Executive Summery:

In the complex business world functionality of an organization depends on various factors and
persons combined. People are a basic part of any business. Not just as service receiver but also as
service render. The success of an organization hugely depends on the efficiency of the people
who run the business.

Today’s workers are likely to find themselves working on teams with various people from across
the organization. And, of course, global competition has increased the importance of improving
workforce productivity. Thus, organizations need Human Resource Management to make its
employees skillful and maintain the practices that enhance efficiency.

IFIC Bank Ltd. is one of the oldest and most successful financial institutions in Bangladesh.
Quite obviously, they use effective HRM to manage their workforce. The understanding of the
effective basic functions of human resource management at IFIC Bank Ltd. is rather simple and
precise.
Company Profile

IFIC BANK IN BANGLADESH

General Background:

• Registered in October 08, 1976

• Key Business Area

 Retail Banking

 Corporate and Institutional banking

 SME Banking

• Total Asset: Tk. 45729.47 (in crore)

• Total Liabilities: Tk. 20536.26 (in crore)

About IFIC Bank:

International financial investment and commerce (IFIC) Bank Limited started banking operations
on June 24, 1983. Prior of that it was set up in 1976 as a joint venture finance company at the
instant of the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Government then held 49
percent shares while the sponsors and general public held the rest. The objectives of the finance
company were to establish venture Banks finances companies and affiliates abroad and to carry
out normal functions of a finance company at home. When the Government decided to open up
banking in the privet sector in 1983 the above finance company was converted a full-fledged
commercial Bank. Along with this, the Government also allowed four other commercial banks in
the private sector. Subsequently, the Government denationalized two banks, which were, then
fully Government-owned. While in all these Banks Government is holding nominal 5 percent
shares, an exception was made in the case of the Bank. It retained 40 percent shares of the Bank.
The decision by the Government to retain 40 percent shares in IFIC Bank was in pursuance of
the original objectives, namely, promotion of the participation of Government and private
sponsors to establish joint venture Banks, financial companies, branches and affiliates abroad.
Now, 32.72% of the Bank’s shares is owned by the peoples republic of Bangladesh. Moreover,
11.42% is owned by the Board of the Directors and rest is owned by the share holders.
Human Resource Development

The Bank has a Human Resource Development & Research Department to develop human
resources internally. The Academy is equipped with professional library, modern training aids
professional faculty and other facility. It is now under Personnel & Human Resource
Development & Research Division. The Academy conducts regularly foundation courses,
specialized courses and seminars on different areas of banking to take care of the professional
needs.

All kind of situations, internal and external, related to human resource is monitored through the
HR department. Eventually this bank uses all the basic internal functions of HR to run the entire
organization.

Among those specifically:

 Staffing

 Training & development

 Motivation

 Maintenance
Staffing

Planning:

Although recruiting is frequently perceived as the initial step in the staffing function, it has
prerequisites. Specifically, before the first job candidate is sought, the HR specialist must embark
on employment planning. Specifically, when an organization plans strategically, it determines its
goals and objectives for a given period of time. These goals and objectives often lead to
structural changes in the organization; that is, these changes foster changes in job requirements,
reporting relationships, how individuals are grouped, and the like. As such, these new or revised
structures bring with them a host of pivotal jobs. It is these jobs that HRM must be prepared to
fill. HRM identifies the essential qualifications for a particular job.

Recruitment:
The process of seeking sources for job candidates.

Objectives:

1) To ensure that the availability of HR with requisite skills, expertise, knowledge and abilities is
at par with the Bank’s demand.

2) To ensure that the continued operation of the bank goes smoothly with the right number of HR
of right quality.

3) To ensure that the most promising and best qualified candidate are selected for filling up
organizational vacancies.

The main requirements of the recruitment policy of the bank are:

1) Must be a citizen of Bangladesh.

2) Must be physically and mentally fit as declared by bank’s physician or civil surgeon of any
district or physician of any registered Medical college/university/hospital.

3) Candidates must not be over 30 years

4) Must submit valid document for declaration of age.

Qualification and Procedure for recruitment:

Office attendant
Qualification: minimum SSC
Age: maximum 30 years
Procedure:

• gathered application from different sources

• performance in the interview board

Security Staff
Qualification: minimum SSC
Preference: Ex Army, Navy, Air force, Police, Ansar o BDR
Age: minimum 40 years
Procedure: Same as before

Office Assistant
Qualification: minimum graduate
minimum typing/ word processing speed of 20 words per minute
and MS Office knowledge
Age: minimum 30 years
Procedure: Same as before
Office Assistant (S.G):
Qualification: minimum graduate
minimum typing/ word processing speed of 25 words per minute
Age: minimum 30 years
Procedure: Same as before
Cash officer:
Qualification: minimum graduate with at least 2(two) 2nd division or equivalent CGPA
Age: minimum 30 years
Procedure: Same as before
Computer officer:
Qualification: minimum graduate with at least 2(two) 2nd division or equivalent CGPA
Age: maximum 30 years
Procedure: All knowledge about a PC hardware/software

Grade II officer:
Qualification: Masters in any discipline/graduate with 4years honors without any 3rd division
result in the entire academic career
Age: maximum 30 years
Procedure: Same as before
Probationary Officers:

Graduate with honors in

1) Business Administration

2) Bank Management

3) a) Economics

b) Accounting
 c) Marketing

d) Finance

e) Management

f) Finance and Banking

g) English

h) Mathematics

i) Statistics

j) Computer Science

Recruitment is done once every year according to the requirements of IFIC BANK. After the
resumes are gathered, a team is formed to check the applicants’ background whether they have
any bad records or not and moreover family history is also checked. After the background is
checked all the certificates are send to education boarded for verification. In addition, past
service records are being verified so that the management can get the assurance of hiring
competent employees.

Selection:

The management of the bank will analyze the manpower requirement of branches at least once a
calendar. After assessment of manpower need in line with the organogram of branches,
management will recruit required number of candidates as per policy. All appointments will be
made in accordance with IFIC bank services rules, bank administrative power and as per
norms/guidelines of Bangladesh Bank.
Written test:
Probationary officers will be hired every year through advertisements in national dailies. The test
will be conducted by IBA or BIBM, DU. If they are unable to take the test any other organization
may be entrusted with the responsibilities.

Training & Development

Human Resources Development is focused on recruitment and in-house training for both on the
job and off the job Bank staff members through the Bank’s Academy.

Training:

Objectives:

1) On the Job training to ensure high performance and safe time

2) To make familiar with the law and practice of banking through foundation training

3) To develop analytical and decision making skills of the employees

4) To develop understanding about human/conceptual skill and organizational culture

5) To impart managerial skills to groom future executives and to keep existing Executives
updated with national and international business environment.

IFIC Bank Academy – the oldest institution in the private sector – was conceived of as an
in-house training center to take care of the training needs of the Bank internally. Academy is
fully equipped with a professional library, modern training aids and professional faculty. Library
has about 4941 books on banking, economics, accounting, management, marketing and other
related subjects.
Main training activities consist of in-depth foundation programs for entry level Management
Trainees
During its 23 years of existence, Academy not only conducted courses, workshops and seminars
as required by the Bank, but it also organized training programs for the Bank of Maldives, Nepal
Bangladesh Bank Limited and Oman International Exchange LLC. In addition, Academy has
also the credit of organizing system of Bank of Maldives.
In addition to conducting courses internally, the Academy also selects candidates for nomination
to various courses conducted by distinguished training organizations in the country including
Bangladesh Bank Training Academy and Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management.
The Academy also re-designs its courses, programs etc, regularly to meet the requirement of new
skills arising out of various directives, guidelines of the Central Bank and significant changes in
the banking sector from time to time.

IFIC Bank’s Academy works under the Training and Recruitment division headed by senior
executives.
Organogram of Human Resource division and its basic functions under Head office:

Board of Directors

Managing Director

Head of HRD

Development Maintenance
Staffing Motivation

-Orientation

-Employee
-HR planning Training
-Health and Safety
-Job design
-Selection -Employee
-Communication -Reward and
development
-Recruitment Compensati
-Employee on
-Career
-Placement Relations
Development
-Employee
-Disciplinary
-Performance Benefits
Action
appraisal
 Figure: Organogram

IFIC bank adopts a mix training methodologies for a successful and effective training and they
are:
1)Conceptual class room session

2) Case studies

3) Simulated lessons

4) Group discussion

5) Study visit

6) Project work

7) Communicating with senior Bankers/Academies

8) Panel discussion

9) Use of various training aids

Evaluation of training courses:

a) Foundation courses: Three tests will be conducted in the areas of General Banking,
Accounting, Credit and Foreign exchange.

b) In case of fresher, specialized courses and workshops are prepared. Course directors will
prepare an evaluation report on the performance of the participant on the basis of their
own observation as well as of speakers and session takers.
 c) Evaluation report on the courses and performance report of the participants of the
foundation course will be submitted to the Management for necessary action when
required.

Moreover IFIC bank has external sources through which training is held:

1) Bangladesh bank training

2) Bangladesh Institute of Bank management (BIBM)

A committee is selected by the management who will select the participants depending on the
need, suitability and potential and they are sent abroad on training, attending seminars etc.

Development:

Specialized training programs in the areas like general banking, advance, foreign exchange,
marketing and accounts etc. are also organized by the Academy depending on need.

Frequently outreach programs are organized to meet demand for new and specialized skills.

Motivation

Promotion Policy:
promotion will be considered as “VERTICAL ELEVATION” in organizational hierarchy
usually with enhances pay, allowance, & status.

Objectives:

1) Through demonstration of merit and performance as a result organization assume for giving
higher responsibilities in Bank progress.

2) Giving due importance to performance/merits/potential on employees

3) Retaining good performers in the service of the bank

4) Encourage and motivate the average performers to do better.

5) Promoting on the basis of need of the bank, that is, business expansion/branch expansion/ and
future growth potential.

Promoting Factors:

• Academic as well as professional qualification

• Knowledge of banking rules and regulations

• Job performance as evident from performance appraisal reports

• Length of services or seniority in the grade

• Potential for development and contribution to the growth and development of the
bank

• Clean service record

• Smartness

• Satisfactory performance in interview

Increment policy:

Increment is a kind of performance bonus that is given as a percentage of the basic salary.

Objectives:

1)To enable employees to bear the incidence of inflation

2)To motivate employees to improve performance

3)To retain the performing employees for growth and development of the bank
These increments follow some characteristics:

• Yearly one increment

• Who ever has satisfactory performance can get their entitled increment.

• At least 180 days in service

• If any one has entitled to disciplinary actions then until the pension is clear
increment is not entitled

Compensation Policy:

This function generally deals with paying the employees of an organization.

Objectives:

1) To provide social security to employees by offering financial benefits in exchange

for their past service rendered to the bank.

2) To attract, motivate and retain competent employees

3) To ensure fairness in respect of determination of wage or salary that is appropriate

for the demands and requirements of a particular job within the organization.

Types of compensation:

• Contributory provident fund

• Leave encashment facility

• Contributory welfare fund

• Death risk coverage benefit

Maintenance
Activities that help retain productive employees are known as maintenance function of an
organization. The activities that are undertaken in this regard in IFIC Bank Ltd. are :

• Health care for officers and their spouses are paid by the bank but for other
immediate family members small premium is charged.

• Life insurance premium for the employees are paid by the bank.

• Easy conditioned loan system for the employees.

External Factors:

• Labor union:
Since IFIC bank is a private bank, to avoid any sort of unrest and lock out
between the employees Bank does not allow any kind of union activities. As a
result every officer from lower level to higher lever are entitled with a position as
White Collar so that union activities are avoided.

• Government legislation:
Government sets some common rules and regulation which has to be followed by
each and every branch of every bank. Moreover the legislations are direct ordered
from the finance ministry to Bangladesh Bank and Bangladesh bank imposes
them to all the banks of the country that are forced to follow the law.
Recent news about IFIC Bank Ltd.

There have been some unrest as the officials of International Finance Investment and Commerce
Bank, IFIC Bank, boycotted an evaluation test of the bank officials held on 23 July, 2010,
terming the exam demeaning.
They feared that they would lose their jobs after the test and the board of directors would then
replace them with the board's chosen people.

Some 1,500 officials, below the rank of assistant vice-president, were asked to sit for the test,
which was supposed to be held simultaneously at six divisional cities. Eshna Consulting Team
was employed by the bank to conduct the test. Like Dhaka, the test was boycotted in Chittagong,
Rajshahi, Khulna, Sylhet and Barisal divisions.

There is no rule or regulation stating that employees are to be subjected to tests for evaluation of
their performances. Only time the tests are taken are when the employees are selected for
employment. The central bank has also asked the IFIC bank why it was taking such a test.

The bank's human resources development program and recent actual performance contradicts
somewhat to the chairman's statement about the employees' alleged inabilities.
It may be mentioned in this regard that, at the end of 2009, the total asset of the bank was valued
at Tk 6,290 crore, which was Tk 4,573 crore a year ago.

Comments:

So far it has been found that IFIC Bank Ltd. is a renowned organization touching the peak of
success in its services. The bank’s management has always been very considerate and tactful
regarding the administration of employees and has always appreciated the contribution of the
employees to create satisfaction. But the recent practice of management that has resulted in the
appointment of a new chairman has created strong dislike and dissatisfaction among the
employees. The bank management needs to prove their goodwill for employees to gain employee
trust and thus run the bank as a successful one.
 Bibliography

1) http://www.ificbankbd.com [ONLINE], available

2) P. Robinson, Stephen & A. DeCenzo, David, Fundamentals of Human

Resource Management, Eighth edition

3) IFIC BANK Academic Library

4) Rahman, Sajjadur, IFIC officials boycott test for evaluation, The Daily Star,
24 July, 2010
 Table of Contents

Topic Page no.

About IFIC 1
Four basic Functions 2
Staffing
Planning 3
Recruitment 3
Selection 6
Training & Development
Training 7
Development 11
Motivation
Promotion Policy 11
Increment Policy 12
Compensation Policy 13
Maintenance 13
External Factors 14
Recent News 15
Comments 15