Abstract

The organizations in the world are ultimately in pressure for worldwide competition, to fight
with recession and to cope with the changing globalization. The banking sector should be on the
top in this case among all other companies as its the core economic backbone for every other
sector. Organizations that have appeared as victors are those which utilize all the people in the
organization, and most importantly their skills. Actually success in this global context is only
possible when an organization is strategically fit in vital parameters like HRM, workforce,
leadership and diversity in power. The paper has been prepared on the Human Resource
Management in the commercial banks in Bangladesh by sorting them into four categories. As a
financial organization, a bank deals with money. So their success mainly depends how well they
can manage the money and how efficiently they can make their people do the right thing. These
people are their employees and ultimately the efficiency and effectiveness of the employees
impacts on the banks success. In modern economic era, the most valuable assets in an
organization is their human i.e. employees.

In Bangladesh, the banks have better HRM

management as all the banks ensures selecting quality persons. The practices of HRM and HR
planning have been presented here the way these are practiced by the commercial banks. The
objective of the paper has also been to present the human resource planning of this bank. There
are findings on the HRM process and practices which show that all the banks are nearly similar
in HRM practice though depending on category, there are some specialties. There are some
recommendations to avoid any future shortcomings and making the HRM practices updated with
the modern context.

1. Introduction
HRM can make significant contribution to organizational goal attaining plan and enforce
strategic plans capitalizing those into banks performance. The absolute function of HR in the
present banking industry is to facilitate the performance improvement of its persons involving in
all the departments. Factors relating to HR include skill, knowledge, efficiency, effectiveness of
the personnel and so on and these factors are directly related to the competitiveness of the firm in
the market. The quality of HR actually implies the capability of banks to provide best service and
value to the customers. With the gradual changes of time, people are much more depending on
banking services to manage money, transfer if necessary, and finance in numerous business
project as well as in personal needs. So its necessary to develop the banking practices in to
provide better day-to-day banking services to the clients. Hence, as a service oriented sector, a
bank should believe that its customers are all in all for their survival and prosperity. Bangladesh
govt. and the central bank i.e. Bangladesh Bank have extended considerable assistance in every
area of banking.
After the independence, banking industry of our country started its journey with only 11 banks
including 6 nationalized commercialized banks, 3 Foreign Banks and 2 state owned specialized
banks. In the 1980's, this industry gained important expansion as a result of the entrance of
private banks. Today, banks in Bangladesh are of two types basically:
Scheduled Banks: These banks get license to operate under Bank Company Act, 1991 which
was Amended in 2003.
Non-Scheduled Banks: The banks which are established for special and specific objectives and
which are operated under the acts that are enacted for meeting up those objectives. These banks
cannot perform all functions of scheduled banks.

There are 56 scheduled banks in Bangladesh currently according to the Bangladesh Banks
website. These banks operate under full control and supervision of Bangladesh Bank which is
empowered to do so through Bangladesh Bank Order, 1972 and Bank Company Act, 1991. The
Scheduled Banks are following types:
State Owned Commercial Banks (SOCBs): There are 4 SOCBs which are fully or majorly
owned by the Government of Bangladesh.
Specialized Banks (SDBs): 4 specialized banks are now operating which were established for
specific objectives like agricultural or industrial development. These banks are also fully or
majorly owned by the Government of Bangladesh.
Private Commercial Banks (PCBs): There are 39 private commercial banks which are majorly
owned by the private entities. PCBs can be categorized into two groups:
Conventional PCBs: 31 conventional PCBs are now operating in the industry. They perform the
banking functions in conventional fashion i.e interest based operations.
Islami Shariah based PCBs: There are 8 Islami Shariah based PCBs in Bangladesh and they
execute banking activities according to Islami Shariah based principles i.e. Profit-Loss Sharing
(PLS) mode.
Foreign Commercial Banks (FCBs): 9 FCBs are operating in Bangladesh as the branches of
the banks which are incorporated in abroad.
There are now 4 non-scheduled banks in Bangladesh which are:

Ansar VDP Unnayan Bank,

Karmashangosthan Bank,

Probashi Kollyan Bank,

Jubilee Bank

2. Literature Review
In 1981, the sophisticated view of HRM first achieved its salience. Havard Business School
introduced it on thes MBA course at (Price, 2004). In the current challenging business condition,
the process of outlining the role, function of HRM into a running environment is seen for a long
time. As a result of diverse origins, HRM takes in account all the necessary aspects of central
concern in organizations like individual psychology, sociology, education, industrial relations,
and organizational theory (Soderlund and Bredin, 2005). Schuler (2002) mentioned, HRM
policies and practices involve the development of how individuals should be managed and
specific HR initiatives. According to Price (2007):
A philosophy of people management based on the belief that human resources are uniquely
important to sustained business success. An organization gains competitive advantage by using
its people effectively, drawing on their expertise and ingenuity to meet clearly defined objectives.
Human resource management is aimed at recruiting capable, flexible and committed people,
managing and rewarding their performance and developing key competencies.
Effective HR practices are found to lead to positive organizational outcomes (Becker and
Gerhart, 1996) such as turnover (Huselid, 1995) and productivity (Katz et al., 1987). HR
practices are generally categorized into the following: Recruitment, orientation, training,
motivation,

participation, placement, appraisal, promotion, management commitment, and

performance evaluation. For implementing HRM policies require HR professionals for taking
part in various organizational activities (Islam, 2011). On the other hand, according to Schuler
(2002), HRM policies involve the improvement of employee management as well as HR
initiatives. There are several functions of HRM in business world. There are four functions of
HRM- staffing, training and development, motivating and maintenance of the employees

(Decenzo & Robbins, 2007). Staffing HR planning is the highly significant job concerned with
hiring and firing of HR. In general, HRP is can be expressed as deciding in advance how the firm
anticipates its future human resource necessities. These necessities can be in number or skill or
both. The most important thing is, HRP is a future business strategy (Boyd, 2008). The major
thing is that HR is no more neglected as it has economic value too. The profits are narrowed by
the pressure of inflation and also as a result of weak economic condition. Boyd (2008) also
mentioned that HRP is becoming much and much more in business circles now-a-days.
Management is now being concerned with personnel costs and looking for gaining best output
within the same personnel. In either way-formally or informally, HRM is being practiced.
Somewhere its in a greater extent and somewhere less extent in every firm where the size is
regardless. (Moyeen & Hug, 2001). There is, in fact, no comprehensive study found on overall
HRM practices in Commercial banks of Bangladesh.

3. Research objectives:

The general objective of the paper is gathering practical knowledge regarding banking industry
in our country and HR playing role in the performance of commercial banks. How this practice
differs from bank to bank and category to category. The goal is also to relate HRM processes and
practices in those different environment and ideologies in different characterized banks such as
govt. bank, private owned banks and Islamic banks and multinational banks.
Specific Objective:

To fulfill the partial requirement of my BBA degree.

To present an overview HRM practices in Banks in Bangladesh.

To develop my skill on HRM related area and terminologies.

To compare the real practices of the banks with the given rules and regulation.

To find out the problems regarding general HRM in commercial banks.

To know about how the practice of modern technology in HRM are being used in
banking sector.

To assess the strength and weakness of HRM in banks.

To identify potential aspects of improvement of HR management and development.

To explore issues of recruitment and selection, job analysis, performance evaluation,

training and development.

4. Methodology:
This paper is a qualitative research. There are both primary and secondary data have been
collected and used. The main sources of primary data are personal discussion and a survey
among the chosen employees. Various academic contexts, books, documents, journals, reports,
manuals and websites have been used as secondary data for this thesis paper. Although, it is not a
quantitative study, questionnaire was used for keeping it in an assembly. A questionnaire was
designed for collecting primary data from 8 banks who works in different positions. Copies of
questionnaire were given to a total of 32 employees of eight different banks several levels to
receive their opinions on different aspects of HRM in their present job and what they think over
the other banks HRM practices. The employees were purposively. The findings of the study
were statistically assessed and shown.

5. Analysis of Findings

6. Findings
Here, private banks and multinational banks are ahead where usual private banks has cent
percent satisfaction (Sample size was not big so its may not the actual scenario). All
Commercial Banks in Bangladesh are almost same in their nature, functions and programs.
There are some slight differences too.

There are a good number of professional and qualified human resources in each of the surveyed
bank. Among the professionals most of them were MBA or BBA holders. The study found that
each bank has its own training institute for human resource development activities but there is no
proper HR information system in any of the surveyed banks. All human resources were centrally
managed by their respective headquarters. Compared to the public bank, human resources
employed in private bank in Bangladesh were getting more privileges (including Islamic and
multinational banks). They were more satisfied with salary scale, present job position and
compensation. But employees are not satisfied with working hour, leave policy and hr policy.
Employees strongly argued that they are not satisfied with the recent HR policies and practices
exercised in the bank. The most significant consideration of the study was that the mean scores
of 12 variables were minimum 4. That means except leave policy and working hour all indicators
are satisfactory to employees. Finally banks have ample opportunities for career growth.

7. Recommendation
On the basis of the findings of the study the Following recommendations are made for better
HRM practice in the banks of Bangladesh:
Provision should be created for bringing standardization in every bank. In public banks salary
restructuring is almost compulsory to motivate employees whereas the private banks make better

salaries. Banks have to be concerned with the IT area as many employees are lagging behind in
terms of IT knowledge. As current banking system is getting electric and internet based, more
and more training from the professionals will have to be made. The state owned banks needs
more efficiency in HRM. A strict regulation has to ve imposed by Bangladesh Bank to narrow
lobbying and other influence. Though banks have separate human resources departments, it is
needed to empower the department for managing issues on HRM. HRIS (human resource
information systems) is a major finding that are still lacked in many commercial banks.

Conclusion
The success of banks largely depends on the intellectual development of the employees. Along
with intellectual development of the knowledge worker, technical infrastructures of the bank
must be ensured to enhance the effectiveness of the employee and the bank. Generally, the
banking profession in Bangladesh is recognized with standardized salary scale, higher social
status and dignity. As can be found from the study, human resources in banks were enjoying
comparatively better facilities under the rules of banking industry. Employees of the bank getting
good number of bonus and compensation, including salary grade, leave facilities, housing
facilities, gratuities, provident funds, and losses of accident or death of employees etc. The
employees in private bank are more satisfied with salary scale, job position, promotion scheme,
working environment but very worried about working hours and work pressure. Most of the
employees are less satisfied with HRM polices and practice, job analysis, IT facilities, job
evaluation and performance measurement technique. The state owned banks should be well
regulated by the govt. and other authorities. The Islamic banks should follow a distant procedure
in common and develop their policies with the modern system. The multinational banks have to
provide more transparent process with the HR selection and stuffing process. Moreover,

Bangladeshi bank industries are ahead of other industries in terms of human resource
management.