MUHAMMAD TAHA

ERP: 13879
FINAL EXAM
PERFORMANCE AND COMPENSATION MANAGEMENT

Q.1 ATTITUDE AND BEHAVIOUR

Analyzing for MBA Students:

One is born with an attitude, they way one perceives, thinks, or feels things or events.

Behavior is the consequence of attitude. They say that behavior comes first as it is easier

to be changed than attitude which is to most people – almost impossible to change. There

is no set definition for the attitudes and behaviors of MBA Students as those are as

diverse as the students themselves. However, the like mindedness of taking up MBA as

an educational degree qualifies MBA students to possess below values in terms of

attitude:

- Passionate about climbing the ladder at their workplaces or scaling up their

business

- Aware of tough on-ground realities of the world

- Adept at knowing different business cycles and how stuff works

- Able to navigate through complex literature and situations involving varying

scenarios

- Aggressive about expanding their knowledge horizon

- Open to social interactions, dialogue and expanding their social circle

- Correlating their practical work issues to the teachings and deriving a solution
The behaviors students display while at the institute involves:

- Reminiscing about youthful activities and attempts to revitalize the younger self by

enriching in friendly dialogues across various issues with people from

heterogeneous backgrounds

- Actively attending the course to improve their knowledge base

- Ignore the course content in the aims of only conquering the degree

- Actively participating in the course with real-life similar workplace events as to that

of course topics and sharing a dialogue with favorite or likeminded teacher

- Observing or not observing institutional and course guidelines related to timings,

dress codes and other campus policies

MBA Students may have all the above pointers and even none of them as attitude relates

to the conditioning the individual had since birth and behavior is the consequence of that.

Students may study with utmost dedication in their choice of class and their choice of

subject if the course instructor guides the course along a smooth, understandable pace.

Or students may involve greatly in curricular activities with the drivers of glossy resume

in their minds. Whatever be the case, there are several hundreds of simulations which

can be run for varying attitudes and behaviors even inside the session of likeminded MBA

students.

Change in Behavior and Discipline based on Course, Teacher and Strictness:

In the literal definition of the word – a Master of Business Administration learns the skills

and knowledge required for complete administration of a business – the business may

range from a moms and pops store at a fuel station to a trillion-dollar cap multinational
organization around the globe. Therefore, MBAs are ought to be seasoned professionals

capable of turning unfavorable situations to their favor by careful play of their behaviors

across different people of various mindsets.

The students of MBA should be self-motivated and disciplined with regards to the

quantum of age and experience they have had. The institution, in principle, should only

act as a learning facilitator by bridging the gap between knowledge-seeking aspiring

business leaders and knowledge-giving charismatic instructors. However, due to the

current system of the way the world works - in which accreditation and degree holding is

mandatory for a good lifestyle – the students must undergo certain courses they are not

fond of, just to fulfil the credit hour requirement for earning the expensive piece of paper.

Therefore, course content and course choice heavily impact behavior of the knowledge

seeker. A course which is not of choice but difficult to pass, involves rote learning of sorts

to graduate the course. A course which is not of choice and easy to pass, involves the

seeker lagging at his/her side of the bargain and not paying attention to the

class/instructor. A course which is of choice and difficult to pass, involves commitment,

dedication, and unparalleled attention from the student. This course also promises

him/her the professional jump hence the student faces all kinds of innate pressures to

ace this course. A course which is easier to pass and of choice, is a dream come true for

any student. Not only will such a course increase the students’ participation in class, but

the course will improve the overall result of MBA degree.

Primary discipline is set by the institution itself. Taking in students after thorough cut-offs

and application reviews against lenient intake of students just to fill the institution have

almost completely opposite consequences. Just like a good organization, which checks
in at all the check boxes when hiring an individual of choice to do their assignments vis-

à-vis good compensation package, a good institution audits the intake cohort very

seriously as it leads to the success or demise of their institution’s established repute.

Global values of being in time, honoring the commitments, anti-plagiarism is instilled in

the students by institution. In various universities, students are given open book exams,

or they are left together in exam hall without an invigilator but not a student peeks at any

other student’s copy – because the value of anti-plagiarism has become the student’s

moral code over the years the student stayed at the institution.

Once the discipline is taken care of by the institution and the course choice by the student

– there comes the responsibility of teacher to manage the course either in stricter tone

with lots of social and theoretical assignments or in lax tone with lesser workload. A

teacher who has complex criteria of rating student performance involving class

participation, assignments, projects, presentations, and term papers keeps the student

on toes at all the time during the course. Teacher can create various sorts of criteria the

way the feel that course load will instill into the minds of aspiring businesspeople. Various

global universities have done away with traditional assignments and now they keep

striking the minds of students with variety of case studies to make the students more

industry oriented. Making practical work life remarks and discussing current corporate

practices is the most attractive to grab a student’s attention. In contrast to the above

mentioned teacher, a teacher with lax tone and lesser but practical workload – will attract

the students more and offer students more learning, regardless of marks or grades. In the

corporate world, practicality matters more than grades but still there are students who

value grades and perform excellently in the domains of severe workload set by the
teacher. A student with severe workload may bear the workload for sake of grades and

not the actual learning. Compared to this, behavior of those students who focus only on

the outcome of learning will be a tad bit unimpressive.

Comparison with lower levels of college:

There is no comparison of MBA studies with lower levels of college. At high school or

school level especially in the sub-continent – there is ample amount of pressure on the

students to grab grades since the doors to the top institutions open at top grades. Hence,

learning falls at back of the line and grades become the focus. This approach is carried

onto the upper levels of education till the time any practical experience is achieved. A

corporate experience teaches more than years of those education as it becomes clear

that organizations hire right people for the right jobs and at good number of times, they

do away with the grade and assess the aspiring job candidate on his alignment and

adjustment within their organizational culture. Tough reality that still lies true is the fact

that top organizations hire from top institutions. Although firms like Google and economies

like Gig Economy are on the verge of combating that approach, it is foreseeable for

lengthy amount of time that the traditional practices will continue. Hence, good grades will

remain more important to actual learning at lower levels of college whereas during an

MBA, it should be, and it is most of the times, opposite.

Other than the learning part, the build up of virtues, discipline, moral structure is

fundamental at lower levels and highly important to be laid emphasis upon. At MBA

education, it is not much important albeit a little only. Studies at lower levels have

mandatory subjects to study, therefore subjects are appealing to some of the students

and the other students absolutely loathe the topics. Despite the disinterest, a student is
required to perform good to ace it to a brighter future whereas in MBA, the future that

remains in focus is the corporate ladder in student’s mind hence missing good grades

doesn’t normally make the students lose it all.

Professional Life:

The attitude is not only made up by the institutions, a major part of it also dwells upon the

conditioning the young developing mind has had over the years. However, the behavioral

values like punctuality, discipline, social activity, eloquence and confidence are majorly

the products a good schooling system. The professional life involves people working for

organizations to reach organizational targets, but good organizations have a culture put

in place which their employees must get accustomed to. Punctuality as a value can be

set in the DNA of students. However, for various organizations – the timelines to come

and go are flexible. For some, work getting done is more important than punctuality and

for some, the timelines are rigid. It depends if the behavior one has grown accustomed to

during schooling is followed at the professional level. However, an MBA education does

prepare candidates for handling various situational environments and adapting to a

company norm is also one of those environments.

Q.2

Attrition

An unusually high turnover in my organization needs detailed analysis. The usual exit

process at HBL involves Exit Interview with the leaving candidate and it has proven in the

past not to be of much use in terms of reducing the turnover and strategizing to building

a better work environment. The interviewees at exit can target candidates for misconduct

which is difficult to prove and most of the times, they are concerned about their package

benefits hence they leave the organization with thank you note sharing diplomatic plans

to further advance their career somewhere else. Therefore, I would need to understand

at first the kind of turnover happening. The 5 Ws come into play here:

Who is leaving the company?

- Is it the younger lot of fresh graduates?

- Is it a lot of senior management professionals?

- Is it the key management/key players? Red flag

- Is it the minimum wage lot?

- Is it only the skilled workmen?

- Is it the high potential candidates? Lack of feedback/appreciation

- Is it the sales only migration?

1. Having younger lot escape from HBL would make the investment we put in our HBL

The League Management Trainee program worth lesser than it is. The League was
 put out as a company branding strategy and to attract best of the best from top

institutions with top market salaries. Failure to retain those selected few could mean

better MT programs launched by competitors and failure to retain HBL as top

candidate priority for employment.

2. Senior management professionals don’t resign commonly. The reason to that may be

a beginner competition taking in industry veterans to rise fast in an aggressive market.

3. Turnover of key players is a red flag for organization. This may mean that the business

of HBL is also being taken along with those players. These players were offered best

positions at HBL with top percentile market salary and benefits. If not moved by their

own business venture set up, it may be an aggressive move by competition to gain

business edge.

4. Not even the best employee retention strategy works in the minimum wage lot.

Turnover will only stop if they are given the raise and keeping their skills in check, the

minimum is their market average.

5. Skilled workmen like technicians and operators mean a blow to the company in form

of losing its operations staff. This may be due to the fast rise of some other industry

other than the banking industry where demands of these operators are rewarded

more. For example, oil and gas.

6. This is also a red flag to organization that hi-po candidates are leaving it. The

candidates who were blue-eyed for succession plans in management roles and

mobility left the bank and it is a pressing exercise to hunt for an alternate.

Why is the turnover happening?

- Is there a rumor floating about HBL in the market?

 - Is it an insufficient compensation structure HBL is offering?

- Is it the bunch of employees whose careers got stagnant and couldn’t be managed

properly by the organization? Loophole of PMS

- Is it the recurring episode from department in which layoffs have been prevalent

since the management changed of that department?

- Is it the organization culture, decorum, workplace management?

1. There maybe market rumor about HBL perpetrated by the negative forces aimed at

bringing the market reputation of bank to a standstill, let alone make their key

employees think about moving to better places. Rumor about being taken over, bad

financial closing, rough stock positions and various others are floated around to make

HBL look bad.

2. Competition and other respective industry may be offering better compensation

structure.

3. There can be a loophole in performance evaluation and feedback of employees which

let employees to get demotivated.

4. There can be the same boss, a manager issue under whom the previous joiners also

resigned and need to fix this issue for good is now all the more important.

5. The workplace culture also can pose meaningful effects on retention of employees.

Timings, behavior of managers to subordinates, disparity between salary structures,

open environment for dialogue, and encouragement/discouragement of constructive

criticism may make or break employee commitment.

How is the turnover happening?

 - Is the series of resignation following a standard scheme? Like the top boss leaving

and then his/her juniors leave?

- Is it the people of only one skillset who are resigning?

- Is it across the general employees of varying disciplines?

1. One of the senior professionals may be offered C-suite in competitor and he/she

can take his team along to better serve the enterprise.

2. If only sales people are resigning, then the company they are headed off to – has

a new product launch and its sales will be done by market sales people like those

of HBL. The premium attractive for sales staff is the package, designation and

compensation benefits which the competitor has offered higher.

3. Varying disciplines of people can resign at the same time, meaning that

competitors are forming a complete team or the employees have lost trust in HBL

for taking their careers ahead the way they perceived it.

When is the turnover happening?

- At the time of revolutionary product development/launch by competitor?

- At the time of financial difficulty/stock market crash of HBL?

- At the time of geopolitical stability and needed resources in dream countries?

1. For example, in times of a COVID vaccine launch, a hyper extensive hiring can be

done by pharmaceutical company launching the product and it will only hire market

veterans not the talent from its bottom.

2. It may also mean that temporary bad phase in stock market has been taken

advantage of by the competition which is spreading negative vibe about HBL.

 3. The doors of Saudi Arabia and Gulf have once again opened and better monetary

opportunities there attract trained hardworking professionals from the top bank of

Pakistan.

What actually is happening?

- Where are those turnover employees heading off to? At what positions? At which

organizations? At which grades and which pay level? At what compensation

structure?

Answers to all the Ws are equally important in the analysis of this high turnover.

Strategies that I will place in the system to reduce excessive turnover include:

- Getting a Survey/Feedback/Grievance/Speak-Up portal approved to be launched

in the bank which guarantees employee anonymity and mandates action on the

points raised by employees by selected committee of Compliance and Ethics

officers, Career Managers and Security officials. This portal will be a preemptive

or proactive measure for the reasons to be diagnosed of high turnover and

rectifying course in due time to manage the undesirable from happening.

- Hiring consultants to better audit the Talent management policies and systems and

implement fruitful suggestions

- Emphasize on the R&D and Products department to come out with winning

deals/offers better than those of competitors in case the reason identified is a

revolutionary product launch from competitor.

- Increase the compensation structure of affected workforce. In 2015 at AKUH, the

migration of physicians to NICVD became a common practice and for retaining

those, AKUH raised physician compensation structure by almost 60% in one shot.
Q.3

Gig Economy

Hiring of independent contractors is propagated by “disruptors” as a win-win. It employs

the needy, addresses the market need and makes money innovatively out of traditional

business practices by transforming tradition into an agile technological advancement. So,

at a click now, food is delivered at your place and on one press, taxi is out waiting for you

at your doorstep. Moreover, a gift from you is delivered locally or from all over the world

right at your sister’s birthday celebration event. This sounds heavenly at first to those in

need but there is a flipside to the glittery advantage.

Tech companies carry these activities out by utilizing real human beings for physical

workout. In companies’ point of view, it is purely fair as the company is producing

hundreds of thousands of jobs in the market, helping the people put food on their dinner

table and facilitating the people by saving their time to do the clerical, agonizing and

painful tasks. The company is providing all this while staying roughly just inches above

red financial bottom line i.e., not being much profitable (this is what they all portray). The

company also facilitates the riders/drivers/independent contractors with their apparel, kits

for branding and has a contractor facilitation team set up in its Head Office which looks

at and tackles various contractor issues to make sure their engine stays facilitated. The

rate at which the company takes profit share is the bare minimum it can take for its

sustainability.
With meager profits on the grab, the company cannot afford to employ the contractors

and fulfil legal obligations of:

- Leaves

- Health/Medical/Life Insurance

- Fuel Entitlement/Cost

- Annual Increment and Bonus

- EOBI

- Various corporate allowances

The model is highly sustainable in local point of view. In Pakistan, the unemployment rate

is high and literacy rate is below 60%. Hence, in the economy where 40% of the

population can not read or write, the tech company is providing the relief of handing over

clerical mundane tasks to those people to fruitfully utilize the workforce that is present.

In my point of view, the sustainability is only temporary and very weak. Last year, we

saw the gig economy fall to pieces amidst the rise of the pandemic. Ride hailing

companies completely crashed and laid off several hundreds of employees. Hence,

profitability isn’t much sustainable to survive the down times. On the other hand, the

sustainability is only as good till the time the contractors start to form union and

demanding their rights to be treated as human beings or as part of the organizations. If

the engine is stopped, then how can the vehicle run. Hence, the companies are

hopelessly dependent on the contractor who can any time unionize to not work until and

unless their wants are satisfied. “Disruptors” should really think upon this unprecedented
act and include it to counter their unsustainability. Government should also step in to

regulate this industry because an unregulated industry has several loopholes. The

technology being technology is prone to crashes, system down, virus, and malware

issues. Contractors do address various such reasons to play their chance of gaining some

monetary advantage from the company but not all contractors lie about the mishaps. The

way their app worked, the order which was showed to them by their app to be delivered

to wrong location, the passenger who damaged their vehicles and many other tumultuous

reasons lie on the forecourt to be presented and actions on it cannot be left alone to the

disruptors or to the contractors. There needs to a policy in the wake of this new way of

working and most notably, a government policy which can be deemed as safe haven for

the victims of injustice.

From the contractors’ point of view, the company provides them with valuable monetary

benefit and has a set criterion to enable them to earn as much as they work. They are not

employees so they can wake up and work at the timelines they want. They can earn as

much as they want. Therefore, being in the first wave of GIG economy – the pieces fall

into right places and it sounds as a win for the contractor as well.

However, there is only so much that a human body can pull off. In the environment of

rising inflation and falling profitability of these tech disruptors, the profit margins of

contractors have also been evidenced to be downgraded, meaning that a rider who used

to do five rides a day to earn Rs. 1000 now must do seven rides a day to reach the same

amount. This is ridiculous to be thought of as sustainable in the longer term if it continues

to be on the same lines. The tech companies need to realize the cost of sweat, toil and

blood the contractors are putting in – and carrying their company image on the wheels. It
is a high time these companies should start thinking of giving at least some benefits to

the contractors before things slip out of their hands. A life insurance is must. The rider is

on the wheel all the time, there should be an analysis of road incidents checks in place

and the company may launch it as CSR initiative at first to provide the contractors with

life insurance. Signing of that deal with an insurance company should be the responsibility

of tech company to strike a good business deal irrespective of their negative bottom line.

An education allowance can be set up for hardworking youngsters which enable them to

fund their graduate education partially or fully and give them a chance to join the company

as management trainee after graduation. These actions and more like these could

become breakthrough for positive publicity of the firm, the benefit of contractor and

simultaneously the benefit of society as a whole. Keeping in mind the tech companies are

not as profitable as the conventional counterparts, these initiatives little by little can help

them remain fair and sustainable over the long course.