Remuneration and Recruitment Process of Banglalink
Banglalink Digital Communications limited (previously Orascom Telecom Bangladesh limited) is fully owned by telecom ventures ltd. Vimpelcom is one of the world’s largest integrated ltd. telecommunications services operators providing voice and data services through a range of traditional and broadband mobile and fixed technologies in Russia, Italy, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and many more including Bangladesh. Vimpelcom is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and listed as an ad on the Nasdaq global select market under the symbol “vip”.
Since Banglalink’s launch in February 2005, its impact was felt immediately: overnight mobile telephony became an affordable option for customers across a wide range of market segments. Banglalink’s initial success was based on a simple mission: “bringing mobile telephony to the masses” which was the cornerstone of its strategy. Banglalink changed the mobile phone status from luxury to a necessity, brought mobile telephone to the general people of Bangladesh and made a place in their hearts. The mobile phone has become the symbol for positive change in Bangladesh. The brand slogan of “start something new” is in essence derived from Banglalink’s promise of empowering people with affordable communication solutions so that they can take new initiatives in life. The company believes that, it is through such new initiatives that positive change will occur for the overall betterment of the nation. Banglalink attained 1 million subscribers by December 2005 and 3 million subscribers in October 2006. In less than two years which is by December 2007, Banglalink overtook Aktel to become the second largest operator in Bangladesh with more than 7.1 million customers. Banglalink currently has 30.9 million subscribers as of December 2014, representing a market share of 25.47%.
Banglalink’s growth over the preceding years have been fuelled with innovative products and services targeting different market segments, aggressive improvement of network quality and dedicated customer care, creating an extensive distribution network across the country, and establishing a strong brand that emotionally connected customers with Banglalink.
Corporate Social Responsibility:
Banglalink is always committed to play its role as a responsible corporate citizen to contribute in making a difference in the socio-economic development of Bangladesh. The company undertakes several projects each year for the welfare of community and preservation of the environment. Since 2005, a project of cleaning Cox’s bazar sea-beach consist of 26 female workers is cleaning 3km beach 363 days a year in 2 shifts where another team of 7 male workers are there to support regarding cleaning heavy dirt and rubbish from the beach. Moreover, Banglalink donates blankets at orphanages, special arrangements for Hajj pilgrims at the Hajj camp, water and date distribution at the orphanages during the month of Ramadan and so on.
Job activities:
Banglalink treats its interns as the other employees of this firm. Interns get opportunity to discover themselves as young corporate and to understand what a professional world is. Banglalink provides the environment to the interns to learn through culture. As an intern, I used to do jobs those were usually done by any other employees of the organization. I used to work as an intern in Remuneration and Recruitment division of HR department. My core responsibilities were assigned by my internship supervisor.
Remuneration:
I was in the duty of Remuneration and Recruitment team. Let me start with the first half of my duty, Remuneration. My duty was to take care of the medical claim of the employees in Banglalink and the remuneration team assigned me with its responsibility. In Remuneration team the duty of this position is to assist in Medical claim of the employees. Employee applies for Life Insurance on the day of their joining through a prescribed form shared by Pragati. After being a member of Pragati the employees can submit their medical claim through online system. By coordinating with the representative of Pragati, the medical claim has been settled in a certain time. In this case many employees have many queries regarding medical issues and as an Intern I assist the employees by facilitating the news from Pragati. In spite of these responsibilities I have been worked for projects in this issue.
Medical Claim by Employees
I have been provided a corporate “sim” from the office where the limit of credit is 5000bdt per month. I was allowed to call anywhere in Bangladesh (including personal use) but not in abroad. Employees used to contact me when any kind of assistance needed. Every employee of Banglalink Digital Communications Ltd. applies for Life Insurance on the day of their joining through a prescribed form shared by Pragati Life Insurance Ltd. When the employees become the member of Pragati, they claim their medical via online if required. After that I used to go to the representative of Pragatito check the necessary documents of the claim. The claim then used to be cleared within 15 working days. Whenever the cheque in the names of those employees used to be hand over to me then I used to contact them via e-mail to come and collect their hardcopies of cheques. Therefore, in this case, employees may need information and as an intern I assist in exchanging the information between Pragati and employees.
Issuing Insurance Card
If the insurance card of Pragati is required by the employees of Banglalink Digital Communications Ltd. then the employees are used to claim the card from the company via me. As an intern, I used to forward the claim to that particular representative of the insurance company with some information of the respected employees i.e. passport size picture and employee ID. After issuing the claim, the company used to take 15 working days to hand over the insurance card to the respected employees.
Maintaining Files
At the time of claiming the medical expense to the insurance company, the employees need to have the complete documents. If the documents or some of the information goes missing, the representative of Pragati used to contact me to communicate with the employees regarding the
missing documents or information. I, as an intern by checking out the updated prototype, used to forward those information or documents to the Pragati representative.
Updating Data
I have to keep all the information updated regarding medical claim, insurance card and cheque in respective excel file every day.it is important because any day any time any employee can ask any information regarding these claim status, and I have to provide all the necessary information to them.
Recruitment Duties:
Now let me focus on the second half of my internship duty, recruitment. In the recruitment team core duties are to collect CVs from different sources and maintaining the CV archive. Banglalink collects CVs through personal references, websites, online job portals and social media (LinkedIn, Facebook), etc. Beside this, an intern is required to maintain the CV archive by sorting those CVs based on different criteria such as years of experiences, academic background, institution, results, areas of expertise and the candidate’s suitable position, etc.
Assisting in Screening CVs
When any resume used to be collected by Banglalink staffs or by internet, I used to store those in my “CV Bank”. I was taught with the criteria and minimum requirements so, preliminary resume screening was done by me.
Make Phone Calls
After screening the CVs, I used to pass it to my supervisor and whenever there was a need occurred regarding candidates for a particular department, my supervisor used to pick up some of the preliminary screened resumes and asked me to call those candidates for knowing the interview schedule.
Interview coordination
My supervisor used to arrange an interview session between the interested candidates and their “to be” line manager on a particular date. My job was to inform the candidates about the interview session and ask their confirmation whether they would be available or not or which time would be convenient for them. By this, the meeting used to be confirmed. At the day of the ultimate interview, I used to call concerned manager after the arrival of the candidate for showing up on the particular interview room for conducting the interview. Sometimes, I used to be in the interview panel at the position of the interviewer.
Aptitude test &script checking
Just right before the final interview, the candidates may have to sit for an aptitude test for 15 minutes. I was used to conduct those tests and check the answer scripts of the candidates according to the instructions provided by the line manager.
Preparing Joining Letter
Furthermore I am responsible to prepare the joining letters too. When an employee is offered contract in Banglalink s/he must sign a joining letter addressing to her/his concerned department with a sign of her/his line manager and a sign of Director of HR department. After preparing the contract papers I have to provide and help each and every employee to sign their new contract. As Banglalink sustains specific file for individuals, so those files are need to be updated when an employee signs a new contract.
Exit interview
During resignation, an employee needs to fill up an exit interview form, where the information as like the reason of leaving the organization, where he/she is leaving, how was Banglalink’s services towards them and etc. I was supposed to conduct that exit interview too.
Recruitment Process of Banglalink
Banglalink is one of the leading organizations in the telecom manufacturing of Bangladesh. It follows a very explicit, refined and reliable process in their recruitment. There are own rationalization and corroboration in each and every step of recruitment process. All the steps of this process are needed to choose the best possible candidate from the pool of applicants to whom the job can be offered by keeping the design of international standard. To discuss the recruitment process of Banglalink it would be better to show the recruitment team.
Requisition
The process begins with the requisition. Because of the resignation of an employee there is an opening in the organization. Then the concerned department sends a headcount requisition form to recruitment division of HR department. The headcount requisition form includes how many employees the department needs regarding level. Apart from the resignation there can be openings because of the organizational restructure, departmental redesign, reshape in the divisions, termination of any employees, retirement or any new projects. The recruitment team confirms the availability of budgets to fulfill the openings after receiving the requisition form.
After that the recruitment team goes for the next step as availability of funds ensures the salary and benefits for new recruits.
Hiring information
The recruitment division collects the hiring information after checking the budget. The information for the vacant post consists of dedicated position, level in the hierarchy, department, division, job location, reporting process, job description, job specification, required expertise and experience etc. Recruitment division also accumulates the information whether the concerned department wants the vacancy to be filled by internally, externally or by both.
Planning
After collecting all information, planning and sharing plans started within the department and recruitment division where employee will be recruited. Then the plan states the total activities and specified time frame for the recruitment to be complete. The plan sharing includes how long it will take to announce the opening, to collect CVs, conduct different tests and interviews and to make the final selection. Through planning the post for this organization is pre-planned through certain level. The rank and posts in the company has been divided into two specific categories: Permanent, Temporary/Contractual.
Temporary/Contractual posts include the entire Officer posts; for example: Care line Officer, Care Center Officer, Care Line Trainee, Acquisition Officer, etc. All those employees are given 6 months (six months) or 1 year (one year) of contracts.
Job Advertisement
After the plan sharing the recruitment team announce the vacancy in different portals based on the decision of internal/external recruitment by the concern department. Internal recruiting motivates employees within the organization. It increases productivity by giving the employees feel that their hard work would be rewarded. For internal process the vacancy announcement is published through flashes (internal emails and company intranet) only. Through employee referrals, transfers, promotion etc. the internal recruitment can be done. Besides for external recruitment process the advertisement publishes in different media like company website, personal references, online job portals, HR consultancy firms & head hunter agencies and social medias (LinkedIn, Facebook). The main objective of this process is to identify and attract the best possible applicants available during that period of time.
Resume Compilation
HR department considers the human resource as the most important asset of the company and tries to motivate their employees in every possible way. HR department always encourages other departments to fill up the vacancy by internally to provide the employees better career opportunity. After the announcement the recruitment team starts to collect resumes from different sources. After collecting the resumes those resumes are shortlisted in two steps.
Initially the recruitment team screens the resumes based on the requirements of the job and sends those shortlisted resumes to the concerned department. The department screens those resumes again and sends the final shortlisted resumes to HR department for scheduling the tests and interviews.
Call for Tests and Interviews
After receiving the shortlisted resumes the recruitment team prepares the IQ tests, functional tests, interviews schedule. Usually the IQ test is taken by the HR department and the functional test is taken by the departments where vacancies will be filled up. There are some certain policies in the recruitment process. If an existing employee applies for a vacancy in the same department then s/he will face the interviews only; s/he does not need to sit for the IQ and functional tests. In contrast if an employee works in a department and applies for a vacancy in another department then s/he needs to sit for the functional test but not for the IQ test.
Those candidates who are external staffs apply for a vacancy announcement s/he has to face both interviews and tests. The IQ test contains the English, Mathematical, Logical Reasoning and analytical ability of a candidate. If a candidate gets the pass mark in IQ Test then s/he has to sit for a functional test which contains questions related to the actual job that verifies the caliber of a candidate about her/his education, leaning and knowledge. Other than these two tests many jobs requires to check the computer skills of an applicant. The candidates who are entitled for computer test are required to sit in front of a desktop and asked to solve problems with different software, applications and even the skill of Microsoft Office is also being checked in this test.
Initial Interview
After passing all those tests the candidate is considered eligible for the interviews. No one can go to the interview phase without passing each of the tests separately. The initial interview takes place right after the tests. In first interview a candidate face the interview board consists one from the recruitment team mentioned and one or higher level official from the department the new recruit will join. The line manager checks whether the candidate is suitable for the job with her/his current ability, functional knowledge and technical knowhow. On the other hand the HR personnel verify the candidates’ personality, behavior, and attitude to ensure that s/he is fit for the organization. Later on candidates who are passed from initial interview are asked to face another interview with the head of the division. In this interview the unit/division head analyzes the ability of a candidate in terms of team work, decision making, planning & organizing, strategic thinking and leadership etc.
Final Interview
A few candidates are called to face the final interview with the HOD (Head of the Department) after interview. HOD selects the final candidates to whom a job can be offered. After successful completion of all steps the recruitment team gives a verbal offer to the candidate. This verbal off er gives a clear idea about the compensation & benefits, incentives, the job location, the joining date, the level in the hierarchy and the dead line for accepting the offer to the successful candidate.
Medical and Physical Examination
After accepting the verbal offer the candidate has to face the final test which is called medical checkup. Then the recruitment team asks the candidate to go for a medical checkup/fitness which is bared fully by Banglalink. After receiving the medical reports from the assigned hospital the candidate is called to sign her/his appointment letter if s/he is medically (physically & mentally) fit. No one is offered a job in Banglalink if a candidate is confirmed as medically unfit.
Permanent Job Offer
Medically fit candidates are called to visit the head office to sign the appointment letter on a suitable date. Once the signing is done the candidate is given a particular date to join which means s/he is entitled to report to her/his line manager on the day of joining at the concerned department.
Findings and Analysis:
When I was an intern in Banglalink, I came up with some findings and analysis. Some of the findings and analysis are given below.
- The Gender Distribution in the Company:
Majority of the employees in the company are male and the minority are female. In almost every department, more men are working compared to the women. According to my point of view, this may be done due to pressure of the work and staying late in the office. As women need to go home early, in some major sectors of work, they are not been recruited. For example, the post where I used to work as an intern is not suitable for any female person due to frequent outfield works.
- Age Analysis of the Employees:
After my work experience in Banglalink and from the data of the other interns, it can be stated that about sixty percentage of the employee were between 26 to 30 years. If we consider the age of the employees we can obtain that most of the employees are young who belong to age group of 26-30. This means that Banglalink recruits people of young age and provide them the chance to expand themselves and contribute to the growth of the organization efficiently. Those who are in the age group of 31 to 35 years are more seniors and trained than the group of 26 to 30 years.
- Working position of the employees:
The working positions of the employees are divided in to three categories which are Entry Level, Mid Level and Top Level. In Banglalink, the number of Entry Level employees is comparatively lower than Mid Level employees as the Mid Level employees have to work more than the Entry Level employees and Top Level employees. Therefore, HR department recruits Mid Level employees more.
- Analysis of the Time Duration of the Employees:
During my internship period, I have found majority of the employees in the HR & Administration department who have passed already two to five years in Banglalink. There are a very less number for Entry level but more than the Top level employees.
- Analysis of the Concerned Departments of the Employees Working in:
As more people are going in and out frequently from marketing, it seems most of the employees were from Marketing Department. If any intern goes for any survey, he/she will find employees hardly from HR & Admin Department. Marketing department plays a very important role in any every organization. Therefore Banglalink recruits for Marketing department more than the other departments.
- Analysis on Mixed Recruitment Process (Internal &External:
During my internship program I asked a question several time, whether the recruitment process should be external or internal, and almost everyone I had found agreeable towards mixed the process if one of them seems unable to fill the gap.
- Analysis on effectiveness of the recruitment process:
Employees think the current recruitment process is not lengthy and time consuming. The recruitment team is doing their works nicely and recruiting desired candidates for their respective post. Moreover, the recruitment team does not feel the recruitment process is costly.
- Remuneration Analysis:
Pragati Life insurance company works with Banglalink which guarantees the medical costs of employees. Both the existing and upcoming employees are pleased with this facility provided by the company. Not only the employee, but also the children and spouse of that employee get this benefit.
Employees enjoy a smart amount of bonuses added with the regular salary if any occasion takes place i.e. eid bonus, bonus based on performance and gross amount in employee’s marriage. Some employees also can charge for transport costs from the company which is a big facility for them.
Things I Learned
- Just –in-Time: I got the opportunity to enhance my time management skills. I often had to work under pressure within a given timeframe. Learning time management was quite effective in knowing how to prioritize importance.
- Multitasking: When doing one task i.e. dealing with medical claims with maximum concentration, I often had to deal with several commands from other team members for example, photocopying, scanning, and visiting Tiger’s Den. I was instructed to do anything and everything for employees of Human Resource and Adminstration.
- Concentration: This is the biggest learning that I have managed to develop gradually while working at the Banglalink Digital Communications Ltd.
- Dealing the difficult moments: I used to commit mistakes when I was new on my works. Those were mainly because could not adapt myself with the transition. I sometimes felt bored and work load was huge but never gave up on it. I knew this internship was a suitable platform for me to reshape my dreams and make them come true, so I focused on my job with outmost sincerity and full concentration.
My Experience
I joined Banglalink for gaining a professional experience for myself which will help me in my corporate life. While doing this internship in Human Resource and Administration, I obtained many experiences of corporate life. The compensation for a month period was BDT 6,000 and free lunch, which brought an inspiring attitude inside me. No matter what the amount is but it was the very first earning of mine which acted as a preliminary experience of getting salary.
Though a rumor goes like interns have to do photocopy and scanning only and very less to be learned, at Banglalink, the scenario was quite different. Actually, I got the privilege and opportunity to learn the details and basics of various different activities. I was always taught why a particular task was carried out before handling the task itself so that I do not just perform clerical tasks without knowing the reason but also know why I was performing the task. I was fortunate enough to get a helpful supervisor. It provided me with the experience of being helpful in corporate world. Overall the experience proved to be successful and helpful.
Interaction with Supervisor and Other Team Members
My interaction was quite well with my supervisor and other team members in Human Resource and Administration. It was not like a typical office environment which is quite boring. During my internship period, ICC World Cup 2015 was going on which made my relation better with my seniors. It brought us close. Sometimes I also used to talk about random stuffs i.e. foods, movies, and current affairs with my team members.
Before signing out, I used to report to my supervisor every single day. One of my seniors even clarified me the procedures of applying in Banglalink. Overall, all of the employees of the division were friendly, inspiring and motivating.
Recommendation
After the analysis on Banglalink, to me, the company is almost at its perfect stage with the internship role. Almost, each and every thing is being covered by Banglalink within the internship period. They offer us lunch, pool sim and those other entire intangible benefits i.e. good working environment, well behavior, co-cooperativeness but I could find out somesectors where the company needs improvement. Without these, I have nothing to recommend about the HR & Administration department of this multinational organization.
As a business graduate, I believe in diversity. There should be diversity in our activities in the corporate world. The more diversification of works can beget the greater success in an individual’s life.
As an intern in Banglalink, I used to work on remuneration and recruitment and no other activities more. Banglalink should come up with some more projects for its interns every single month (within 90 days) and the line managers should assign those to them. This is how; the diversity of the work will increase the scope of learning.
In addition, there is disarrangement in archive center where all the documents of Banglalink Digital Communication Ltd are being kept. I found a huge problem in finding some old records there as all the files are kept haphazardly. If the files can be kept by the designation, I think it will be better for anyone to find out the documents.
The last but not the least, the recruitment team is facing a problem of time management. In my internship period I found an average of 10-15 minutes late in every interview session. I have found it very odd when a candidate did not attend the interview after waiting for 25 minutes in the waiting room. Therefore, I think the recruitment team should be taken care of it.
Conclusion
Banglalink Digital Communications Ltd. is one of the largest telecommunication organizations of the country that serves millions of subscribers. In order to serve the whole country, this organization recruits right people forthright positions of each department with attractive remuneration and motivation as it is driven by one of the most modern Human Resource Department. The recruitment process becomes the most significant enterprise-wide strategic function not only to achieve goals and objectives but also to withstand the current global competitive atmosphere. I have worked on both the Recruitment Process and the remuneration of Banglalink. I have discussed previously where the company can have the developments in the both departments.
This study helped me to gain the practical knowledge of recruiting people in big organizations and motivation of the employees in terms of changing process. Beside knowing the corporate culture, this report has helped me to get a comprehensive idea to grow in my future endeavor. Despite of having some blemishes in recruitment system Banglalink follows one of the effective ways to recruit people. Finally, I would say that recruitment process of Banglalink Digital Communications Limited is also contemporary and harmonious compared to other organizations in the industry and the remuneration team is continuously trying their best for the employees’ welfare.
