Recruitment ; selection practice of British American Tobacco

 

Chapter-1: Introduction

 Statement of the problem

Effective organizations are increasingly realizing that, of the varied factors that contribute to performance, the human element is clearly the most critical. Human resource is the sum of total accumulation of knowledge, skills, abilities, attitude that person either inherits or develop through learning or education or environment. Human resource management is very important activity for effective and efficient operation of an organization. It is the process of acquiring, retaining, terminating, developing and properly using the human resources in an organization.

Successful human resource planning is designed to identify an organization’s human resource needs. Once these needs are known, an organization will want to do something about meeting them. The next step in the staffing function is recruiting. This activity makes it possible for a company to acquire the people necessary to ensure the continued operation of the organization. Recruiting is the process of discovering potential candidates for actual or anticipated organizational vacancies. From another perspective, it is a linking activity that brings together those with jobs to fill and those seeking jobs.

On the other hand selection is the process of hiring suitable people for job. Right person for the right job is the main goal of selection. Among the various function of Human recourse management recruitment and selection are very important of them. Because hiring and placing of people in positions where they can perform effectively is a goal of most organizations, whether domestic or international.

So, this report is based on the Recruitment & Selection of Multinational Company named British American Tobacco, which has its subsidiary in Bangladesh. This report is to understand and to see their definition of recruitment & selection, and their objectives, their making and using of the recruitment & selection policy and their design and implementation of the selection process.

Scope of the study

This report primarily concerns the recruitment & selection practice of British American Tobacco. By its very nature this report limits itself from going into all the subsidiaries recruitment & selection practice. Here the concern is mainly on subsidiary operating in Bangladesh. With this view in mind, this report focuses on the issues like recruitment sources, processes,——

Objective of the study

General Objective

This study is a partial requirement of the course on “International Human Resource Management”. The general objective of the study is to portray the overall recruitment & selection process of British American Tobacco Bangladesh.

Specific Objectives

The specific objectives of the study are:

  • To know the meaning of recruitment & selection in an international perspective
  • To know the recruitment & selection policies and practices of subsidiary of an multinational firm operating in Bangladesh
  • To familiarize with the different recruitment source ————-
  • To clearly understand the different steps of selection followed by British American Tobacco Bangladesh

Methodology of the study

Information for this report is collected from secondary sources. The secondary sources of this report are internet, reports and books.

Limitation of the study

The main limitation of the study is the time constraint. The time boundary was not enough to conduct this type of important study. As a result, direct interviews of different persons from British American Tobacco Bangladesh were not possible. For their views, we had to depend on the national newspapers, internet and published report.

Chapter-2: Company Overview

Company Background:

British American Tobacco is the world’s second largest quoted tobacco group. With more than 300 brands in their portfolio, they make the cigarette chosen by one in seven of the world’s one billion adult smokers. They hold robust market positions in each of their regions and have leadership in more than 50 of the 180 markets where they do business.

They are committed to building value for shareholders, and believe there is real value embedded not only in how they run business but in how a company is put together; to build relationships of trust with consumers, suppliers, distributors and partners, and to manage high quality brands. Perhaps above all in today’s economy, there is particular strength in the ability to root local businesses in a vast range of different cultures around the globe.

BAT subsidiaries operate in more than 90 countries employing around 173,000 people. Multi-national, multi-cultural and multi-disciplined, British American Tobacco Group is a world-class group of tobacco companies. BAT offers a brand for every taste and preference.

British American Tobacco Co. Ltd.

British American Tobacco, the second largest company in the world is also the world’s most global tobacco company. Based in London, UK, it operates in more than 50 countries with the strength of 100,000 employees and sells more than 250 brands in more than 180 markets worldwide. Tracing its heritage back to a joint

  • Venture formed by the imperial Tobacco Company of the United Kingdom and The American Tobacco Company of the States in 1902, today’s British American Tobacco Company was born on the world stage. Extent of operation of British American Tobacco Company is given below:
  • America- Pacific (Japan, USA, South Korea)
  • Asia –Pacific (China, Indo-China, Taiwan, South-East Asia, Australasia)
  • Europe (50 Countries including Russia)
  • Latin America (Central & South America, Mexico, Caribbean)
  • Africa (More than 50 Counties)
  • MESCA (Middle East, South & Central Asia)

 

Today British American Tobacco Sells the leading brands in over markets covering 102 countries, has more than 200 brands world wide, employs more than 55,000 people and produces some 2 billion Cigarettes every day. More than a billion people across the globe enjoy smoking tobacco. One in every eight chooses a British American Tobacco brand. In order to support the company’s business goals the merger of British American Tobacco Bangladesh with Rothmans international had been announced on 11 January 1999. This global merger was completed on 7th June 1999. This brings together the number 2 and 4 players, which together will boost a combined volume exceeding 900 billion Cigarettes around the world with some 120,000 employees and worldwide market share of 16 percent (Philip Morris has a 17 percent share). The merger is a major step forward in British American Tobacco’s Vision of becoming the world’s leading International Tobacco Company.

British American Tobacco Bangladesh

British American Tobacco Bangladesh a subsidiary of British American Tobacco was established in 1971 and since than it has been the market leader in the country. Based in Dhaka the company has one packaging factory in Dhaka and leaf- processing factory in Kushtia. The company currently employs more than 200 managers and 1300 employees.

 

In its brand portfolio British American Tobacco Bangladesh has a wide range of cigarettes for different consumer segments. Starting from Benson & Hedges (Lights and Regular), which are currently imported from Europe to locally produced International brands such as State Express 555 and John Player Gold Leaf (Lights and Regular) and also national brands like Capstan, Star family and Scissors family are members of the portfolio.

 

British American Tobacco Bangladesh is involved in various community services in the country. A forestation is the pet project of the company, which was started in 1980. Till now the company, has planted 32 millions trees across the country. In this regard, British American Tobacco Bangladesh has won many awards during last 28 years but the most prestigious of all are Prime Minister Afforestation Award 1993, Presidents Award in agriculture in 1975, sports Journalist Award and FAO Award in 1998. Besides this, the company is also involved in vegetable seed multiplication project, supports philanthropic organizations like Sandhani and other social and cultural groups.

 

The company has its Head office and the cigarette factory in Dhaka, a Green Leaf Threshing plant in Kushtia and a number of Leafs and Sales Offices throughout the country.

 

Brands:

Brand portfolio British American Tobacco Bangladesh has a wide range of cigarettes for different consumer segments. International Brands such as Benson & Hedges (Lights and Regular), State Express 555 and John Player Gold Leaf (Lights and Regular), and also National Brands like Star family and Scissors family are members of the portfolio. All products are manufactured locally at its sophisticated manufacturing site.

Socio-economic contributions:

British American Tobacco Bangladesh is involved in various community development programs in the country. The company is also one of the highest taxpayers in the country.

  • The company contributes more than Tk 12000 million to government annually (largest private sector taxpayer)
  • Since the inception of its a forestation program in 1980 the company till date has planted and distributed 38 million trees across the country with a sapling survival rate exceeding 91%.
  • Supports Shandhani (posthumous eye donation) and the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed as well as other charitable development organizations.
  • Is involved in vegetable seed multiplication program .
  • In national disasters the company has been prompt in lending timely support to people of the affected regions.
  • Is committed to develop backward linkage industries for the cigarette industry, leading to significant improvements in the packaging industry.
  • Committed to rural wealth and hygiene improvements through concerted activities in rural areas.

British American Tobacco Bangladesh has won many awards during the last 30 years. Among the awards won are the 1st Prize of Prime Minister’s National Award on Tree Plantation 99, Prime Minister Afforestation Award in 1993, Presidents Award in Agriculture in 1975, FAO Award in 1999 and the National Export Trophy award in 2000.

Chapter-3:Recruitment & Selection

 

Recruitment & Selection

The process of recruiting applicants and selecting prospective employees remains a key strategic area of human resource management. Recruitment is defined as searching for and obtaining potential job candidates in sufficient numbers and quality so that the organization can select the most appropriate people to fill its job needs. Selection is the process of gathering information of evaluating and deciding who should be employed in particular jobs.

International Recruitment & Selection

In international business, by recruitment & selection we mean recruitment & selection activities for a multinational enterprise. There are staffing issues that internationalizing firms confront that are either not presented in a domestic environment, or are complicated by the international context in which these activities take place. For a multinational decision of staffing a subsidiary manager have three choices. These are a parent country national or a host country national or a third country national. Factors influencing decision to fill up positions in the subsidiary are the following:

  • Its general staffing policy to fill up key positions
  • Its ability to attract right candidates
  • The constrains placed by the host government on hiring policies

Various approaches of staffing:

The four approaches to multinational staffing decisions tend to reflect the managerial philosophy toward international operations held by top management at headquarters. These approaches are given below:

  • Ethnocentric: An ethnocentric international human resource management orientation means that all aspects of HRM for managers and trained workers tend to follow the parent organization’s home country HRM practices.
  •  Polycentric: In polycentric human resource management orientation, firms treat each country level organization separately for HRM purposes.
  • Regiocentric: In regiocentric human resource management orientation regionwise HRM policies are adopted.
  • Global: Recruiting and selecting worldwide and assigning the best managers to international assignment regardless of nationality.

HR Background of BATB Departments

The Human Resources Department of British American Tobacco Bangladesh has grown with the heritage of the company. In fact, In Bangladesh British American Tobacco Bangladesh is the first company that realized the necessity of Human Resources and initiated the process.

Till 1998, there was no HR department of British American Tobacco Bangladesh. There was a department, which was called “Personnel Department” and that basically used to focus on employee relations. There were Regional and International Training Sources for the purpose of training and development. In addition, there was also Local Training Source for the technical training purpose.

Basically, in 1995, the company proved itself to be a world-class company by achieving the prestigious MRP II (Manufacturing Resources Planning) recognition. This is basically a people based concept rather than technology or finance based and more applicable to the company, which has total supply chain. During that time, the top teams of the company did a survey within the organization to assess the business in future. They in fact, tried to know the following things.

ü  What are the businesses that may come in the future?

ü  What are the changes that may come in the future?

ü  What are the ways to adopt those changes?

From that survey, the top teams realized the future cultural, environmental and other issues related to people’s attitude. As a matter of fact, at that time the concern of HR evolved and it is recognized that the role HR can be seen as the ingredient part of all functions. Thus, HR came as the central point of all components where the major focus was on change management.

Following that, British American Tobacco Bangladesh introduced the WOW (Winning in Our World) program, which basically focused on visioning and value building of the total population. With these changing activities, there were some insight changes like Restructuring, Reengineering and Rationalization. Ultimately, HR became the custodian of the whole environment in the business of British American Tobacco Bangladesh. In fact, now HR is the most credible business partner in the whole organization, which is basically concerned with the people’s development, culture based development, employee relations and so on.

At present BATB’s total no. of employees are 1368 (Workers- 836, Staff- 264, Executives- 268). The total no. of HR Manager are 13. And the ratio between the HR manager and employees are 1:108.

Components of HR Department in British American Tobacco Bangladesh

Recruitment on BATB:

Recruitment recommends policies to top management. It develops the strategies and procedures for advertising job opening, collect information from prospective job applicants and screen these information to form an application pool. The human resources department is also responsible for evaluating the recruiting process to identify the most effective procedure.

The recruitment process in British American Tobacco Bangladesh is basically exhaustive and structured. Despite such characteristics the organization draws a large pool of applicants every time. These applicants go through various types of screening process so as to select the best applicant out of the large.

Annual average vacancies in different levels are:

Shop Floor: 0 (zero)

Level One : 3 (three) Approx.

Level Two : 0 (zero)

Level Three: 0 (zero)

Average hiring per year:

Level One: 32 (thirty two)

Level Two & Three: 0 (zero)

 

Recruitment Methods:

Recruitment is said to be effective if the recruiting methods are correctly chosen to fill in the respective position. Certain recruiting methods are more effective than that of other with respective to the type of job. The common areas the British American Tobacco Bangladesh chooses in terms of selecting recruitment methods are – Advertising, Headhunting, Job fair, Employment agencies, Universities, Online application, & Internal sources.

Advertising

Advertising acts as an important source for recruiting employee. At first the HR department frames out the source and sends it to the respective functional employee. This gives them the opportunity to comment, modify if required. The department frames a role profile, which explains the necessary job skill and requirement. Depending on the job for which the advertisements are set, relevant skills are mentioned. In case of shop-floor workers, they specify for an educational requirement of Higher Secondary, while in case of management level that take applicants with a minimum education level of university graduate. After finalizing the course and its content the HR department brings out advertisement in the national newspapers. This brings in a large number of applications to the department.

Recruiting

Sometimes, British American Tobacco Bangladesh recruits people and enjoys the growth of employee in the organization. Often such practices do not take place but recruitment of employee occurs through headhunting. Such recruitment policies are used mostly when the job requires people at the senior level and when the job is too technical in nature. As the organization wishes to maintain its unique characteristics, it does not compromise with selecting the best people for their job.

Job fair

British American Tobacco Bangladesh takes an active role in job fair. They have participated in such fairs in three renowned universities right here in Bangladesh, namely – North South University (NSU), Institute of Business Administration (IBA) of Dhaka University and Independent University of Bangladesh (IUB). The organization finds this approach an excellent way to get new potential graduates, whom they can train according to the needs of their organization.

Online application

This is a recent approach taken by British American Tobacco Bangladesh to increase the ease of the applicants to apply and to keep up with the globalization. In this process, applications are received through Internet using the website of the organization.

Recruitment Policies

BATB see recruitment as a part of their business strategy, ensuring that their company is equipped with managers of the highest caliber who can build our future. It is a long-term strategic exercise to continually improve the quality of management with a consistent focus on future requirements.

Year after year, they select, train and develop some of the brightest and most talented graduates. Our unique management development programme-the Challenge Initiative-has been designed to train the very best people to a global standard of excellence. Graduates are therefore not recruited to fill a vacant slot but as management trainees, and are recruited over and above the company’s current manpower requirements. They will have recently completed 4-year graduate level education and will be seeking a first professional post.
The company also invites talents to submit their applications for positions other than management trainee or entry level. Recruitment policies followed by BATbB are given below:

  • British American Tobacco Bangladesh will be in e – resourcing from 2002. We will be focusing on e-based advertisement for more visibility and transparency alongside the conventional print media. All recruitment related notices will be posted on the www.bdjobs.com web site. Candidates are required to fill up the blank resume format provided in the web site. A well-structured and systematic selection procedure is followed to get the most suitable candidate. Following the selection procedure, pre-employment medical examination and reference checks are done.
  • We entertain application from recognised universities from home and abroad.
  • Applicant must be citizen of Bangladesh.
  • We will encourage students with good academic track record to apply.
  • We are free from any prejudice against any race, sex, religion, age what so ever. Positions will be offered to the candidate on the basis of his/her ability and requirement of the company.

Recruitment process:

In the interest of the successfully fulfilling our company’s ambitious objectives, our Human Resources (HR) strategy aims to ensure that vacancies are filled by the best suited and most talented candidates. The attainment of this goal is supported by our sophisticated selection process, which focuses primarily on the expertise factor.

 

During the first phase of the selection process, the HR department shortlists the candidates pursuant to the needs of the individual units and then uses the technique that is best suited to appraising the knowledge and skills necessary for the given job. The line managers play an important role in this phase, while HR supports selection.

The representatives of various functions are involved in the highly comprehensive selection process. In the interest of providing an objective assessment of the candidate’s knowledge and skills, several persons are requested to take part in the assessment process, and we are therefore convinced that our decisions are well-founded and objective.

We maintain continuous dialogue with the candidates during the various phases of the selection process, and if requested, we provide them with detailed feedback.

Selection techniques
BATB typically use multiple selection techniques in the course of our recruitment processes. Our most frequently used methods are as follows:

  • Curriculum Vitae (CV)

Based on the CVs at its disposal, HR conducts a pre-selection by identifying and rejecting those candidates who obviously do not meet the requirements necessary for the given job.  We inform these candidates of our decision by mail.

  • Testing

In the interest of prompt and objective filtering, the staff members of HR hold examinations to facilitate the selection process with tests.  The tests are conducted and assessed, and feedback is provided, exclusively by specified trained HR personnel.

  • Interview

The head of the unit concerned or the head of HR, conducts an interview to ascertain competence and/or the candidate’s level of specialist knowledge.

  • Assessment Centre

Between four and six experienced members of our Assessment Centre (AC), jointly decide on the suitability of candidates.  The assessment is based on the standard of performance displayed by the candidates in completion of between three and six tasks and on the basis of the assessment criteria related to the position applied for.  The assessment criteria serve to provide as true a picture as possible of the candidate’s leadership and managerial skills.

The assessment focuses primarily on the candidate’s attitude and behaviour.

Typical tasks of the Assessment Centre:

  • Presentation task
  • Role playing
  • Team exercises
  • Fact finding exercises

Chapter-4: Findings & Analysis

 

RECOMMENDATION:

BATB is still the market leader in Bangladesh and has significant dominance. Although there are some problems existing for the company but these problems are not significant enough to cause corporate decline for the company. There is nothing called best solution for a company like BATB. Looking at BATB, the company is in the best position and is enjoying the market leadership. So we have some generic recommendations for the company:

  • During 1996, BATB captured a substantial portion of the market share of Navy brand, another leading player in the mid-range category, which resulted in 18% gross revenue growth. Therefore, BATB  should concentrate more in the market and product positioning in the lower priced segment.
  • Continue with expansion and internalization of technology like most modernized factories with highly sophisticated machineries and researches facilities.
  • BATB should employ effort for continuous quest terms of product, service and people.
  • Should think seriously for operating in the very low segments.
  • It can think of focusing on unrelated business diversification.
  • BATB should outsource its daily administrative activities and put concentration more on its business development activities.
  •  Increase the volume it exports of tobacco leaf & cigarettes & diversify its business abroad.
  • BATB should continue to enhance its corporate images by continuing different social activities and introducing new promotional campaigns like YSP (Young Smoking Prevention).

Promote the JPGL (FF) almost in every place because it is the major cash cow brand.