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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................................2
HR PRACTICES OF PSO.......................................................................................................................3
JOB ANALYSIS AND DESIGN...............................................................................................................3
HUMAN RESOURCE INFOMATION SYSTEM................................................................................3
STEPS FOR JOB DESIGNING..........................................................................................................3
1. Identifying the job......................................................................................................................3
2. Gathering job profiles...............................................................................................................3
3. Rationalizing..............................................................................................................................3
4. Documentation..........................................................................................................................3
INFORMING EMPLOYEES ABOUT THE PURPOSE OF COLECTING INFORMATION..........4
IMPORTANCE OF PERFORMANCE STANDARDS.......................................................................4
MECHANISTIC APPROACH..........................................................................................................5
JOB ROTATION................................................................................................................................5
HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING..........................................................................................................5
RECRUITMENT........................................................................................................................................6
RECRUITMENT PROCESS................................................................................................................6
DERECRUITMENT...............................................................................................................................6
CHALLENGES......................................................................................................................................6
SELECTION..............................................................................................................................................7
SELECTION PROCESS......................................................................................................................7
PRELIMINARY RECEPTION..........................................................................................................7
WRITTEN TESTS.............................................................................................................................7
INTERVIEW.......................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES AND BACKGROUND CHECKS..........................................................................7
MEDICAL EVALUATION.................................................................................................................8
HIRING...............................................................................................................................................8
BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................................................................................................................9

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INTRODUCTION
Human Resource (HR) Department has been there in PSO since it was formed. Initially,
there were four “Personnel Departments” of Premier Oil Company Limited, Pakistan
National Oil and Dawood Petroleum Limited and State Oil Company Limited. Merger
into one department created some problems in the company as many employees who
were in these departments had to be relocated or given early retirements. In 2000, the
“Personnel Department” was changed to “Human Resource Department”.
Previously the function of Personnel department at PSO was only related to the
employee functions. The employee functions consisted of keeping record of the
employees, how punctual and regular are they, what are their benefits and salaries,
what is their background, how much experience they have, their personal records were
also kept and similarly only employee-related records were kept.
As the time passed and the Board of Management of PSO realized that more
documents about employees need to be included in the Human Resource Department
to keep updated information and record of employees and to retain a good and efficient
workforce so they expanded the activities of the HR department. The HR department
activities now consist of job analysis and design, recruitment, HR Planning, Succession
Planning, selection, follow-up of orientation program, placement, identifying employee’s
training and development needs, career counseling, performance appraisal, benefits,
disciplinary actions against misconduct and compensation management.
Alongside the development of its physical facilities, PSO is deeply conscious of the
pivotal role that human resources play in the success of an organization. As a matter of
fact, human resource development has been identified as an area of key importance.
While strengthening the ranks of its work force with quality professionals at various
levels of management, the company also undertakes several initiatives for improving
productivity and efficiency at all levels of services. Through computer training, various
courses, sponsorships of staff for studies at professional institutions and seminars, the
company is providing its employees on going opportunities for continuous self-
improvement and learning.
In recent years, health, safety and environment (HSF) has emerged as one of the major
themes of corporate governance at PSO. As They Strongly Believe That Human
Resource is the asset that should be appreciate with the passage of time.
Consequently, PSO considers a strong focus on the development of a value added and
Worthwhile Investment.

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HR PRACTICES OF PSO
JOB ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Job designing is not a formal process but it is necessary for HR department when it
wants to hire new employees or give promotions to the current employees for a
particular designation. Employees (mainly executives, General Managers, Acting
General Managers, and Deputy General Managers) are also involved while designing
the job since they are the ones who decide which tasks, responsibilities and duties are
to be performed by which employee.
HUMAN RESOURCE INFOMATION SYSTEM

With the implementation of SAP it has become easier to store and update information
about employees. The HRIS is updated daily and it also updated when there is hiring,
transfer, sanction of loan to employees, increase in allowances and etc. HRIS stores all
information about employees like their personal backgrounds, financial position, pay
slips, leaves availed, designation, performance appraisal, how many promotions have
they got, projects on which they worked, training and development they had, their
weaknesses, interests, skills and abilities and many more things.
Authorization to HRIS is given to Executive Director of HR department, Senior
Executive and Senior Officer has authorization for storing and updating information on
Recruitment, Transfer, Time Management and Leave Policies. Head of HR and Payroll
department are responsible to verify that employees get their salary by verifying from
bank about transfer of salaries from PSO account to Employee’s account. Both of them
have access to this information in HRIS. Department can also verify this information
from HR department. So from each department some employees have authorization to
access HRIS. Each department is allowed to use its information and they cannot have
access to the information of other departments.
Because of SAP job description for many jobs changed as many jobs required technical
skills that are the employees should feel comfortable to use computers. Because of this
HR department had to change and update the information of job designing.
STEPS FOR JOB DESIGNING

Following are the steps that HR takes for designing job:


1. Identifying the job
2. Gathering job profiles
3. Rationalizing
4. Documentation

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1) Identifying The Job: The first step is to identify the job vacancy. The HR people
identify the number of jobs that are in the company and then design the ways of
collecting the information.
2) Gathering Job Profiles: After identifying the job, the HR people then gather
information about the job. They do so by obtaining information from HRIS. They
also do surveys, interviews of people doing the same job, discussion with the
department’s supervisor and also take the help of experts to know the tasks,
skills and responsibilities required to do the job and also to see how effective
their compensation package is.
3) Rationalizing: After gathering required information, they sort the information to
include the necessary and job-related information and eliminate the information
that is not relevant. They also rationalize the information according to the
regions. For example, the job specification of sales officer in Karachi will be
different from that of Bahawalpur.
4) Documentation: After rationalizing the information they document the
information in the form of job description so that they can refer to it whenever
required. They keep it both in the form of manual and also in the HRIS.
INFORMING EMPLOYEES ABOUT THE PURPOSE OF COLECTING INFORMATION

HR people consider it important to inform employees while collecting information


because employees then feel valued and they think that their opinions will be
considered and they have some impact on the decision HR people make. For example,
last year they organized seminar of Organizational Health Service which was done on
behalf of PSO to find out that how employees feel about the company and the result
was that 80-90% of the employees were happy. There were also some questions
regarding the company like tell us one thing you would like to change in the company.
Afterwards, they told that their employees about it and told them that they were very
happy with the results and they asked the employees who were unhappy to come to HR
people and discuss their problems so that they can find a solution for it.
For job analysis and design, they also take the employees suggestions into
consideration through suggestion boxes and the e-mails that they get. The supervisors
are also asked to have open communication with their employees to see that they do
not have overload of work and they are satisfied with their work.
IMPORTANCE OF PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

Performance standards make the employees’ performances be measured. It helps HR


people know that whether there are any defaults in their job design. For the evaluation
of performance, they use comparison method. The supervisors are required to do it on a
weekly basis so that any problem can be identified beforehand.

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MECHANISTIC APPROACH

In this approach, workers are required to do same work again and again and their task
is simplified so that it requires less time and effort and the work is done efficiently. The
drawback of this approach is that employees get bored of doing same thing and this
result in fatigue. But there are some jobs about which nothing can be done. For
example, chemist cannot be sent to the marketing department as his work is related to
the chemicals and there are no departments in PSO where he can be sent to enhance
his/her skills unless that person is really willing to learn some other skills other than
his/her field.
JOB ROTATION

PSO has Job Rotation Scheme which employees can use when they wish to or when
HR wants to move an employee to other department. Its disadvantage is that if an
employee acquires skills that he/she will not use it, it will be an expense for the
company so it is additional investment by the company. For example, if an IT person is
moved to Brand Management department and he has no interest in it then it will be of
no use to the employee and the company. But if the same employee is sent to SAP
department then it will be beneficial both for the company and the employee.
HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING
Human Resource planning is important so that whenever a problem such as vacancy of
any job occurs it can be dealt quickly. That is why there is a need of proactive approach.
Everything needs to be planned for efficient and healthy working of the company.
The main causes of demand of employees are company expansion and because of
implementation of SAP PSO had a new department named “SAP Department” and they
had to hire people for this department and. With the help of Human Resource plan, HR
people can easily predict the future vacancies that are expected which is by analyzing
the trend projections, asking the departments’ head if they think that an employee of his
department might leave the company and by seeking help of experts.
Employees’ actions such as terminations, resignations, deaths etc. cause demand of
employees. Because of these actions a gap is formed and the HR people have to
intervene to fill this gap.
Estimate of Human Resource supply is done from analyzing past data, history, past
experience and also the demand that might occur. It is necessary to proactively decide
that who will replace who if there is any vacancy in order to allow the company to work
in a harmonious way.

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RECRUITMENT
Recruitment is the process of locating identifying and attracting capable applicants.
Sources of recruitment for PSO are as follows.
1. Internal search
2. Advertisement
3. Employee referrals
4. Public employment agencies etc.
RECRUITMENT PROCESS
When there is a vacancy of PSO a large numbers of applications are received mainly
through the advertisement in the newspapers or through the referrals of current
employees. The employees screen the applicants. Because the recommenders know
both the job and the person being recommended they tend to refer applicants who are
well qualified for the position.
PSO prefers internal supply of employees for a couple of reasons:
 Current employees are already adjusted with the culture of organization.
 It reduces the cost involved in recruitment, selection, orientation and training
programs.
 The want to encourage their current employees that they care for them and
helping them to grow by promoting them.
 The internal employees feel the sense of belongingness, are motivated and
become more productive, which is also beneficial for the organization.
DERECRUITMENT
PSO’s policy is that if the employee has done something wrong then the company uses
the option of firing as a mean of de-recruitment. This seldom happens unless someone
has broken the rules of the company. Sometimes employees are also transferred. PSO
recently used another method of de-recruitment. They used the Golden handshake
scheme and voluntary separation schemes.
CHALLENGES
The two major challenges faced by the PSO during recruitment are:
1) Growing competition: The major challenge that PSO had to face recently was the
competition by “Telenor” and “Warid”, which suddenly came up and started
attracting the manpower of PSO and other organizations by offering high wages
and incentives. Many of the PSO employees left the organization to join Telenor
and Warid and the harmonious working system of the company was disturbed by
the competition and it took them enough time to stabilize the organization and get
the company’s operations back on track.

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2) Availability of qualified employees: The second challenge is the availability of
qualified employees in the market. Sometimes it happens that when they are
hiring a person for particular designation then there is shortage of qualified
employees and the pool of applicants is very less and they decide not to hire any
person and to wait for sometime or give training to internal employee and
promote him by saving the additional cost that would have been required for
hiring new employees.

SELECTION
Selection is the process of screening job applicants to ensure that most appropriate
candidates are hired. In PSO they select an employee on the basis of his qualifications.
Different selection devices are used to choose the best suitable candidate for the job.
SELECTION PROCESS
The selection process is a series of specific steps used to decide which recruits should
be hired. These are stated below:
PRELIMINARY RECEPTION
The applicants have to drop their Resumes in dispatch department or send it on the
website. The HR people also sort the information that they have in their HRIS about the
people who had left their resumes before like walk-ins.
WRITTEN TESTS
Those applicants who match with the company’s requirement are informed about the
date of test. It is an intelligence, aptitude and ability test. If the organization has to select
15 applicants than 45 employees are called for an interview and the best 15 are hired.
The challenge that the organization has to face during the hiring of employees is the
limitation on hiring people. PSO only hires the employees that are required to perform
tasks.
INTERVIEW
The interview depends on the level of employee to be hired. If it’s for low level then only
one interview is conducted and if an employee is hired for the middle or top
management then the series of steps follows. Normally there is one employee and 3-4
employers during the interview. The advantages from this interview structure are that
the extremes are cancelled out; biasness is removed, discrimination is discouraged,
true judgment is made and the employer’s expertise in different subjects helps in finding
the right person for the right job. The disadvantages are dominating employer if any, the
employee gets nervous in front of many employers, conflicts between employers that
who should be selected.
REFERENCES AND BACKGROUND CHECKS
After the interview is conducted, employee’s backgrounds and references are checked
to avoid false claims, work experience, salary, honesty and credibility of employees.
Employment references are given more preference then personal references because it

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tells the employers about the employees past working conditions, loyalty and behavior
at work.
MEDICAL EVALUATION
After an applicant has been selected, he is physically examined. For jobs with certain
requirements, the physical examination has some validity, which includes blood test,
blood pressure check up, temperature and chest X-rays.
HIRING
The managing director of HR department makes the final decision for hiring the
employee’s after they have been nominated by the senior executives who gets the
selection process going. The unselected applicants are mostly notified through letters
after the applicant is selected and confirmed for the job. The record of unselected
applicants is maintained for the future job openings.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTERNET SEARCH

http://www.psopk.com/about_us/

www.psocl.com

www.scribd.com/doc/22569521/16581862-Pakistan-State-Oil 

BOOK REFERENCES

Armstrong, Michael (2006). A Handbook of Human Resource Management


Practice (10th Ed.)

Mc GJRW- HILL (2001), Human Resource Management (4th Edition)

Decenzo & Robbins, Human Resource Management (10th Ed.)

PERSONS INTERVIEWED

Hashim Rifique Siddique, Retired HR Manager, PSO

Sohail Siddique, Senior HR Officer, PSO

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