Main objective of this report is to get a clear view about what is actually happening in the area of Human Resource Management of the selected business organization, here focus on City Bank Limited. Every organization comprises of people. Acquiring their services, developing their skills, motivating these phones high levels of overall performance, and ensuring that they still maintain their commitment towards organization are essential regarding achieving organizational objectives. It’s the same important for us seeing that potential business executives to assemble information about the applicable scenario of Human Resource Management.
Introduction
In business, there are very few similarities- sometimes even contradictions- between theories and practices and Human Resource Management is the most crucial part of a business. But actually in this area or of a business organization, the highest contradiction and conflict between theories and actual life practices exist. Management, particularly human resource management, in real life is not that easy like the theories. The intention of this report is to find out the actual picture in the growing business organizations of Bangladesh, particularly in the private sector. According to the direction of our course instructor, all of the students of our class, divided into groups consisting of two members selected a single organization each without overlapping and surveyed on the Human Resource/Personnel/Administrative Department of the organization. We choose the City Bank Ltd., one of the leading private sector banks in our country, to work on.
Objectives:
This report has some specific objectives to achieve and these objectives areas follows.
- To have a clear view about what is actually happening in the area of Human Resource Management of the selected business organization.
- Every organization is made up of people. Acquiring their services, developing their skills, motivating them to high levels of performance, and ensuring that they continue to maintain their commitment to the organization are essential for achieving organizational objectives. So it is important for us as potential business executives to gather information about the prevailing scenario of Human Resource Management. In this report, we are more concerned about what is happening other than what ought to happen in the HRM/Personnel department of the selected organization.
- An indirect objective of this report is to have some practical experience on how the communication is done in the business world and develop our communication skill.
Scope:
This report is some sort of case study. So the scopes of this report are limited. The first scope of this report is to have practical experience about how a research is done in the business organizations. The report has the scope to cover different aspects of Human Resource Management, which include Human Resource Planning, recruitment and selection procedures, selection devices, job analysis, job design, training and development, and salary and compensation administration. We discuss only one organization throughout this report, that is, the City Bank Ltd.
Methodology:
In order to supplement our theoretical knowledge of Human Resource Management with practical exposure, we contacted different organizations and collected data regarding real life scenario. In doing so, we followed a set procedure, which is as follows:
Selecting the Organization:
We, 55 students in our Human Resource Management course, decided to take one organization per group of two for preparing report on the HRM department of that organization. We selected the City Bank Ltd., and submitted an inception report to our course instructor informing him about the organization which we are working with. The approval letter, that our teacher gave us, helped us a lot to communicate with the organization.
Collection of Information:
The approach of investigation was like a case study or action research. We contracted with one officer in the Administration Department in the organization and gathered data through him. Mainly we used interview for gathering necessary information about the HRM activities of the organization. For collecting data we had to first make appointment with the officer and then sit with him according to his schedule. Most of the time, we sat with him after the lunch break for data collection.
Findings
The Organization:
We are doing this report on the human resource management practice of “The City Bank Ltd.” The City Bank Ltd. started its journey in the service sector on March 27, 1983 with only with one branch. But, now it has 76 branches throughout the whole country and serves its clients proudly. Head office of this bank is at 10 Dilkusha C/A (Jibon Bima Tower) Dhaka. The general information about the organization is as follows as of December 31, 1998:
Registration date : March 14, 1983
Formal inauguration : March 27, 1983
Number of workers:
a) Executives : 228
b) Officers : 380
c) Service Employee: 1051
d) Staff : 152
Total : 1811
Capital:
a) Authorized Capital : Tk. 400000000
b) Paid in Capital : Tk. 160000000
c) Working Capital : Tk. 263119640
Total : Tk. 823119640
Number of shareholders : 2571
Types of services
a) Depository Service
b) L/C Service
c) Endorsement Service
d) Credit Scheme
HRM in the City Bank Ltd.:
When we contacted in the City Bank Ltd., we came to know that the organization has a department called ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENT, which is actually their Human Resource Management department. This department, in the organization, performs a wide range of tasks, though all of the HRM practices are not in the organization. All the branches of the bank do not have the HRM or such department. Sony the head office has it; so this one department has to keep track of all the employees in al the branches. This department performs the duty of recruiting, selecting, training and development, motivating, job designing, performance appraisal and rewarding and giving benefits etc.
Recruitment:
For recruitment the organization follows al the possible ways of recruitment.
Internal Search:
First of all, the Administration Department searches for the capable person for any vacant post within the organization. It means that, they promote the lower order workers to upper order in the organizational chart. But for this promotion every employee has to have some qualifications and these are:
(a) The employee must have a certain degree to be promoted
(b) S/he must be senior to the employees in his/her department
(c) S/he must have to serve the organization for at least for a fixed period of time. This period is a variable for different posts. Such as, for promotion in the same department one worker only needs seniority and two years of service in the organization. But for promotion from service level to officer level, one must have at least four years of service in the same post in the organization, which is six years for promotion to executive level from officer level.
Employee Referrals/Recommendations:
If the above process does not meet the requirement, the organization then goes for Employee Referrals or Recommendations. They suggest their employees to recommend some eligible persons for vacant posts and then test those persons and if they pass, give them the opportunity to work in the organization. Usually, service and staff level workers are recruited through this process.
Advertisement:
When the organization requires quite a large number of workers at one time, they go for advertisement in the national dailies. Normally service or junior level officers, but sometimes, senior officers are also recruited through this process. Candidates with the required qualification apply with a full bio-data and with a hand-written application. The application is not granted if it is not written by the applicant himself.
Selection:
The banks selection procedure is as follows:
Initial Screening:
First, through the initial screening process, they sort out the applications of those who have the actual qualifications [Degree, age, experience (if necessary)] for the post. Then these candidates are sent the admit card for the employment test.
Employment Test:
The City Bank Ltd. has a two step employment test- the written test and the interview. The bank contacts with some other organizations, like IBA, BIBM or any other institute, to conduct the written test for them. The bank sails the boat in that organization, where their cost will be minimal. The selected organization then takes the written test, screens out the answer sheets and sends the number-sheet to the bank. The bank has a preset standard score and those who have scored more than or equal to that score are called for the interview. The bank itself conducts the interview. The bank hires reputed banking specialists within the country for conducting the interview. After the interview the total marks of the written test and the interview are added. Those who are at the top of the final list get the opportunity to serve in the organization. The background checking of the employee is done at the interview time and through the bio-data the candidates submit.
Final Selection:
The candidates who pass both the written test and the interview are considered for final appointment. Within those candidates the required number of employees are taken and given the final appointment. These employees have to fill up an appointment form at the time of joining. (The form is attached with the report in the Appendix I). Those of them, who are currently employed, do not have a previous banking experience have to go serve as a trainee for at least two years. Those who have previous experience are not necessarily need to be trained. Sometimes the selected employee has to submit a bond that, s/he will not leave the organization before certain years of service.
Employee Training and Development:
The City Bank Ltd. has a system of training the employees on a regularly basis, particularly the newly appointed employee. The bank has a training institute of its own with high computer facilities, where every year some training courses are completed. The bank sometimes sends its employees to other organizations for more training. In the last year (1998) the bank trained 291 employees in 15 courses in its own institute and also got 81 employees trained in various 30 courses conducted by the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM). In the current year the bank has also taken some training program.
Motivation:
One of the main criteria for effective human resource management is motivation. For the desired result of any organization, motivating the employees is very important. So the City Bank Ltd. also tries to motivate its employees. But the bank does not have a standard motivational process. It motivates only with the help of increment. One thing about this increment is that it has no specific period. The increments may be annual, semi-annual or quarterly, depending upon the overall performance of the workers and the bank itself.
The human resource officer informed us that they believe in McGregor’s “Theory Y” and emphasize the safety and love need for all employees. So besides the increment, the bank sometimes tries to motivate the employees by full-filling their required needs of the employee. But as it is a centralized organization, management plays a big role with the administrative department in determining these motivating factors. The bank is always cautious that all the hygiene factors are present in the environment and that if the employees are not motivated, at least they are not de-motivated.
Performance Appraisal:
Unlike the selection, training and motivation process the City Bank Ltd. does not have a standard performance appraisal process. Though it has a system but it is not very effective according to Mr. Mushtaque Ahmed. Actually the problem is that the bank does not have a standard set of performance evaluation System. The performance evaluation and appraisal is therefore done mostly by the observation on how the employee is doing or dealing with a client. The City Bank Ltd. has a special unit, under its Administrative Department, to conduct this performance evaluation and appraisal. This unit keeps its eyes on the performance of all the employees throughout the year and suggests necessary actions (Reward or Punishment) where it is necessary. Sometimes special task committee visits any branch without any precaution. In this way the bank conducts its performance measurement and appraisal process.
Reward System:
As the bank does not have any specific performance evaluation and appraisal system it does not provide any standard reward system. If any employee can really impress the authority by his/her extra-ordinary performance s/he is then usually financially rewarded, which comparatively has a low effect on the employee who is in quite a higher level of the organizational ladder. On the whole, increment is the only reward that the bank uses for motivating or appreciating its employees.
Benefit Package:
Though the City Bank Ltd. does not have a satisfactory performance appraisal or reward system, it has a very good benefit package. Firstly, for the staff level workers the bank provides uniform and its maintenance expenditure (Officials and managers don’t need any uniform). The bank also has a package of different types of leaves for all level of employees. The bank provides a satisfactory annual leave, sick leave and casual leave. The bank has provided the opportunity for the employees to have extra leave for emergency situation. Female workers get three months long maternity leave twice in their working lives in this organization. Besides this leave package the bank provide an opportunity for the employees to have a provident fund, which the bank and the employee share equally (5% contributed by both the worker and the employer). The bank provides “Fringe Benefits” for its executive level employees. A clear list of the benefit package of the City Bank Ltd. is given in the appendix (Appendix Page III).
Compensation Administration:
The bank thinks that its compensation package is very sensitive and confidential and cannot be exposed to the people from outside. Here we are again very grateful to Mr. Mushtaque Ahmed for providing us with some portion of this confidential information. The bank’s pay structure is pretty much dependent on job evaluation. It means that the bank tries to compensate according to the job difficulty or in other words job hierarchy.
The bank compensate firstly by ‘classification method’ of job evaluation and then by ‘ranking method’. While compensating any worker, the bank first determines the class of that post. (The City Bank Ltd. has four classes of employees – Executives, Officers, Service Workers and Staffs). After classifying, the bank, determines the rank of the post within the classification and compensates according to the compensation scale. The Administrative Officer could not provide us with the pay scale because of some internal problems but informed us that the compensation scale is attractive enough for the employees working in the bank.
Besides this normal pay scale, the bank has special compensation system for the higher level employees (the Executive Level employees). The bank provides these employees not only according to the standard scale but also some additional services like providing residence, telephone etc.
Recommendations
We can conclude that, the City Bank Ltd. has a formalized procedure of practice in some area of human resource management but in other areas, the practice is very poor. Based on our findings, we have some recommendations that we think will be helpful in the bank’s HRM policy.
Recommendations:
- The bank should increase the total number of trained employee year by year.
- The bank should undertake other incentives along with increments to motivate employees. Non-monetary incentives might be a great motivation for the officers and service workers.
- The bank should also introduce gain-sharing approaches to motivate its employees. Profit-sharing can be considered in this aspect. Also, after serving the bank for a certain amount of time, the bank may provide the employees with partial ownership of the bank. This will reduce turnover.
- The bank does not have any practice of “Human Resource Survey”, which is a negative point for the bank’s Administrative Department. Therefore, this practice should be introduced to the bank’s HRM policies.
- The bank may provide insurance benefits (especially health-related and life insurance) to the employees as an additional motivating factor.
- At present, the bank does not have any systematic practice of employee counseling. Such a practice might be beneficial to the employees.
