based on which the initial screening of the applications will conduct. Therefore, we have to screen lots of unnecessary CVs that are not required for the post. It takes more time and concentration.

They do not participate in the job fairs for their recruitment. Therefore the number of potential candidates sometimes is not that much compare to other organization. Fresh graduates can apply from on campus recruitments process that is not being conducted by Square.

Recommendations

Recruitment and selection is one of the cores in fact the basic tool of HR. HR is solely responsible to find out the prospective talent pool for the organization. It is also sensitive in a manner because company’s success is solely depending on this. So this division should take in concern in a high priority.

First of all The HR Department should look into the matter of consuming more time in the process of calling the applicants after their responses very seriously. The organization could control the size of applicants’ pool by using more clear and specific statements in the ad in terms of the minimum educational degree, preferred institutions and other necessary criteria based on which the initial screening of the applications were conducted.

In the job advertisement especially for bottom line employees, HR department should mention the pay structure.

HR department should give proper instructions to Interns for screening CVs and taking the test appropriately. There should be more training room to conduct test and training for huge numbers of participants. During the time of training session, managers should be informed clearly about their class time, topic of discussion and other important information.

The HR Department should send the interview card by courier service for the selected candidates that they can get it in time. If the candidates do not get their interview card in time it causes some initial problem. They should establish the process of messaging the selected candidates via mobile phone.

Company could participate in the job fairs for their recruitment. A considerable volume of applications is dropped in the organizations as a result of the exposure created in the job fairs. The organization can promote its image as a potential recruiter through its successful participation in the job fairs.

The company can recruit also for campus recruiting that could bring a yield of highly educated fresh-starters for the entry-level the organization could arrange seminars in the top business schools country. Also the company should facilitate online CV-posting system that is a very popular and effective practice used by the top business organizations.

Conclusion

Toiletries & Cosmetics Industry has grown in Bangladesh in the last two decades at a considerable rate. The sector consistently creates job opportunities for highly qualified people. Toiletries & Cosmetics companies are either directly or indirectly contributing largely towards raising the standard of healthcare through enabling local healthcare personnel to gain access to newer products and also to latest Toiletries & Cosmetics. As one of leading Toiletries & Cosmetics manufacturer Square Toiletries Ltd. plays a vital role in the industry as well as in the national economy.

To be successful, effortless contribution and dedication of the organizations human resource management is very much needed. To compete in international as well as in local market in adverse situation the HR managers work has become much more difficult in today’s ever changing business environment. Developing plans in a dynamic situation demands critical analysis of the situation and strict adhering to the core principal of the organization. As Square Toiletries Ltd is decentralized organization and core values are cherished by everyone within the organization, operating in dynamic situation is easier than it seems.

In this report, I have tried my level best to identify Recruitment & Selection procedures used by Square Toiletries Ltd What and how they recruit & select their employees. In this report, I imply my acquired knowledge from HR course and try to comply with the techniques procedure and systems followed by company.

With the development of healthcare infrastructure and increase of health awareness and the purchasing capacity of people, this Toiletries industry is expected to grow at a higher rate in future. So, it is a great responsibility for Square Toiletries Ltd as well as other companies in this industry to concentrate on quality product and quality service to take this industry towards further success. The Bangladesh government should also be considerable and cooperative to help the businesses flourish.