Human Resource Department is a vital department for any organization because it plays an important role in objective setting, aligning mission and vision with company strategy and setting performance standards for employees.
Though all Telecom companies do have well established Human Resource Departments but still there functioning is not optimum and there is a need to improve certain procedures and processes.
The major issue with Human Resource Departments in the telecom industry is that they are centralized. For almost all of the companies there human resource departments are only limited to Head offices (Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad). Though the cellular companies have their offices established across the country but no HR Professionals are available there to coach the employees.
Cellular companies should decentralize there HR departments and access to HR professionals for employees should be easy. They should be available to coach and guide employees regarding certain procedures and issues.
HR department should organize regular meeting and coaching sessions for employees and should keep close relation with them so that employees of distant areas shouldn’t feel distressed.
Due to this centralization the distantly located employees don’t get much know how of HR policies and procedures and moreover they don’t get much chances for recreation and other activities organized by HR department as most of the activities are organized in Major cities (Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad).
Another important issue is that the number of HR Professionals in all of these organizations is very much less. Not more than 100-150 HR employees are in any company (even there may be less number of HR employees than this). Due to this reason a single HR employee has to look after the issues and problems of more than 100-200 employees. Due to this they are not able to have close relationship and knowledge of their fellows.
Though all companies talk about considering employees as Human Capital and valuing them equally but in fact their words differ much from their actions. Still HR department is being treated as Personnel & Clerical department in actual. Still role of HR is limited to devising policies and procedures but they are not being taken onboard for their implementation.
Still HR department is not involved in Performance appraisals as the fate of employees depend upon the discretion of their Line Managers. In most of the cases even if employees are performing well, they do have to accept the ratings given by managers because of the reason of no check and balance by HR department.
In case of recruitment in any department role of HR department is limited to creating Job Descriptions and HR professionals are limited to just an observer during interview or issuing appointment letter to newly hired employees.
The training and development programs should be organized keeping in view the needs of individuals rather than imposing only department decided trainings for them and all employees should be given equal participation to attend trainings so that every one can enhance his/her ability.
Another important issue is lack of proper compensation plan to cater employee needs which is a big source of de-motivation for any employee. Unfortunately celco’s spend a large portion of their revenues on advertisement and paying huge salaries to their CEO’s and top management and hence to cover up these costs lower grade employees are paid low salaries. This result in low performance of the employees.
So HR department should make it sure that all employee are paid as per their performances and market standards and they should also keep inflation level in account while offering salaries.
The need of the hour is that Cellular companies should take on board their Human Resource Departments while designing all the policies and procedures. It shouldn’t work as a dummy department but it should have some actual role for the company and most importantly for employees.
The number of employees in HR department should be increased and it should be de-centralized. Moreover HR department should develop such strategies as to treat all employees equal regardless of gender, ethnicity. More practical steps in right directions will not only help in winning employees trust but will also help company to achieve its desired goals.
This is a problem across Pakistan, not only telco’s, and we must raise these issues for the protection of employee rights.
I request you to review this article at http://tiny.cc/cfzaa and re-post or highlight it somewhere for the well being of those who are crushed by organizational neglect and/or politics!
Many Thanks!
PS: the article is about MCB Bank Limited and how they are treating their employees.
pathic Bank as per HR polices MCB
In Pakistan HR must be read as “Achar” :D
Very true. HR is only required to issue layoff letters these days. Miserable job indeed
first of all, good article.
thing that you have discussed known as “Decentralization”.
in most of the companies around the world, HR is known as “Thaana” (police station) department.
if u just look around your colleagues, they would have fear of getting away from HR visits to regional offices and one more important thing
“Inn say banna k rako agar promotion lainee hai”
Because they handle and under HR department indirect influences. Even managers use to portray HR department as bad and sometimes very tactfully they get output of subordinates because of all this.
Just look before WW-II , same thing had happened @ that time to the countries where no human rights were least concerned by the authorities.
But after WW-II , Management Scientists have changed the paradigms and so far they keep on doing and ruling the world.
Another point that is “Appraisals” ,, This whole is because of Managers involvement .. because they want to have an impression on their subordinates like “you are under control of manager” .
just like we do see in our universities , to control students “Professors” uses different decent “Lashes” to handle students like Absent ism and extra curricular activities marks.bla bla…
So, for changing all of this, There might be need to change the whole system.
There is dire need to practice “HR” the ORIGINAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT in the organizations. Which is as it is ” Department for the Employees and eventually for the betterment of organization”….
I like this article, as this is something which enhanced my knowledge, I am student of bachelors from kinnaird, and my university assigned thesis, which should be based on primary research, so I choose MCB as organization and human resource its department but please can you guys help me for identifing problems related to HR other than employe turnover rate