Negative Human Resource Practice: Telecommunication in Bangladesh

Letter of Transmittal March 25, 2012 Tarana Aziza Khan Lecturer (BBA Department) Northern University Bangladesh Subject: Submission of a report – “Negative HR Practice in Telecommunication Sectors of Bangladesh”. Dear Madame, Here is an assignment on – “Negative HR Practice in Telecommunication Sectors of Bangladesh”. This assignment was assigned to us for the purpose of finding the negative practices in human resource of telecommunication sectors. This report concentrates on the telecommunication sector in Bangladesh’s Perspectives.
We tried to gather a collection of information to make our report specific. Through, the procedure of preparing the report we developed a clear understanding of total scenario of the negative practices in HR, of telecommunication sectors in Bangladesh. We tried our level best to make this report as reflective as possible. We appreciate to provide any information or classification if necessary. This assignment was a great learning experience in present organizational environment. Each aspect is considered and studied as required and as per direction of our course instructor.
We would like to thank for assigning us such a responsibility and helping us on different aspects of the assignment. Yours Sincerely, Ariful AlamBBA26090370004Section: 8A| Kamrul HasanBBA26090370025Section: 8A| | | Ariful MalekBBA26090370023Section: 8A| | | Anisha FahrinBBA26090370009Section: 8A| Shipra BhattacharjeeBBA26090370008Section: 8A| Table of contents Sl. No. | Contents| Page no. | 1. | Acknowledgement| 04| 2. | Abstract| 05| 3. | Introduction| 06| 4. | About Grameenphone| 07| 5. | About Banglalink| 08| 6. Graphical and statistical analysis (question by question)| 09-28| 7. | Review of the HR situation and recommendation| 29-30| 8. | Comments| 31| 9. | Conclusion| 32| 10. | Appendix| 33| Acknowledgement The submission of this report of “Negative HR Practice in Telecommunication Sector of Bangladesh” is a great opportunity for us. The success of this assignment depends on the contributions of number of people especially who have shared their thoughtful guidance, contribution, suggestions and experience to improve this report.

This assignment has created a great deal of interest in us. We must thank a few people who help and encouraged us to grow our interest. First of all we would like to thank our honorable course instructor Tarana Aziza Khan for her proper guidance and care. Without her guidance and suggestions we couldn’t have completed this assignment properly. She has instructed us how to prepare a report correctly. Also thanks to Grameenphone and Banglalink Telecom for being patient enough to co-operate with us and completing out the surveys successfully.
We obviously would like to give a special thanks to the Almighty for giving us such patience and power for completing this assignment smoothly. Lastly we can say that, we have enjoyed in preparing this assignment and presented it for kind judgment. Abstract Purpose of this assignment is to analysis the HR situation in telecommunication companies of Bangladesh, from the Survey done with Grameenphone Ltd. , and Banglalink Telecom Ltd. We made human resource questionnaires and got Grameenphone and Banglalink employees to fill them up, and analyzed the statistic with graphs and textually.
Because it’s impossible for us to survey all 3500 employees (summing up total employees of Banglalink and Grameenphone), we surveyed 33 employees from both the companies combined. Introduction Our project paper is all about “Negative Human Resource Practice in Telecommunication Sectors of Bangladesh”. For a long period, Grameenphone and Banglalink are ruling the Bangladeshi telecommunication market. Because, there was a great deal of opportunity is gradually increasing. For all the competitions upcoming there is a great negative impact on this sector.
Thus, there are a lot of challenges and opportunities today for managers to use HR management. In our project paper we have analyzed the survey reports and statistics, and reviewed them comparatively with the negative HR practices. All the data are collected from the companies, meeting the employees face to face or over personal linkage and the primary data are collected from the interviewed survey. Our sample size is 33 individuals (both male, female entry/mid level worker and managers). We designed our questioner in a contemporary way.
Almost 90% primary data has collected from the face to face interview with the respondent. Only a 10% data has been collected through the internet. Before Grameenphone’s inception, the phone was for a selected urbanized few. The cell phone was a luxury: a flouting accessory for the select elite. The mass could not contemplate mobile telephony as being part of their lives. Grameenphone started its journey with the Village Phone program: a pioneering initiative to empower rural women of Bangladesh. The name Grameenphone translates to “Rural phone”.
Starting its operations on March 26, 1997, the Independence Day of Bangladesh, Grameenphone has come a long way. Grameenphone pioneered the then breakthrough initiative of mobile to mobile telephony and became the first and only operator to cover 98% of the country’s people with network Since its inception Grameenphone has built the largest cellular network in the country with over 13,000 base stations in more than 7000 locations. Presently, nearly 99 percent of the country’s population is within the coverage area of the Grameenphone network.
Grameenphone has always been a pioneer in introducing new products and services in the local market. GP was the first company to introduce GSM technology in Bangladesh when it launched its services in March 1997. Grameenphone was also the first operator to introduce the pre-paid service in September 1999. It established the first 24-hour Call Center, introduced value-added services such as VMS, SMS, fax and data transmission services, international roaming service, WAP, SMS-based push-pull services, EDGE, personal ring back tone and many other products and services.
The entire Grameenphone network is also EDGE/GPRS enabled, allowing access to high-speed Internet and data services from anywhere within the coverage area. There are currently nearly 2. 6 million EDGE/GPRS users in the Grameenphone network. Today, Grameenphone is the leading telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh with more than 36 million subscribers as of December 2011. Orascom Telecom Bangladesh Limited (“Banglalink”) is fully owned by Orascom Telecom Holding S. A.
E, Egypt, (“OTH”); the ultimate parent company of the group is Vimpelcom, the 6th largest mobile phone operator in the world. Banglalink was acquired by OTH in 2004, and after a complete overhaul and the deployment of a new GSM Network, its telecommunication services were re-launched under the brand name Banglalink. When Banglalink began operations in Bangladesh 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 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 and brought mobile telephone to the general people of Bangladesh and made a place in their hearts. The mobile phone has become the symbol for the positive change in Bangladesh. This positive change that is quite correctly attributed to Banglalink has become the corporate positioning of Banglalink and is translated in their slogan “making a difference” or “din bodol”. Making a difference” not only in the telecom industry, but also through its products and services, to the lives of its customers. This corporate stance of “making a difference” has been reflected in everything Banglalink does. 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 20. 05million subscribers as of April 2011, representing a market share of 27. 3%. Growth over the last 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. Graphical Analysis Options| Tally| Count| Stressed| IIII III| 8| Relaxed| IIII IIII III| 13| Okay| IIII IIII II| 12| Analytical Synopsis: In the question of how the employees are feeling, you can see most of them selected either they are relaxed or okay. 0% + 36% = 76% having the positive respond, we can infer that the work in telecommunication sector isn’t that much stressful, while about 24% of the employees are stressed on a daily basis. Options| Tally| Count| Work| IIII IIII| 10| Personal| IIII IIII| 9| Others| IIII IIII IIII| 14| Analytical Synopsis: In the question of how the employees’ stress level rises, you can see them selecting every option almost equally. However, the stress level rising from their professional life is only 30% from the sample of employees surveyed.
Which leads the other 43% + 27% = 70% having the positive respond about their work, we can again infer that the work in telecommunication sector isn’t stressful to the majority. Options| Tally| Count| There is| IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII III| 33| There isn’t| | 0| Somewhat| | 0| Analytical Synopsis: In the question of if there is enough employees for every work in their respective organizations, we can see that there is flawless victory in telecommunication sector for the recruitment count, having recruited enough employee for all the works they would need to be done.
A hundred percent of the people that we surveyed have said they are being totally supported by their organizations by distributing their works properly among employees. Options| Tally| Count| Excellent| IIII IIII II| 12| Average| IIII IIII IIII I| 16| Flawed| III| 3| There isn’t any| II| 2| Analytical Synopsis: In the respondents’ feedbacks, majority (49%) of them having selected the communication among all the employees are average; and the 36% of them has rated the communication as excellent, while rest of the minority have rated the communication system of the organization in a negative way.
Thus, we can infer from the majority having rated the communication system positively, it’s spot on. The minority probably have lack of interpersonal communication skills, causing them not to be able to interact or fit in with others. Options| Tally| Count| Yes| IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII III| 28| No| IIII| 5| Analytical Synopsis: In the question of how the organizations are supporting the employees with the technological support, we can see that there is dominant victory in telecommunication sector for the tech support, being based on full on digital works.
About 85 percent of the people that we surveyed have said they are being totally supported technologically by their organizations. The other 15% are likely to be generally frustrated, and blaming it on the organization. Options| Tally| Count| Really high| IIII IIII I| 11| Fair| IIII IIII IIII| 14| No pressure| IIII III| 8| Analytical Synopsis: In the question of how the organizations are pressuring them to reach their monthly target or goal, majority of them have responded with the answer “Fair”, which means they are satisfied with the amount of pressure given by their respective organization.
However, having a close win over the second highest selection “Really high” rate of pressure could either be good or a bad thing. It might be good because the organizations are working to make their employee more, generating more productivity out of them. On the opposite end, another close call for “No pressure” at all is also a win-lose situation. Win, because the employees will be relaxed, and less fatigued, but at the same time, the hard working employees will get de-motivated as their better works aren’t being appraised as good as they deserve.
Options| Tally| Count| Yes| IIII| 5| No| IIII IIII IIII I| 16| Unsure| IIII IIII II| 12| Analytical Synopsis: This question basically determines how much the employees know about authority’s way of thinking about the human resource policy. About 36 percent of the employees are not confident about authority’s mindset about human resource, whereas the rest 64 percent have confidently answered the question with direct yes and no, having the majority in “yes”, we’ll take it that authority is quite confident about their HR policy being flawless.
Options| Tally| Count| Fair| IIII IIII III| 13| Average| IIII IIII IIII II| 17| Flawed| III| 3| Analytical Synopsis: The majority of the employees (52 percent) have responded to it saying that they think the HR Policy is average, and another 39 percent have responded saying it is fair, both on positive account. So they’re most likely happy with the policy the way it is. The rest of the employees think the HR policy is flawed, but for their minority, it’s not a big deal. Options| Tally| Count| No, there isn’t| IIII IIII II| 12| There is| IIII I| 6|
Unsure| IIII IIII IIII| 15| Analytical Synopsis: As about 46 percent of the surveyed employees have said there was no biasness in the selection process, 18 percent has confidently said that is biasness in the selection process, and rest 36 percent are unsure of it. There’s a chance for biasness if there’s more people in the critical zone (who think there’s biasness and people who are unsure), than people that are saying there isn’t any biasness. Options| Tally| Count| There is| IIII IIII IIII III| 18| There isn’t| IIII| 5| Somewhat| IIII IIII| 10|
Analytical Synopsis: Majority of the surveyed people have let it be known that there’s equity among employees, as far as necessary at least. Although, 15 percent of the employees would beg to differ saying there isn’t any equity among employees. Considering minority level on the negative respondents, it’s probable that the minority could be wrong in some extent. Options| Tally| Count| Excellent| IIII IIII IIII| 14| Average| IIII IIII III| 13| Flawed| I| 1| There isn’t any| IIII| 5| Analytical Synopsis: Training is an important process for development of an employee.
So we decided to ask them their opinion about the effectiveness of the training process that they had gone through. Majority have responded positively saying the training is Excellent (43%), or Average (39%), and about 15 percent haven’t gone through training yet, and the rest about 3 percent, they think that the training system might be flawed. Options| Tally| Count| Majorly| IIII IIII IIII| 15| Somewhat| IIII IIII| 9| Indifferent| IIII IIII| 9| Analytical Synopsis: This question basically determines how many employees are satisfied with their performance appraisal method.
About half the employees of the organizations are happy with their performance appraisal method, and the other half feels the need of better improvising. Options| Tally| Count| Fair| IIII IIII IIII IIII | 20| Biased| IIII II| 7| Flawed| III| 3| Unsure| III| 3| Analytical Synopsis: Just as the selection method question, in this question we have tried to get their opinion about how good their promotion strategy is. 61 percent of them have answered positively, 9 percent were unsure, another 9 percent think the method is flawed and needs change, and about 21 percent thinks there’s definitely some biasness corrupting the process.
So we can infer, there might actually be some biasness in the promotion strategy, which may not be too widespread though. Options| Tally| Count| Over the top| IIII II| 7| Pretty much| IIII IIII IIII| 14| Indifferent| IIII III| 8| It’s not| IIII| 4| Analytical Synopsis: This question determines the employees’ satisfaction level with their compensation, benefits and their switching tendency. According to the statistics data and results we can infer that around 43 percent of people are happy with their compensations and benefits and another 21 percent are more than happy with their compensations as they hink they’re getting treated better than any company would treat them. Out of the rest, there’s another 24 percent who feel the need to be treated better and are kind of in a confused state, where the last 12 percent wouldn’t miss a chance to switch to some other organization because they are really unhappy with their compensations. Options| Tally| Count| No| IIII III| 8| Reasonable| IIII IIII I| 11| Extreme| IIII I| 6| Unsure| IIII III | 8| Analytical Synopsis: The majority (34%) of respondents have said the favoritism tendency among same level employees is in a reasonable extent, while 24% have said there was no favoritism tendency.
Also, another 24% is unsure about the idea of favoritism in their respective organizations, whereas 18 percent of surveyed people have said there to be an extreme level of favoritism tendency, which could just be some hoax. Options| Tally| Count| Great| IIII IIII I| 11| Average| IIII IIII III| 13| Indifferent| III| 3| Not much| IIII I| 6| Analytical Synopsis: Most of the surveyed respondents (33+40=73%) have replied in positive way saying there’s great / average opportunity to learn or grow in their organizations, whereas the other 27 percent would like to disagree saying there may not be as much opportunity out there for them.
It could be that those employees are just bored at work because of having to do the same kind of work over and over again. Options| Tally| Count| Over the top| IIII | 5| Pretty much| IIII IIII IIII IIII II| 22| Indifferent| IIII | 5| It doesn’t| I| 1| Analytical Synopsis: Majority (67+15=82%) having responded in a positive way, arranges this scenario that the job is completely secured up to their expectation, even 15% among them thinks that it’s even better than their expectation. Another 15 percent of people think that their job security could be better, and are not really much impressed with their job security.
Rest 3 percent responded plain negatively. Options| Tally| Count| Over the top| IIII IIII IIII I| 16| Pretty much| IIII IIII IIII| 15| It’s not| II| 2| Analytical Synopsis: From the statistic, we can tell the HR Departments of Telecommunication sector doesn’t hold back employees from having the chance to relax and let the stress wear off as, 49+45 = 94 percent of statistical population have responded positively, while 6 percent of the employees are probably for some reason left out, maybe for some biasness or whatsoever. Options| Tally| Count| Always| IIII IIII IIII II| 17| Sometimes| IIII IIII| 10|
Rarely| IIII I| 6| Not at all| | 0| Analytical Synopsis: Since there’s 0 percent rate of “not at all” being reached out to when necessary, there is definitely a lot of support from the authority to their subordinates there, and there’s only 18% of employees have said the authority hears them out, it could possibly be for the reason of too much stuff on going for them, having to plan and implement bigger things. Majority being 52 percent, always having good communication with the authority and 30 percent only reaches them when they have issues in their hands. Options| Tally| Count|
People that added extra comments| IIII IIII I| 11| People that didn’t add extra comments| IIII IIII IIII IIII II| 22| Analytical Synopsis: As one third of the statistical population made comments, mostly positive and a few about problems and suggestions, we might infer that the one third of the population are intellectual, and the majority two third of the statistical population not saying anything to the comment, could either mean that they’re most the time dedicated to their work, or the organization’s HR Policy isn’t giving them enough freedom to speak out, for which reason they are too timid to speak out.
Review of the report and recommendations From the above graphical and statistical analysis, we can get a rough picture of the human resource practices in those telecommunication related organizations. The dimensional analysis puts up the following picture up in my mind. Employees are more relaxed than stressed every day, and the source of the stress is hardly work life, which is a success for HR department. Even with that, HR department may take a lot of stress reducing procedures to help ease the stress level and keep the employees keen on their work.
The organizations also have good recruitment system, gathering enough skilled recruits to cover all the work as per organizational needs. There might be a little biasness in the selection process and promotion strategy, but it isn’t as bad as in other sectors, as it’s not affecting other employees’ mindset, also because even the worst recruit is skilled there. There’s also enough technical support because the organization wants their employees not to face any kind of frustration not being supported by any way.
Authority is very confident about the HR policy being decent, while most of the employees are even aware of it. There’s good employee-to-employee, employee-to-authority, authority-to-employee communication, and most of them have strong interpersonal relationship, and even the acquaintances are friendly there, having affect on the motivation level, uprising it by a sky high level. There’s pretty much a good level on equity among the employees, there could be exception in some cases but still the rate would be very low.
The organization sometimes might push the employee too much to achieve their monthly targets, but most the time the pressure level is reasonable for saying. The training process is quite good and effective but a few employees aren’t taken on any training program, whereas the employees are somewhat happy with their performance appraisal method. The compensation received is pretty much more than good for the employees, even with this highly priced lifestyle in Dhaka.
Favoritism tendency is also in reasonable extent, which is not a big problem as all of them are getting the same chance to learn and grow from working in the organization. The employees are very happy with their job security also. Human Resource Department might be too tight on them sometimes when they’re speaking out, for that they fear to speak out about the organization most the times. I think the HR department and the organization could use some improvement to make the employee satisfaction level even higher to make the most out of them. Recruits shouldn’t be selected at all in bias conditions. * Promotion strategy needs improvising. * Hear out the employees more often. * Arrange more training for employees to make sure none’s left out. * Increase the compensation of underrated employees. * Less pressure on employees, as pressure might cause stress, which isn’t good. * Appraise performance in more ways. * Take more steps to reduce stress. * Let not the employees fear you, causing them to sit shut still. * Allow employees to speak out. I would rate the telecommunication sector as followings:
HR Policy| ????? | Recruitment Policy| ????? | Selection Process| ????? | Communication| ????? | Chance to grow and learn| ????? | Compensation and benefit| ????? | Job Security| ????? | Freedom| ????? | Support| ????? | Overall| ????? | Comment From the data, we can say that most of the employees are pretty much satisfied with their HR policies and they are happy to work with the organization in both Grameenphone and Banglalink. Yes, they would need some improvement, but who doesn’t? There’s always room for improvement no matter how good you are.
In other words, the telecommunication sector has one of the best human resource management system comparative to other sectors of Bangladesh. Conclusion In the end, we can say that negative practice in HR in telecommunication is in very low rate, keeping their employees satisfied with adequate compensation and facilities that they expect. If this situation keeps up, we expect the best for the telecommunication business in the future. Appendix * Grameenphone Ltd. * Banglalink Telecom Ltd. * The Internet * Personal References