Ufone HR activities:

Introduction:
The company begin its operations under the brand name of Ufone, from Islamabad in
January 29, 2001, as it is the subsidiary of PTCL established to operate the cellular
services.

Due to privatisation of PTCL, 26% of its shares obtain by the Emirates

Telecommunication corporation (Etisalat).The management of Ufone also taken over by
Etisalat as it is part of PTCL.The company expanded its network coverage to new cities
and rural areas of the country.Ufone has the network coverage of more than 750 cities,
villages and all across the major highways.

Due to major network expansion, Ufone has increased its assets from RS 20 billion to RS
27 billion. Recently the company has been awarded new licence for providing cellular
services to in Azad Jammu & Kashmir and Northern areas.Ufone is the second largest
cellular company in Pakistan.  (www.docstoc.com)

Vision Statement:
“To be the leading telecommunication service provider in Pakistan by offering
innovative communication solutions for our customers while exceeding shareholder

Value & employee expectation. (www.scribd.com)

Service provision:
Every organisation has policy of evaluating the employees and on that basis gave them
the rewards. It varies from organisation to organisation. In Ufone, the employees are
evaluated once a year. This is done by senior management and assistant manager of the
department. Sometimes they use their central database system which is called Human
resource information system (HRIS), which contains every employee personal and
organisation information like skills and previous performance. On the basis of that
evaluation the management decides whether to promote or not to promote the
employee (www.docstoc.com).

Advice:
After the evaluation of employees the management of the organisation decides the
future of the employee. If the employee is performing below the standards then they go
for training, as in Ufone they give training to those who agrees the condition of not
leaving the organisation for specific period of time, which has a positive impact on the
organisation .they do prefer the off job training (www.docstoc.com).

Harvard Framework Model of HRM

The Harvard model of HRM presented by Beer et al (1984) at Harvard University USA.

It states that HRM should have two characteristics first, line manager should take and
accept the responsibility for ensuring the alignment of competitive strategies and
personnel policies,, and second, personnel has the mission of setting goals that govern
how personnel policies are developed and implemented.(Armstrong, P 24).

As the world become global village and the competition among the organisations very
tough, therefore the human resources demand broader in the market as compare to
earlier that’s why the HRM needs to take decision by involving their employees then
decision and action should be in relation between organisation and employees interest
(Armstrong, P 6).

Harvard model also recommends for human resource outcome that is commitment,
competence, congruence and cost effectiveness. As a result the Harvard model tends to
contribute on people outcome rather than organisational outcome and business
performance.

The advantages of Harvard model are as follows

1 – It takes care of stake holders interests.

2 – Recognises the interest of owner and employees as well as between various interest
groups

3 – It widens the contexts of HRM that is “employees influence”

4 – Acknowledges a broad range of contextual influence on management’s choice of

strategy, suggesting a meshing of product -market and socio-cultural logics.

(Armstrong, 2006: P8).

Stakeholder Interests
Shareholders

Management

Employees

Government

Unions

HR Outcomes
Commitment

Congruence

Cost effectiveness

Long Term Consequences

Individual Wellbeing

Organisational Effectiveness

Social well-being

Situational Factors
Work force characteristics

Business strategy and conditions

Management Philosophy

Labour market

Unions

Task technology

Laws and Social values

HRM policy choices
Employee influence

HR flow

Reward systems

Work system

Figure 2.2 The Harvard framework Model of HRM.

Source Beer et al (1984)

MATCHING MODEL OF HRM

The matching model of HRM developed by academics at the Michigan business school,
introduced the concept of strategic human resource management by which HRM
polices are linked to the formulation and implementation of strategic business
objectives.(B.C. et al 2007).

It emphasis that it should be link between internal polices and external forces that how
it can effect the organisation goals. The internal strategies should matched that
organisation can meet the challenges to compete with the external forces like political
and economic factors. The organisation must have firm structure, motivated employees
and strong management to address these issues. (B.G. et al 1999).

The following are the key areas for the development of possible HR polices and systems.

Selection of the potential employees to meet the upcoming challenges.

Performance in the pursuit of business objectives.

Appraisal and providing feedback to the organisation and employees.

Rewards to motivate the employees.

Development of skills and knowledge to meet the business objectives.

Political
Force
Economic Cultural
Forces Forces
Mission &
Strategy
Firm
Human
Organization resource
Structure management
HRM Matching Model.
Source: B.G et al (1999).

HR PLANING.
To achieve the strategic goals of the organisation HR determines the human

Resource needs in such a way that it can satisfy both the organisation and the
employees by ensuring the qualitative and quantitive terms. Basically there are two
types of HR planning, one is hard form of HR planning and second is soft form of HR
planning. Hard form of HR planning is based on quantitative analysis to ensure that
right numbers of people are available when needed, while soft form of HR planning is
focused on shaping the culture of the organisation in such a way that it integrates
between corporate goals and employee beliefs (Class Lecture).

HR PLANING AT UFONE
As Human Resource Management plays a vital role in the success of any organisation as
same case with the HR department of the Ufone as well. They should be able to forecast
and meet the future demands of the human resources. As the competition among the
telecom companies are much tougher, therefore employees are less concentrate on
their job and are less loyal towards the company.Ufone is aware of the fact that their
employees can leave the job whenever they get the opportunity, therefore they do not
have a formal strategy for succession planning although they prefer to recruit internally
whenever the opportunity arises. They do develop employees for there career planning
but their is no formal succession planning as such practiced by Ufone. For the existing
employees they make sure to give them incentives like bonuses, paid leaves, medical
facilities and friendly environment to motivate. In order to achieve the strategic goals.
most of the time they promote the employee within the organisation to fill the vacant
vacancy according to their performance by using their database which is known is
Human Resource information System.(HRIS).(www.docstoc.com)

Critical Evolution:
The drawback of their HR planning is that they do not practice succession planning due
to this employees are less concentrate on their job.

The drawback of their HR planning is that their is solution to overcome the workload on
their employees.

Recruitment:
“Recruitment is the process of finding and attracting a capable pool of
applicants.”(Aswathappa k, 2005. P, 132)

There are two types of recruitment takes place in any organisation, one is internal
recruitment which almost every company follows, because it generates healthy
competition among the employees as well as motivates them to work hard in order to
achieve the strategic goals, and second is external recruitment.

Recruitment at Ufone:
The HR department of Ufon provides many monitory and non monitory incentives to
the existing employees to motivate them in such a way that they can work hard towards
the achievement of organisational goals. As the turnover in the company is quite often
due to workload on the employees, therefore the employees prefer to leave the
organisation whenever they get the right opportunity. To over come these issues the HR
department hire the new employees to fulfil the vacant place. (www.docstoc.com)

Internal Recruitment
For the top and middle management they do prefer to promote some one with in the
organisation by analysing their performance from their central data base. As internal
Recruitment make a healthy competition among the employees and motivate them in
such a way that to perform their assigned duties to achieve the organisation goal.
(www.docstoc.com).

External Recruitment
To employ the enthusiastic and potential candidates from the labour market the HR
department using various techniques and tools to hire the applicants for the proposed
job. They also discuss and take the ideas of the supervisors and managers of the
relevant department when they are going to make the job description along with job
specification. They are using the following methods of recruitment (www.docstoc.com).

Referrals:
Ufone gains added advantage by advertising the job internally i.e. the current
employees of Ufone can pass on the information to their relatives and friends. This is t
valuable source of advertisement.

Advertisement:
The HR department hires the services of “interflow”, an advertisement agency, to
propagate their service and company for them. They also take the benefit of the web
designer etc.

Private employment agency:

As the private employment agencies collect the information about employed and
unemployed people skills and knowledge .these agencies tries to find right applicant for
the proposed job. (www.docstoc.com)

Critical Evaluation:
Due to lack of proper advertisement they are unable to fond suitable people for their
company.

They are not following the lead the market pay strategies due to which they are
suffering from high turnover.

SELECTION PROCEDURE:
“Selection is the process of decision weather to hire or not to hire an applicant”.
(Class Lecture).

The HR management decides on the length of short list, which is normally not more
than five or six applicants maximum. If they are short of time they involve the
supervisors and managers of the relevant department to span of time. Apart from time

They do this to take there point of view as well. They looked at to the following things
while reading to application.

Is the applicant meets the requirements for the job?

Is their any unexplained employment gaps?

Is the applicant will be future asset of the organisation?

The quality of presentation.

Those who meet the requirements of job specification are called for the online
evaluation test; those who pass the test are then called for the interviews. The date and
time are given for the interviews. The interviews are designed in such a way that
personality and ability of the applicant can be judged. After the interviews the set of
panellist screened the results in order to minimize the chances of error.
(www.docstoc.com)

Critical Evaluation:
They do not have a specialist people to evaluate the online test and furthermore
selection should be free of biasness due to corrupt society.

Development Methods
With the population of 170 million people the Pakistani mobile market has a great
potential, with an annual increase rate of 140% in subscribers. It is absolutely raising star
in the Asia telecom market.

The development of an organisation and human resources skills, abilities and

knowledge is purely done on the basis of organisation set goals SWOT analysis of an
organisation and keeping in view the strengths and weakness of your competitors. The
top management of Ufone and make strategic plans including developmental methods.
The HR then formulates strategies and policies to achieve the organisational goal
(www.docstoc.com).
Developmental methods used in Ufone
Ufone is currently following “Internal growth policy”. As it is the second largest telecom
company operating in Pakistan. The Company is mainly focusing on market
development that is they are expanding their network to capture large market share. For
that in September 2006, Huawei was awarded by Ufone a $550 million contract.Huawei
would provide future oriented Gnerg GSM solution, including new generation GSM
BTSs, intelligent network system, to complete a network expansion project covering over
1,500 cities, towns, villages, and all major highways over the country.furthmore, the new
edge based network would enable subscribers to enjoy high speed wireless data
services, along with that they are also doing human resource development such as
training and development, organisational developmental, human resource planning and
human resource information system in alignment of strategic goals of organisation.
(www.docstoc.com).

The HR department always keen to develop the skills, abilities and knowledge of the
employees to be able to do their assigned work easily. To achieve these objectives they
give “on job” and “off job” training to their employees and senior management.

On job training:
Basically there are two types of on job training has done in Ufone. One is when they hire
new employee with the condition that they will not leave the organisation for a specific
period of time, which is according to them have positive results. The second is done
after the evolution of the employees. They assess and gave the training according to the
needs of each employee.

Off job training:

Basically off job training has done for the senior management of organisation. It may be
in the form of workshop, seminar and etc.Recently a workshop was held in Islamabad,
the focus was to equip them with the latest knowledge in “MS OFFICE”.

(www.docstoc.com).

Critical evaluation.
They outsourced technological development for which they are paying huge money
rather than going for future product development.

There should be no training condition while hiring the new employees.

Suggestions of functioning HR.
The HR should adapt new “ERP “software to be able to promote the right employee
within the organisation at challenging role.

They should introduce the overtime system to decrease the turnover in the organisation.

They should have a formal succession policy in the organisation.

The HR department should improve in the forecast of various human resources demand
and should be able to predict the areas within the organisation where there will be
future labour shortage or surplus especially in customer service.

The HR department try to recruit people externally rather than outsourcing.

They need to concentrate on “on job training” as well without any condition.

The HR department try to increase the facilities and incentives to keep the employees
motivated.

The department needs to know the limitations of the labour market as well.

The interviewing panel should be consisting of experience and independent people in

order to hire right employee without any biasness.

They should improve the advertisement method as it will help them to attract the
potential applicants.