Library of Textile, Apparel and Fashion

Human Resource Management (HRM) system in Bangladesh Apparel Industry

The human resources (HR) function is the most vital part of most employers’ efforts to identify, hire, fire, and retain the people the organization needs to execute its strategy and achieve its goals.  But HR function also plays a key role within the organization’s compliance structure as well. There are numerous laws and regulations to govern the employment relationship that HR professionals must understand and navigate in order to help ensure their organizations avoid costly fines and other penalties, including the potential harm to the organization’s reputation. One of the objectives of human resource management is to select the right and the best man with a minimum salary in the right place. In recent years, devices and hiring agencies to select the right man for the right position through professional guidance and counseling programs and by various examination and tests (oral and written) have also been innovated as a result of which the scope of proper and maximum utilization of human resources has become easy and wide. Following objectives of HRM are important which can be discussed in short with the fulfillment of these objectives, HRM can become successful.


HRM Planning: Human Resource Planning means manpower planning. HR planning is assembling and utilizing human resources at the right place and in the right number capable to perform the job. Some are the causes needed for HRP are Reservoir of Talent, Prepare People for the Future, Expand, cost reduction, etc. 


HR Policies:  From the starting of my internship, I focused on different sections of HR policies. Such as Standard Conduct, hiring policy, Harassment Policy, Attendance Policy, Recommendations, recruiting more HR personnel, providing more facilities to increase job satisfaction, The HR should monitor the line managers properly, Introduce service employee career development. 


Recruitment and Selection: This Recruitment and Selection Policy has been framed with the view of recruiting and selecting people who have a strong desire to achieve and who will assist us in achieving the business results. The main difference between recruitment and selection is that recruitment is a positive process where candidates are attracted to the post apply there. On the other hand, the selection is a negative process where competition arises and candidates compete with each other and meritorious candidates get jobs. In HRM, Recruitment is a process of searching the candidates for employment and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organization whereas selection involves the series of steps by which the candidates are screened for choosing the most suitable persons for vacant posts. 


Selection Procedure: The process explains how pools of candidates are generated from different sources. It is impossible to collect all the candidates of different categories and experiences using only one source. These sources are proved to be very useful and effective for finding the right amount of capable people. The position is defined and justified by the requisitioning Department Head/ Business Unit Head/Function Head and authorized and processed by Human Resource Department. The position is advertised unless a person has been identified through the succession planning process or other business requirements. The Business Unit Head / Function Head is involved in the recruitment and selection decision. As a minimum, at least one other person from the Business Unit/Function, competent in the recruitment process, should assist besides the authorized person from HR Department. Pre-requisite skills, qualifications, experience, competencies, and other requirements are met and documented. At least 2 reference checks and medical checkups are completed and documented. Offers are approved and made by the Head of Group HR and in some special cases by the Managing Director. All people, whether internally or externally recruited, are inducted through an employee orientation program. 


Current Recruitment Process: When a vacancy comes about within the approved establishment and it is deemed necessary to fill in the vacancy, the Employee Requisition Form has to be completed and a copy of it has to be sent to the HR Manager, Talent Management at the Corporate Office who finds out if there is any suitable candidate already working in the Group for whom a transfer to the vacant position would mean either a promotion or better prospect promotion. HR Manager, Talent Management returns the Requisition Form with his comments to the requiring department at the earliest.


 SWOT analysis of Human Resource Management & Compliance of Apparel Industry


Strength:

1. Organized organogram: HRM & Compliance team has organized an organogram to follow for individual responsibilities. Everyone has their own area of interest as per their designation, remuneration, and work experience. So the chain is stable enough when it comes to command, handling any project or day-to-day activities. Apparel Industries follow vertical as well as a horizontal chain of command for balancing their organogram. From senior to junior, everyone has respect over their senior management so that there is no negligence of responsibilities. 

2.      SOP and Policies for HR & Compliance: HRM & Compliance team has organized SOP for their work. So, whenever anyone faces any issue, SOP can guide them. Whenever any newcomer comes or anyone left the organization, as per SOP, it becomes easier to understand the job role or hand over the responsibilities. 

3.      ERP & Payroll software: There is an integration of enterprise resource planning and payroll software. So, the responsible person need not do manual work and the process becomes easier. It makes the HR & Compliance team more active in their field jobs, so the people’s satisfaction increases with these departments’ activities. 

4.      Experienced & educated top management: Apparel industries have experienced and educated top management. Also, there are retired army personnel (Most of the factories) on the top management team. It helps to become more responsibility-oriented, time management, and respect basic rules. Top management personnel is certified with national and international standards in their area of interest which is a blessing for the organization. 

5.      Women empowerment: Both HR & Compliance team has women team members and this is a blessing for both departments. The garments industry is mostly female-oriented labor. So, managing these females is easier for female staff. They can easily be associated with the operators & staff, identify their needs, work on improvements and help each other whenever necessary.

 

Weakness:

1.  Mindset to accept changes: The major weak point of the Apparel industry's HR and compliance team is a rigid mindset that whatever the policy they are maintaining or whatever the SOP they are following is the world’s best. But the world is changing every day with a new concepts, new technologies, and new ideas. This mindset needs to change for the future scope of improvement. 

2.      Unorganized Office room: HR and compliance room layout is not organized. In some cases, 5S is not maintained also. Desk, table, chair, and unused papers are lying here and there. Also as per departmental work hierarchy or organogram, there need some people to sit together to reduce transportation time of documents or themselves. It might be costly to organize the room at once, but in the long run, it will create work proficiency. 

3.       Lack of collaboration: Sometimes admin, HR, and compliance team take different projects of improvements from their own area of interest. It would be great if they took the decision to collaborate and think of the final benefit rather than their own interest. At the end of the day, everyone works for the benefit of the organization; it should be kept in everyone’s mind. 

4.      Some un-educated mid-management: There is some uneducated mid-management who joined through their top-level senior management. In some cases, they follow their own strategy as they think they are superior to others. These kinds of people are bottlenecks for improvement. They should be trained or motivated to change their mindset. Otherwise, it will be a hindrance to the organizational culture change environment. 

5.      Tendency to file work instead of doc works: This is the mere tendency of some HR & Compliance personnel to keep their work records through file management instead of document management at a computer. So, in some cases, people can’t get emergency data or reports that are necessary. Filing is a practice that consumes space as well as is time-consuming. All kinds of manual work need to convert to automatic work or software-based work to be more efficient.

 

Opportunities:

1.      Positive mindset of top management: Apparel industry's top management is full of a positive mindset to change of culture or any other positive changes. There is always an opportunity to change anything with a proper plan. In most the companies, it becomes a barrier. But for Apparel industries, any initiatives from mid-level management for the improvement of people, planet, or profit can easily have approved by top management. 

2.      Positive Mindset of All employees: All employees have a positive mindset about HR policies and everyone is under discipline. They always think about the organization and its people. So, any initiative to change the human resource management & compliance department will be highly encouraged.

 

Threat:

1.    Highly systematic HR & Compliance department: Nowadays it is an unwritten fact that there is a competition between organizations to organization. People might get attracted to the organization with some better HR & compliance practice and move there. 

2.    Name & fame: Internal practices are not hidden when there is some audit or function happens. So, there might be a risk of reputation one factory to another. It needs to mitigate by proper planning and re-arranging some operational as well as organizational structures of work.