INTRODUCTION & HISTORY OF

MEEZAN BANK LTD

As Quaid-e Azam said:

"We must work our destiny in our own way and present to the
world an economic system based on true Islamic concept of
equality of manhood and social justice."
Therefore Meezan Bank worked out hard to fulfill the Quaids dreams, following
is the history of Meezan Bank.

 Meezan Bank Limited, a publicly listed company, was incorporated on

January 27, 1997 and started operations as an investment bank in
August that year. In January, 2002 in an historic initiative, Meezan Bank
was granted the nations first full-fledged commercial banking license as a
dedicated Islamic Bank, by the State Bank of Pakistan.

 During the seven years of its operation as an Islamic commercial bank

(from 2002 to 2009), offering universal banking services to customers,
Meezan Bank has been one of the fastest growing banks in the history of
the banking sector. Average growth in deposits has been 55% per
annum during this period while the branch network grew from 4 to 166.
The bank has established a strong and credible management team
comprised of experienced professionals, that have achieved a strong
balance sheet with excellent operating profitability and strong ratios,
which places the Bank at the top of the industry. The Bank has been
assigned a long-term entity rating of A+ and a short-term entity rating of
A-1.

 The Banks main shareholders are leading financial institutions of the

Region namely, Noor Financial Investment Company, Kuwait, a leading
investment company based in Kuwait; Pak-Kuwait Investment Company,
a rated financial entity in the country and the Islamic Development Bank
of Jeddah.

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 The Bank has an internationally renowned Shariah Supervisory Board
Chaired by Justice (Retd.) Maulana Muhammad Taqi Usmani, an
internationally renowned figure in the field of Shariah, particularly
Islamic Finance.. The Board also includes Sheikh Essam M. Ishaq
(Bahrain), Dr. Abdul Sattar Abu Ghuddah (Saudi Arabia) and Dr. Imran
Usmani who is also the resident Shariah Advisor of the Bank. Dr. Imran
is assisted by a team of professionals, who strictly monitor the regular
transactions of the Bank and are also responsible for Product
Development.

 By implementing robust and aggressive strategic and tactical initiatives

on the side of consumer banking, Meezan Bank aims to fulfill its prime
target of providing customers accessibility and convenience, within an
atmosphere and culture of dedicated service and recognition of their
needs. The Bank has a rapidly growing branch network across all major
cities nation-wide.

 At Meezan Bank, we believe in adding value to our customers’ lives

and businesses, through dynamic and competitive products and
services that fulfil their needs while conforming completely to the
dictates of Shariah. At the same time, we endeavour to deliver
competitive risk adjusted returns to our stakeholders.

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 VISION & MISSION STATEMENTS

OUR VISION

“Establish Islamic banking as banking of first choice” to

facilitate the implementation of an equitable economic system, providing a
strong foundation for establishing a fair and just society for mankind.

OUR MISSION

“To be a premier Islamic bank”, offering a one-stop shop

for innovative value added products and services to our customers within
the bounds of Shariah, while optimizing the stakeholders value through
an organizational culture based on learning, fairness, respect for
individual enterprise and performance.

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 OUR SERVICES MISSION

To develop a committed service culture which ensures the consistent delivery of

our products and services within the highest quality service parameters,
promoting Islamic values and ensuring recognition and a quality banking
experience to our customers.

CORE VALUES
 Shari’ah Compliance

 Social Responsibility

 Professionalism

 Integrity

 Service Excellence

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We had visited Meezan Bank and conducted a short and snappy interview of
Mr.Arif the Operational manager as the Hr manager didn’t give us time, but
before interview Mr.Arif had ensure us that he knows the working of Hr
department and for his branch he use to submit report of performance of
subordinates. Following are the Questions that we asked him and the Answers
given by him:

Question 1

In your words how you define performance of employees?

Answer:

He said in my words:-

Time
Time
Managemen
Managemen
t
t

Accuracy
Performance Accuracy
Performanceisis
Fulfill of work
Fulfill of work
Assignme
Assignme
nt
nt

Efficient
Efficient
work
work

Question

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What approaches your management uses to measure
performance?
Answer

He said: our management considers two approaches

 Behavior Approach
 Result Approach

Behavior Approach:

They use different indicators to judge the behavior of their employee’s:-

 Dress code.
 Punctuality.
 Behavior with customer.
 Project management.
 Behavior with peers & supervisors.
 Behavior in stressful conditions.

If the manager is absent then there are cameras from that they see the past
videos.

Result Approach:

MBL focus on result approach. They focus on the following points and
communicate these to their employees:-

 What the responsibilities/accountabilities of the employee are as

mentioned in JD.
 What are the objectives of their job? For example marketing manager’s
target oriented jobs.
 How the result will be measured i.e. performance standards.

Question

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Is there any appraisal system in your bank and what criteria for
this?
Answer
He said, yes there is appraisal system, and criteria for this are annually base, no
concept of self appraisal system.

The appraisal form is attached in the end for two levels of job.

 Managerial level
 Officer level

Question

If employee performance is lacking than what your management

do to enhance back the performance of an employee?

Answer
He said, if employee behaves suspiciously during working hours like speak in a
harsh voice, hesitate to communicate with customers, peers and boss, feel
stressful in crowd of customers. Then our management does following actions to
motivate him:

 If employee has a problem with work assignments give him a chance to

do other job.
 If employee is uncomfortable to communicate give him a time of
relaxation to say his point.

Question

What is the process of taking feedback for performance

appraisal?

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Answer
He said, our management takes feedback from different sources, for each
employee,

 Colleagues
 Other department officer
 Subordinates if any.
 Boss, (branch manager)

Question

Which approach is most important?

Answer

Both the approaches are important but the behavior approach is consider
more important in Meezan Bank

Question

What attributes your bank HR management consider

for measuring the performance of employees?

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 Answer:

He said, yes! There are criteria’s that our management considers for
doing evaluation. These criteria’s had been settled from past many
years and are still the same.

Managerial
Manageriallevel
level

Technical
Technicalskills
skills Personal
Personalskills
skills
Job
Jobcompetences Stress
competences Stressmanagement
management
Resource
Resourcemanagement Positive
management Positiveattitude
attitude
Shari’ah
Shari’ahknowledge Sense
knowledge Senseofofresponsibility
responsibility
Decision
Decisionmaking Integrity
making Integrity
Training
Training &development
& Punctuality
development Punctuality
Cost
Costconscious Communication
conscious Communication
Rules
Rules&&regulations Learn
regulations Learnwork
work
Leadership
Leadership

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 Officer
OfficerLevel
Level

Technical
Technicalskills
skills Personal
Personalskills
skills
Job
Jobknowledge Interpersonal
knowledge Interpersonalskills
skills
Productivity Sense of responsibility
Productivity Sense of responsibility
Shari’ah
Shari’ahknowledge Dress
knowledge Dresscode
code
Attitude
Attitude todeal
to Punctuality
deal Punctuality
customer Positive
customer Positiveattitude
attitude
Quality
Qualityofofwork Team
work Teamwork
work
Cost conscious Stress
Cost conscious Stressmanagement
management
Planning
Planning&&organizing Integrity
organizing Integrity
Adherence
Adherence torules
to rules&& Problem
Problemsolving
solving
Shariah
Shariah

Target
Targetachievements
achievements
Target
Targetjobs
jobs Quality
Qualityofofbusiness
businessgenerated
generated

These are the attributes, detail of these and the scale use to judge these can
see in the appraisal forms in the end.

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 Question

What is performance management process in MBL?

Answer

Pre- Performance Performance

Requisite Planning Execution
s

Performance Performance
Review Assessment

STEP 1:

The knowledge of the mission and organization strategies & goals are properly
communicated to the employees, through regular meetings & the expectations
from the employee are also informed

Job descriptions of employees contain all the information regarding the job. The
job descriptions are annexed to in the appendix

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STEP 2:

As it is necessary to communicate what the organization expects from the

employees. Therefore MBL management conducts such meetings & informs the
employees about the results, & behaviors required for that job.

STEP 3:

Performance execution of the given task is done by both the employee & the
supervisor, both fulfill their responsibilities.

STEP 4:

The assessment is based on timely appraisals (yearly) & behavior is observed at

regular intervals in the process. Self assessment by employees is not
recommended by the MBL management.

STEP 5:

The manager completely reviews that what responsibility was assigned, how
much is fulfilled,, time management for the task, if some left pending then why?
At this step if some training is required then it is given & the system again
continues.

SWOT ANALYSIS OF HR DEPARTMENT OF MBL

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STRENGTHS

 1st Islamic bank

 The Employee at the bank treat the customers very respectfully
(customer the king)
 Friendly working enviournment
 Dedicated & professional staff
 Good team work
 Strong relationship with customer
 Well trained employees & regular training programs

WEEKNESS

 Degree of satisfaction of employees is low

 Dissatisfaction leads to high turnover
 No trainings for new employees
 The hr manager does not come personally, to visit the employees & ask
them about their problems, grievances & conduct their appraisal.
 Unavailability of enough financial resources

OPPERTUNITIES

 Growing demand of Islamic financial services & products

 Increase in the strength of the department
 Increase number of branches will increase the scope & working of hr
department for better management
 Government policies are in favor

THREATS

 Increase in competition
 Advanced technology
 Better offers of bonuses, rewards & handsome salary packages by
other banks

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 Outcome of our project
In Meezan Bank we have observed that there is a working of HR department but
not as much advance as it is required, to be a successful bank in the country.

During interview we had asked different question about performance

management system and the process to measure the performance of their
employees, but we had not received the information as much related to the
terms that we have studied in our course.

The differences that we had observed are the following:-

They said they use two approaches, behavior approach, result approach, but
they use them in a general way not as specified in our course contacts,

Behavior approach:-

They said they use this approach, as we explained this earlier, but they don’t
know the basic terms which they should know for better performance
measurement.

 Like they compare employees with eachother, that is differentiating

competencies,
 They prefer quality behaviors that to show with standards, that is
threshold competencies,

For measuring these competencies there are two methods

 Absolute systems
 Comparative systems

There HR manager should make a training programs for their employees so they
can understand the basic terms and use them in the evaluation process.

Result Approach:-

They do not focus on MBO as such if they will do so then they can get better
results & can measure them with more accuracy.

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Feedback process;-

 They take feedback from different sources that process is called 360
degree feedback but they don’t know this term.

Performance management system;-

The performance management system implemented at MBL lacks some points

like:

 During the second step of performance planning they do not focus on

developmental plans. This sometimes leads to poor performance. If they
train the employees at this step they would be able to save time, cost &
get better results.

 The sixth step of performance renewal is missing. Inclusion of this step

would yield better output.

Recommendations

 HR manager should come to visit the employees personally to do their

appraisals & listen to their grievances.
 They should focus on better training opportunities for their employees.
 For increasing the satisfaction level of employees, they should introduce
better reward systems/policies.
 Employees should also be given a chance of self assessment.
 The little bit communication gap lies between the supervisor & the
employee regarding the appraisals which should be reduced.
 MBL should focus on feedback regarding appraisals from both employee
& supervisor.
 An attempt should be made regarding the employee understanding of the
performance appraisal system.

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