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Human Resource Management

Final Project

National Bank of Pakistan (NBP)

Recruitment and Selection

Submitted By: Hafsa Zulfiqar

Anum Irfan

Sohaib Akbar

MBA I
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Table of Contents

Executive Summary....................................................................................................................................... 4

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 5

Vision......................................................................................................................................................... 5

Mission ...................................................................................................................................................... 5

Core values................................................................................................................................................ 5

Goal ........................................................................................................................................................... 5

The product outlines ................................................................................................................................. 6

Services ..................................................................................................................................................... 6

Competitors .............................................................................................................................................. 6

Stakeholder ............................................................................................................................................... 8

Importance of Recruitment and Selection.................................................................................................... 8

Structure of HRM Department ..................................................................................................................... 9

Human Resource Planning and Forecasting ................................................................................................. 9

Current Recruitment and Selection process at NBP ................................................................................... 10

Criteria/ Recruitments for Employment of Staff..................................................................................... 12

Future Role of HR in NBP ............................................................................................................................ 13

Strengths of Current System ....................................................................................................................... 14

Weaknesses of Current System .................................................................................................................. 15

Improvements ............................................................................................................................................. 16
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Action Plan .................................................................................................................................................. 17

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 18

Recommendation........................................................................................................................................ 19

References .................................................................................................................................................. 20
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Executive Summary

One of the largest commercial bank of Pakistan is National bank of Pakistan (NBP). NBP

headquarters are in Karachi and have 1345 branches around the country. Main purpose of NBP is

to set high standards of achievements and provide high quality of services to its customers. Small

and medium sized entrepreneurs requirements are cater by NBP in an effective way. The banking

industry has grown rapidly over the last decade, with the economic indicators in the country

showing a positive growth of over 5% per year, the banking industry is expected to grow parallel

to it. NBP works under the philosophy of “Happy Customers- Our Success”. Working towards it,

they have established complaint management divisions to tackle customer complaints in the

minimum time possible. A continuous flow of operations and cross functional teams come

together to make up this unit and deliver maximum customer satisfaction. Key KPIs used to

achieve the ultimate objective of being a financially leading bank involve increasing deposits in

current account that will eventually result in higher profits. NBP also makes use of its data,

human, and software resources to manage customer relations and uses innovation to best cater to

customer changing demands. The current system of recruitment and selection in NBP is

discussed in this report along with action plan to cater to the weaknesses in the process and to

bring change in the organization.

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Introduction

One of the largest commercial bank of Pakistan is National bank of Pakistan (NBP).It moved to

modern commercial bank from public sector. It came in existence in 1949, as its network keeps

on growing; it makes it largest commercial bank. NBP headquarters are in Karachi and have

1345 branches around the country. It provides services such as commercial and public sector to

Government, entities and individuals. State bank of Pakistan’s agent and trustee is NBP. Asset

Management Company, NAFA and United National Bank are its joint venture. Business

portfolio increased rapidly of NBP, and plays a main part in retail, consumer, corporate

investment, debt market and growing interest in development of small, medium enterprises. NBP

is an efficient and customer focused institution.

Vision
By providing high quality standards of service NBP can become leader in a market.

Mission
To make NBP national bank they need to meet values by setting goals such as institutionalizing

culture performance, meeting high standard of services to create brand equity, stakeholder value

maximizing, in order to become good citizen NBP needs to discharge responsibility.

Core values
The core values are institutionalization of performance culture & team work, high Skills for

advancement in challenges for tomorrow. It creates Social & community responsibilities

awareness among people and can maximize value of stakeholders. (Lodhi, 2011)

Goal
By increasing product range NBP share value can be maximized.
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The product outlines

To meet need of people NBP launched a few programs such as NBP Advance Salary, NBP

Saiban, NBP Kisan Dost, and NBP Cash in Gold. (Lodhi, 2011)

Services
Services offered by NBP are 1) Traditional bank accounts to customers and pension payment, 2)

Short/ Long term investments, 3) Corporate and cash finance services, 4) Services of cash

management, 5) Agriculture, 6) Advance salary load, 7) Scheme for student loan. (Qundeel,

2017)

Competitors
The competitors of the National Bank of Pakistan are following.

Organizational Structure

NBP has low formalized jobs. Employees are not bound to come in special uniform, timing and

to use a specific language & gestures during the office working. They have right to perform their

jobs as they feel convenient to perform them. But they are liable to perform their assigned tasks

in accordance with the determined policies and procedures. (Lodhi, 2011)

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.
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Stakeholder
Organization objectives and actions can be affected by direct and indirect stake by person, group

or organization. Main stakeholders in a business organization include directors, employees,

creditors, government, owners, suppliers etc.

Importance of Recruitment and Selection

Human resource management is a process of acquiring, training, appraising, and compensating

employees. In addition it also includes, the issues regarding labor relations, health and safety and

fairness concerns. Out of all the functions of Human Resource management, recruitment and

selection are of utmost importance as it’s a starting point in this process. Recruitment process

basically helps in selecting a right candidate for the right job. Recruitment process identifies the

sources of manpower to fulfill a staffing need and the effective ways to attract that manpower in

order to facilitate the effective selection of the personnel.

The human resource management mission for National bank of Pakistan is to provide talent

human resource to all National Bank of Pakistan functional areas in relation to the competition;

all employees must be kept motivated to maintain a total industrial harmony. National Bank of

Pakistan provides the employees with a challenging work environment where performance level

and merit of an individual helps them to explore and utilize their full potential. The bank

provides the employees with challenging career paths that are full of opportunities. Moreover,

National Bank of Pakistan also has an open culture where employees can communicate and share

information freely. National Bank of Pakistan believes that people make an organization,

collective working produces results, people aspire to be rewarded and distinguished and human

capital should be developed and invested in. (Human Resources: NBP)

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Structure of HRM Department

The structure of HRM at National bank of Pakistan starts with the president at the top most

position of the hierarchy then on the second level there is senior vice president and his secretary.

Further, they have divided the management in different departments on the third level which are

institutional discipline wing, legal affair wing, organizational development (OD) and training

wing, sports wing, industrial relations division and personnel administration wing. At the fourth

and the last level of hierarchy there are four departments that are recruitment and compensation

wing, stall loans and welfare wing, Human Resource policies and projects wing and regional HR

chief at regional offices. This shows how the hierarchy and decision making process passes

along the National Bank of Pakistan. (Ali M. Z., 2018)

Human Resource Planning and Forecasting

Human Resource department of National Bank of Pakistan forecasts the needs through internal

supply forecasting and external supply forecasting. First method that they use is zero based
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forecasting which helps them to find out the need of the future staff by taking the current level of

employment as the basis for it. The second method used is bottom up approach, in this method

employee requirements are forecasted at each successive level starting from the lowest to

provide a forecast for the employment needs. Moreover, National Bank of Pakistan also uses

mathematical model for simulation to implement a real world situation for example, to show the

connection between the employees needed and number of employees demanded. (Ali M. Z.,

2018)

Current Recruitment and Selection process at NBP

Firstly, National Bank of Pakistan has two sources for candidate’s recruitment which are external

source and internal sources. The internal sources include promotion of the junior NBP employees

to higher and other position. However, the external sources include recruiting candidates from

outside the NBP current employee. (Ali M. Z., 2018)

Recruitment and
Selection

Institute of Bankers
Advertising Bank Sources
Pakistan
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Evaluation
Criteria

Personality Background
Written Test Interview
Test Checks

Recruitment and selection process at NBP starts with advertising in a newspaper and recruitment

website. Then all the applications received by the Human Resource team are scanned and called

for a written test. After the written test interviews and personality tests are conducted for the

shortlisted candidates. Lastly, for the further shortlisted candidates background checks are made

and the final decision is announced after the medical tests. (Ali M. Z., 2018)

Moreover, the recruitment policy of NBP regarding the hiring of external candidates has the

following requirements:

 The candidate being considered for hiring should be a citizen of Pakistan.

 The qualification should be at least graduation.

 The candidate must have the required skills to perform the desired job.

Some of the forms that NBP recruitment policy has for internal hiring are; from the bank

promotions, job posting, contacts and referrals. Whereas, for external hiring NBP at times

consider agencies or 3rd parties as well. One of the third parties is Institute of Bankers Pakistan a

subsidiary of State Bank of Pakistan. The initial screening of candidates and tests are conducted

by IBP. Afterwards, a panel interview is conducted by NBPs top management and employees are

then selected for probation period of 6 to 9 months. The selected candidates afterwards have to

submit the following documents in Head office, Karachi:

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 Bank Secrecy Bond

 Proof for mentioned qualifications

 Security Bond

 Service agreement bond

However, only for contractual employees the hiring process is outsourced by NBP. The

positions for initial hiring are probationary officers, junior officer cash and junior officer general.

Criteria/ Recruitments for Employment of Staff

The criteria followed by the management selection committee formed at Head office for
recruitment of Non–officer/Staff in NBL are as follows:

SL. Name of the post. Recruitment. Maximum

Age
01 Dispatcher/Godown Graduate with any Division 25 years
Inspector
02 Receptionist Graduate with any Division 25 years
03 Computer operator Graduate with any division must be computer 25 years
literacy typing speed 40 WPM in English and 25
WPM in Bengali
04 Telephone operator Graduate with any division and 3 years 25 years
experience in this line.
05 Electrician SSC with technical certificate as electrician 25 years
having minimum 3 years experience in this line.
06 AC Technician SSC with technical certificate as A C Technician 25 up years
having minimum 3 years experience in this line.
07 Driver Minimum education qualification class-VIII and at 25 years
least 5 tears driving experience.
08 Security Guard Ex-Army /BDR/Ansar /Police or persons with 25 up years
Ansar Training having minimum education
qualification of class – VIII (pass)
09 Peon Minimum education qualification SSC 25 years
10 Lift Man Minimum education qualification SSC with 3 25 years
years experience in this line.
11 Plumber Minimum education qualification S S C with 3 25 years
years experience in this line. He may be engaged
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on daily basis with the approval from the

competent authority.
12 Mail/Cook Minimum education qualification Class-VII with 25 years
experience.
13 Tea-Boy Minimum education qualification Class-V. He may 25 years
be engaged on daily wage basis with the
approval from the authority.
15 Sweeper Minimum education qualification class –V. He 25 years
may be engaged on daily wage basis with the
approval from the authority.

Future Role of HR in NBP

The banking sector is highly competitive as it plays a vital role in the economic prosperity of a

country. Therefore, HR department has a crucial role of hiring the right people for right position

so that they could thrive to play their part in the betterment of their nation. In addition the

training, staffing, health regulations, pay decisions and etc are also handled by HR department to

seek the betterment of the pool of talented candidates that they have hired. NBP being a

government bank need to set an example for other banks which could only be possible with the

right manpower as countries could not prosper without their human capital.

Human resource planning is also important because it helps in finding the gaps in the existing

manpower of the firm & also determines the number of employees to be recruited and

qualification required for it.

 Firm Size

The Firm size is an important factor in this process. If the organization is planning to expand its

operations, it will prefer hiring potential and hardworking employees for its organization.
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 Cost:

Organization will prefer lower cost source of recruitment for hiring and attracting employees. In

this way they can save cost.

 Expansion:

Organization will employ more employees if it wants to expand its operations.

Strengths of Current System

As mentioned by NBP that it’s a people’s bank which is quite right as its employees are satisfied

with the system that has been in place for the evaluation of an effective selection process. The

employees currently working and hired are dedicated and enthusiastic in playing their role

towards the performance of the bank and human resource department has a great role to play in

this. Due to the competitive environment it is the duty of Human resource department to provide

bank with the skilled labor which they are doing quite effectively through its recruitment and

selection process. In order to ensure the operational efficiency the selection process of NBP is

sub-divided into different steps to check the eligibility of the candidate before hiring.

In written test NBP use both aptitude test and intelligence test in order to measure candidate’s

ability to handle the tough situation and have right decisions on time and his intelligence is also

checked. Standardized questions are set in structured interview and responses of candidates are

rated according to the answers.

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Weaknesses of Current System

Due to fast moving industry HR planning in NBP needs to be revised to make it more effective.

To determine utility in recruitment and selection, Quantitative methods are not practiced and to

analyze the recruitment and selection requirements more effectively and precisely, Statistical

measures such as correlation analysis and regression analysis are not applied.

In order to find out the efficiency of the system, there is no proper feedback system due to which

correction in the system can be made. To justify the effectiveness of the recruitment tests no

study is conducted. NBP don’t properly check references which can lead to serious problem for

organization. Candidates not selected after joining of selected candidates are not send regret

letters.

One of the major weaknesses of the current system is the issue of favoritism. As it’s a

government bank therefore most of the hiring for top levels is done on the basis of referrals

instead of merit due to which many skilled and talented employees don’t get a chance of being

promoted to upper level. In order to hire for top levels, favoritism, nepotism and referrals are the

issues currently faced by NBP.

In addition, there are no proper computer systems to digitalize the practices of Human Resource

department. In this fast moving world where CVs/applications of candidates in most of the

companies are screened online whereas, in NBP the Human Resource department has to do this

tedious job manually.

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Improvements
 Do the merit based hiring instead of referrals

 Digitalize the practices of Human Resource Department

 Proper feedback should be provided by top management to the HR department into the

strategic planning process to work more effectively and efficiently.

 Proper human resource goals should be set by top management along with the timeline

and path of achieving those goals defined to work more systematically and hire skilled

professionals.

 Campus recruiting should be preferred from top universities i.e. LUMS, LSE, IBA and

etc rather than newspaper advertisements as it help to attract more professionals.

 Minimum qualification i.e. graduation is not enough as most employees don’t have skills

or knowledge to perform a specific job. Specific trainings should be provided or initial

criteria for hiring should be revised.

 On-the job training, coaching, technical skills learning workshops should be provided to

help the fresh graduates learn the required skills.

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Action Plan
Action Plan
Milestone based Time frame in Resources Envisaged obstacles How to
Activities Years required for while bringing the overcome the
each activity change obstacles?
1 2 3 4 5
Merit based ✔ Change in Political pressure - Through strict
hiring qualification could be a source of policies and set
criteria for top hindrance. of rules and
level hiring. regulations.
-A guideline
that should be
followed.
Quantitative ✔ -Logistics and -To replace the Implement new
methods and finance is already implemented systems and
statistical required to system and give provide
measures for bring new employees the employees
analyzing systems in. required skills for with the
recruitment and using these methods. required
selection -Training to trainings
requirements. teach the -Already used to regarding the
required skills. employees with the technical skills
current system. needed for new
systems.
Campus ✔ -Finance The unavailability of It’s a known
recruitments -Human the finances and government
resource required contacts. bank so
required for the contacts can be
contacts. arranged and
specific budget
should be
allotted to
overcome the
finance
problem.
Feedback ✔ -Standardized The unwillingness Should be
provided to feedback forms and unavailability of made
Human Resource time by top compulsory for
department by -Finances management. top
top management. management to
provide
feedback to
Human
Resource
department for
effectiveness.
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Conclusion
This report is basically about National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) and its recruitment and selection

process. As mentioned in report it is one of the leading banks of Pakistan banking industry with

1254 nationwide and almost 25 branches operating in other countries including USA, China,

France, Hong Kong, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, and Hong Kong. (Lodhi, 2012)

It is a part of State Bank of Pakistan and has branches in different cities on behalf of SBP which

is their core strength. It is providing different facilities to its customers. It has different

departments including human resource department in each of its branches and management is

done in different ways at each branch according to the each manager’s own style. National Bank

of Pakistan has a very low rate of losses as it is a government bank therefore; people have more

confidence in NBP as compared to other banks which is also an important strength for NBP.

(Lodhi, 2012)

The challenges that they are currently facing regarding their recruitment and selection process as

mentioned by Mr. Muhammad Zulfiqar Ali in the interview includes the lack of merit based

hiring due to political pressures as being a government bank. Also, as mentioned in the report

they have weak IT system which results in absence of quantitative methods and statistical

measures for analyzing recruitment and selection requirements. Lastly, no major feedback

provided to human resource department by top management is also a major problem faced by

NBP. (Ali, 2018)

Therefore, the analysis shows that as NBP is a most growing organization with largest market

share amongst all Pakistani banks, highest return on capital and highest cost to income ratio in

the banking sector but still there is a plenty of room for further improvements in its recruitment

and selection process in order to overcome its weaknesses and hire professionals to maintain its
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position as an “Asian Tiger" in banking field. As skilled manpower is a key to success for an

organization.(Lodhi, 2012)

Recommendation
NBP could overcome its weaknesses in recruitment and selection process by taking the steps as

mentioned in the next paragraph.

They could focus on merit based hiring instead of referrals for top levels. They need to digitalize

the practices of Human Resource Department. The proper feedback system is required by top

management to the HR department into the strategic planning process to work more effectively

and efficiently. Some of the proper human resource goals should be set by top management

along with the timeline and path of achieving those goals defined to work more systematically

and hire skilled professionals.

Campus recruiting should be preferred from top universities i.e. LUMS, LSE, IBA and etc rather

than newspaper advertisements as it help to attract more professionals. The minimum

qualification i.e. graduation is not enough as most employees don’t have skills or knowledge to

perform a specific job. Specific trainings should be provided or initial criteria for hiring should

be revised. On-the job training, coaching, technical skills learning workshops should be provided

to help the fresh graduates learn the required skills.

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