Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP)

Human Resources Management (HRM)

ALD 2104
Term Paper On: Analysis on impact of strategic HRM in recruitment and talent
management process of British American Tobacco (BAT).

Submitted To:

Sadman Rana Rakin

Lecturer, Department of Business Administration in Management
Faculty of Business Studies (FBS)
Bangladesh University of Professionals
Mirpur Cantonment, Dhaka-1216

Submitted By:

Sabia Khan Aurora (GL), ID: 2125171004

Zil Jawshan, ID: 2125171016
Fahmid Khan, ID: 2125171042
Fahmida Faiza Bushra Oishe, ID: 2125171056
Aunonno Faisal Rahman, ID: 2125171068
Nafia Khanom Tanha, ID: 2125171106

Date of Submission: 11 October, 2022

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, we would like to thank Almighty for blessing us with the ability to
successfully complete the task that has been dedicated to us.

The completion of this paper would not have been possible without the participation and
assistance of our fellow group members. Their contributions are sincerely appreciated and
acknowledged. We would also like to express our heartfelt gratitude to Syeda Adiba Arif,
Associate, HR Business Partner - Marketing at BAT for granting us a very informative
interview to understand the ins and outs of Human Resources (HR) of her esteemed
organization. Our team truly appreciates the time and effort she put in order to help us with
our report.

Last but not the least, our heartfelt gratitude goes to our Course Instructor, Sadman Rana
Rakin Sir, who has guided and mentored our group into achieving our goal. We would like to
thank him for presenting us with this opportunity to go deep within a company and conduct
the survey-based on which this report exists.

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 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This paper was prepared in order to seek out the importance of effective recruitment on
employee satisfaction by Human Resource (HR) managers of a cigarette company, British
American Tobacco.

We start off with the introduction part of our paper. This part consists of the background of
our paper. Followed up by the broad and specific objectives of our paper. Next up, we have
literature review. This segment consists of theoretical knowledge about what is HRM,
Strategic Planning and Strategic HRM in details. After that, we have our company review of
BAT, Bangladesh. Here we provide an in depth understanding of BAT and its operations in
Bangladesh. Next up we have the methodology segment where we talk about our means of
data collection and our sources. Coming to the primary part of our paper, we have analysis.
Here we share our experience of talking to a HR manager from BAT, Bangladesh. We uphold
the questions and answers of our interview in this part of our paper. After that, based on our
interview we present our findings and discussions. Lastly, we conclude our paper with
limitations and recommendations.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 – Introduction ………………………………………………… 05

Chapter 2 - Literature Review …………………………………………... 07

Chapter 3 - Organization Overview …………………………………….. 11

Chapter 4 – Methodology ………………………………………………... 24

Chapter 5 – Analysis ……………………………………………………... 25

Chapter 6 - Findings and Discussion ……………………………………. 30

Chapter 7 - Recommendation, Limitation and Conclusion …………… 33

References ……………………………………………………………….. 35

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 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Introduction:

Human Resources department is the department responsible for selecting future leaders of
any organization or company. Previously HRM was ignored by big organizations. Today the
situation has changed, most of the organizations are emphasizing on HRM practice. HRM
holds a transformative journey which requires new skills, new capabilities and are constantly
discovering new ways to attract and develop exceptional talent. From developing unique
strategies using cutting-edge HR technologies, to fostering an amazing culture of diversity
and inclusion, and by shaping the future of the business by managing a company’s greatest
asset – talent; HRM covers it all.

Today, we will focus on an important area of HRM that is strategic HRM and recruitment
and talent management process. This paper is dedicated to identify the ins and outs of
strategic HRM practices and talent management process of BAT, Bangladesh.

Background of our paper:

There is no doubt that the business world is rapidly changing. As part of an organization then,
HRM must be equipped to deal with the effects of the changing world of work. For them this
means understanding the implications of globalization, technology changes, workforce
diversity. Changing skill requirements, continuous improvement initiatives contingent
workforce, decentralized work sites and employee involvement are the issue for confront.
Now it is a big challenge for the HRM to support the organization by providing the best
personnel for the suitable position in shortest possible time. Starting with recognizing the
vacancies and planning for them is a great task. Moreover, selecting attracting the suitable
candidates and selecting the best person in time is a challenge. The cost of the recruitment is
significant. So, proper planning and formulate those plans is the task that require more focus
and improvement. Equal opportunity and sourcing are also a vital part.

Realizing this need we tried to find the difference and similarities between theoretical aspects
with the practical steps taken by the company. Also, the automation process of HR practices
through HR software is significant with right vendor software selection.

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Objectives of our paper:

The main objective of our paper is to provide an enhanced analysis on impact of strategic
HRM in recruitment and talent management process of British American Tobacco (BAT).
This paper will uphold how BAT is focusing on different processes of recruitment &
selection, Training and development, performance appraisal, job description, talent
management and strategic HRM related activities.

Broad Objective

 To understand strategic HRM practices done by BAT, Bangladesh.

 To enhance our knowledge about strategic HRM and Talent Management.

Specific Objective

 To know the internal system of the management and the administration.

 To analyze overall HR practice of BAT, Bangladesh.

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 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter includes detailed description about Human Resource Management, Strategic
Human Resource Management, Recruitment and Talent Management Process.

In the intensely competitive and global environments that companies of these days operate in,
it is very critical that an enterprise is able to attract and pick employees with the proper
abilities and also is in a position to ensure that they have the skills, information and abilities
for correctly doing the job they have been employed for. From the perspective of the group or
person that is accountable for conducting the hiring system as well, having well defined cease
to quit method helps them to recognize what is needed and helps in guiding them in the
activity of discovering the right kind of candidates that ought to be hired for the job and for
this Human Resource management, Strategic Human Resource Management and Talent
Management Process plays important role.

 What is Human Resource Management (HRM)?

Human Resource Management is the process of acquiring, training, appraising, and
compensating employees, and of attending to their labor relations, health and safety, and
fairness concerns. In other words, Human Resource Management is meant for acceptable
utilization of available expert team of workers and also to make efficient use of existing
human aid in the corporation.

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Who is responsible for Human Resource Management?

Human resource officer or Manager is responsible for human resource management in the
organization. The HR Director is a top-level manager responsible for the administration of all
human resource things to do and policies. The director oversees compensation, benefits,
staffing, affirmative action, employee relations, health and safety, and training/development
functions. They also supervise professional human resources staff.

o Primary Responsibilities of the Human Resource Manager

1. To enhance a thorough expertise of corporate culture, plans and policies.

2. To actively contain himself in company’s approach formulation.
3. To keep communication lines open between the HRD function and individuals and
groups both within and outside the organization.
4. To facilitate the improvement of quite a number organizational groups and their
working relationship with different teams and individuals.
5. To supply co-ordination and support services for the delivery of HRD programs and
services.
6. To diagnose troubles and to decide terrific answer particularly in the human resources
areas.

What is Strategic Planning?

A strategy is a course of action and strategic plan is the company’s overall plan for how it
will match its internal strengths and weaknesses with its external opportunities and threats in
order to maintain a competitive position. In a competitive environment today, business
enterprise needs to continuously enhance its performance whether by means of lowering cost,

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or enhancing product and carrier quality in order to correctly compete in the market.
Strengthening strategic human resource management is viewed as one of the options to
increase organizational overall performance through organization functionality.

Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM)

Strategic human resource management is the process of identifying and executing the
organization’s strategic plan by matching the company’s capabilities with the demands of its
environment. It’s a strategic perspective which shifts the centre of attention on perform
position such as training and gain to integration and organization, driven by human resource
management value added. The evolution of SHRM from human resource management is
focused on the difficulty of human resource management in company perspective context, as
a substitute of individual viewpoint context and its position to support the business. The basic
idea of strategic human resource management is formulating human resource management
policies and activities, the manager should formulate policies that produce the employee
skills and behaviours that the company needs to achieve its strategic goal. There’s a process
of strategic human resource management which consists of seven steps:

What is Talent management?

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Talent management is the goal-oriented and integrated process of planning, recruiting,
developing, managing, and compensating employees. Having the right number of people at
the right place at the right time with the right skill sets and levels of motivation are
fundamental to talent management. Talent management includes all the HRM activities and
therefore it can be stated that talent management is a rebranding time period of HRM, which
has changed from the traditional term to a new concept. This new label of HRM has centered
on how to manage talents strategically.

Talent Management Process

The method of talent management process ought to be considered, to start with

acknowledging the need for talent and leads to filling that gap and in the end developing and
optimizing the skills, traits, and knowledge of employees, new and old.

Planning: Like in any process with a set outcome, planning is the first step in the process of
talent management. It includes the following figuring out the place the gaps lie – the human
capital requirement, formulating job descriptions for the imperative key roles to assist
information sourcing and resolution and growing a workout plan for recruitment initiatives.

Attracting: Based on the plan, the natural next step is to decide whether the talent
requirements should be filled in from within the organization or from external sources. Either
way, the technique would contain attracting a healthy float of applicants. The usual external
sources include job portals, social network, and referrals.

Selecting: This includes using a string of tests and checks to find the proper healthy for the
job – the ideal person-organization fit. Written tests, interviews, group discussions and
psychometric testing along with an in-depth analysis of all available information on the
candidate on public access platforms help in gauging an all-rounded picture of the person..

Developing: Quite a few corporations today function on the concept of hiring for mind-set
and coaching for skills. Developing employees to help them grow with the organization and
training them for the expertise needed to contribute to business success also builds loyalty
and improves employee engagement.

Retaining: For any organization to be definitely successful, sustainably, talent needs to be

retained effectively. Most organizations strive to hold their best talent through promotions

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and increments, supplying opportunities for growth, encouraging involvement in distinctive
tasks and decision-making, coaching for extra developed roles and rewards and cognizance
applications.

CHAPTER 3: COMPANY OVERVIEW

British American Tobacco operates British American Tobacco Bangladesh in Bangladesh

which is one of the largest multinational corporations. It has been doing its trade for over 100
years in this region. In 1990 it was founded in Bangladesh. The first depot of it was
established at Armanitola in Dhaka. After partition in 1947, it was established in 1949. After
the independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan, it was renamed as Bangladesh Tobacco
Company (BTC) in 1972. But in 1998, it was again renamed as British American Tobacco
Bangladesh (BATB). In Bangladesh, British American Tobacco Bangladesh has more than
1,200 people as direct employees and more than 50,000 people as indirect employees
(Batbangladesh.com, 2022). They are listed on the stock index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange
and Chittagong Stock Exchange (Dsebd.org, Retrieved 2015- 03-11) British American
Tobacco Bangladesh's motto is "success and responsibility go together". Shehzad Munim is
the current Managing Director of BATB. He is serving as the first ever Bangladeshi MD in
the history of BATB (Archive.thedailystar.net, 2013-10-01). BATB is also the highest
taxpayer contributing around BDT 29,078 crore in the year 2021.

1. HISTORY OF BATB:

British American Tobacco was established back in 1910 as Imperial Tobacco Company Ltd
and the head office was in Calcutta. In 1926 ITC launched a branch at Moulovibazar, Dhaka.
Cigarettes were made in Carreras Ltd., Calcutta. Imperial and Carreras merged into a single
company in 1943. After the partition in 1947, cigarettes were coming freely from Calcutta,
but introduction of customs barriers in 1948 between India and Pakistan interrupted the
smooth flow of cigarettes from Calcutta to East Pakistan. On March 1, 1949, Pakistan
Tobacco Company (PTC) came into existence with its head office in Karachi; with the assets
and liabilities of ITC Limited held in Pakistan. At that time East Pakistan Office was situated
in Alico Building, Motijheel. In order to meet the increasing demand, the first factory in the

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then East Pakistan was established in Chittagong in 1952. From this time, requirements for
cigarettes for East Pakistan markets were met from products manufactured in Karachi. In
1954, PTC established its first cigarette factory although high-grade cigarettes still came from
West Pakistan. The Dhaka factory of PTC went into production in 1965. After the war
between India and Pakistan in 1965; the import of tender leaf from India for the production of
Biri was stopped. This gave a big boost to cigarette business. It was at that time the East
Pakistani entrepreneurs set up 16 cigarette factories in this region. After independence,
Bangladesh Tobacco Company (Pvt.) Limited was formed on 02 February 1972 under the
Companies Act 1913, with the assets and liabilities of PTC. Shareholding position for GOB
and BAT was 1:2. BTC (Pvt.) was converted into a public limited company on 03 September
1973. British American Tobacco played a pivotal role in BTC's creation in 1972 and since
then has been involved in BTC's development every step of the way. To pronounce the
successful relationship with British American Tobacco, BTC changed its name and identity
to British American Tobacco (BAT) Bangladesh Company Limited on March 22, 1998. The
company changed its identification to establish commitment to the highest international
standards.

2. MISSION STATEMENT:

Stimulating the senses of new adult generations

Champion informed consumer choice

BATB needs to continue to ensure that adult consumers are fully aware of the choices they
are making when they purchase their products. They recognize that they have a responsibility
to offer a range of products across the risk continuum, but they will also defend people’s right
to make an informed choice.

Deliver commitments to society

As society changes, priorities and needs shift, BATB must be ready to meet new challenges
and take advantage of new opportunities. They are a major international business and with
this status comes responsibilities such as developing less risky products, being open about the
risks of all their products, supporting agricultural communities in leaf-growing areas
worldwide and minimizing their impact on the environment.

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3. VISION:

To be the world’s best at satisfying consumer moments in tobacco and beyond.

Satisfying consumer moments

BATB believes that by being the world’s best at satisfying consumer moments, they will
become the leader in our industry. Consumers are at the core of everything they do, and their
success depends on addressing their evolving concerns, needs and behaviors.

Tobacco and beyond

The second part of their vision – tobacco and beyond – recognizes the strength of their
traditional tobacco business and the opportunities they see in Next Generation Products. This
is a great potential business opportunity because consumers are looking for choices and
product categories in which they are uniquely placed to succeed.

4. BUSINESS MODEL:

At BATB, at the centre of their business is the manufacture and marketing of superior
combustible tobacco products, which they have been engaged with for more than a century. A
proven strategy and diverse strengths represent the core foundations of their business model,
ensuring continued progress and value creation.

SOURCING:

BATB does not own tobacco farms, but they provide agronomy support through their
extensive services. The Company’s Leaf function starts with the hard work of around 38,000
registered farmers within the village community. They have implemented the Sustainable
Tobacco Programme (STP) policy with an aim to apply the best local and international
practices in the areas of agronomy, leaf depot operations, leaf processing operations,
environmental management, human rights and occupational health and safety standards
encompassing their leaf operations.

PRODUCTION:

Manufacturing tobacco products is a large-scale operation and BATB has state-of-the-art

manufacturing facilities in Bangladesh. They work to ensure that their costs are competitive

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and that they use their resources as effectively as possible. Their sustainable production
facilities are designed to meet the needs of an agile and flexible supply chain, providing a
world-class operational base. To meet the market needs and to improve the quality and future
export potential of their products, their manufacturing facility has to undergo balancing and
modernization and, as such, investment is being made on a regular basis. Ensuring leaf and
products are in the right place at the right time and in the right quantity is a formidable
logistical exercise for which BATB is highly committed. The nature of their business allows
them to pool resources on a global scale and maximize efficiency.

MARKETING:

BATB produces a range of products, including Benson & Hedges, John Player Gold Leaf,
Capstan, Star, Royals, Derby, Pilot and Hollywood. Their range of products cover all
segments, from low to premium, thereby enabling them to meet diverse consumer choices.
They have developed a successful brand strategy based on sound consumer insight. Their
portfolio of a large number of international as well as local brands is designed to meet a
broad array of consumer preferences around the country, with the idea of delivering for today
and investing for tomorrow.

DISTRIBUTION:

BATB’s expansive and well-established distribution channels are critical enablers of their
growth strategy, allowing them to roll out innovations on a mass scale. They continuously
review their route-to-market, including their relationships with wholesalers, distributors and
logistics providers. They constantly work towards embedding best practices in sustainability
at the distributors’ end as well, to ensure holistic regulatory compliance.

5. BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

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 MR. GOLAM MAINUDDIN MR. SHEHZAD MUNIM

CHAIRMAN MANAGING DIRECTOR

MS. AMUN MOSTAFIZ MR. A.K.M. AFTAB UL ISLAM

FINANCE DIRECTOR INDEPENDENT DIRECTOR

MR. K.H MASUD SIDDIQUI MR. K.M. ALI AZAM

INDEPENDENT DIRECTOR NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

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 MR. MD. ABUL HOSSAIN MR. SHIRAJUN NOOR CHOWDHURY

NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

MS. ZAKIA SULTANA MR.M. TOFAZZEL

NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

6. NATURE OF THE INDUSTRY:

The tobacco industry of Bangladesh is an age-old industry. Three cigarette companies are
currently holding 97% of market share in the country where British American Tobacco
Bangladesh (BATB) dominates the market with more than 50% market share. The main
cigarette manufacturers today are:

 British American Tobacco Bangladesh

 Dhaka Tobacco Industries
 Abul Khair Tobacco
 Nasir Tobacco
 Azizuddin Industries and
 New Age Tobacco

This industry is very price subtle in nature. Most of the tobacco consumers normally buy
tobacco in sticks, not in packs. So, it is also a stick selling market. These two features-price
sensitive and stick selling-influences the business philosophies of the companies.

Associations of tobacco:

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Bangladesh Cigarette Manufacturers Association (BCMA) and Bangladesh Biri
Manufacturers Association (BBMA) signifies the tobacco industry of Bangladesh. (Alom,
2012)

7. SWOT ANALYSIS OF BATB:

SWOT analysis is done to find out the factors important to the operation of a business in the
environment, both internal and external. The internal factors help to find out the strength and
weakness; the threats and opportunities can be comprehended by scanning the external
environment. The SWOT analysis of the cigarette industry is given below:

 STRENGTH:
 Because of high regulations, high cost and high entry barriers, new entrants
are discouraged, which is good for the current and already established market
players.
 As they are not allowed to go for public promotion, the tobacco companies can
use their resources for other purposes. Like BAT is investing for and
increasing their field force.

 WEAKNESS:
 Dealing with a product, which is sensitive to many issues.
 Cannot promote their products using public media vehicle
 A high volume but low value industry

 OPPORTUNITY:

In Bangladesh, the tobacco market is pretty strong. Among the sale of all tobacco
products, 68% is Biri and the rest 32% is cigarettes. But with the upgrade of
purchasing power and good economic conditions, a high rate of migration from Biri to

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 cigarettes is also expected. Even now; the migration rate is good enough to sustain the
cigarette industry. Total no even if reduced, but the migration will make it sustainable.
The cigarette market depends not on increasing the number of customers, but on
switching to cigarette brands.

 THREAT:

Tobacco is the only consumer product that kills one half of its users when used as
directed. So, there are some threats as well.

 Increasing amount of awareness among the consumers about the health

hazards
 Increasing number of regulations and laws, imposed by the government about
smoking and selling cigarettes.

8. BRANDS OF BATB:

1. BENSON AND HEDGES:

Benson & Hedges has been the leading premium tobacco brand of the country since it
was first launched in 1997 with B&H Special Filter. With a view to leading the
premium segment by driving innovation, the house of Benson & Hedges launched the
first ever capsule offer in this market, B&H Switch in 2012 and in 2018, introduced
the Bangladesh tobacco market to its first ever tube filter offers in the premium
segment - B&H Platinum.

2. JOHN PLAYER GOLD LEAF, JOHN PLAYER SERIES AND CAPSTAN:

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 John Player Gold Leaf, John Player Series and Capstan are positioned in the
Aspirational Premium segment. Launched in 1980, as the first international tobacco
brand in Bangladesh, John Player Gold Leaf has stood the test of time with absolute
leadership in this segment. Later, in 2020, built on the pioneering spirit of John
Player, the founder of Gold Leaf cigarette, the John Player Series was introduced with
two progressive variants – John Player Switch and John Player Special.

3. STAR:

Star and Star Next are positioned in the VFM segment. Star was launched in 1964 and
Star Next was launched in 2012. The brand has absolute leadership in the segment
with a robust performance.

4. ROYALS:

BAT Bangladesh has launched Royals in July 2019 as a new brand. It has three
variants available in the marketplace – Royals Gold, Royals NEXT, Royals LS.
Royals has built its reputation as a progressive & a genuine value for money brand in
the consumer mind-space. Within one year of launch, it has established itself as the
segment leader.

5. LUCKY STRIKE:

Lucky Strike is one of the most iconic international brands of the BAT group. It is one
of the most modern ASU30 and original brands in the market with a strong footprint
worldwide. Its history can be traced back to the 1850s during the California Gold
Rush. Ever since its inception in 1871 when R.A Patterson registered the brand, it has
been a companion of great moments throughout history and pop culture. Lucky Strike
has been an icon of passion among impassioned adults in over 80 countries- From
Germany to Indonesia, to Spain, Japan, and Argentina. This iconic brand has been
launched in Bangladesh in 2021 with two unique and exciting capsule offers -
Supersonic and Cool Crunch.

6. DERBY, PILOT AND HOLLYWOOD:

BATB has three brands in Low Segment – Derby, Pilot & Hollywood. Derby was
launched in 2013 and is the biggest brand among the three, offering taste

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 differentiation to the consumers through its two variants. On the other hand, Pilot
offers true and authentic smoke to the consumers. Pilot was launched in 2009 and at
present it is the fastest growing brand in the industry. The third brand is Hollywood
which was launched in 2011.

10. FINANCIAL STATEMENT:

2021 2020 2019 2018 2017

Turnover 33,934.04 28,108.07 26,985.46 23,311.82 20,413.97

Operating Profit 4,005.70 2,949.79 2,684.86 2,754.35 2,478.30

before Interest and
Tax/Gross Profit

Profit Before Tax 2990.17 2109.02 1740.39 1931.43 1675.95

Profit After Tax 1,496.85 1,088.68 924.63 1001.20 782.99

Shareholders’ 3,679.08 3,399.97 3,579.35 2,952.89 2,311.24

Equity

Net Current Assets 4409.13 3373.55 2822.6 3005.96 2549.93

Dividend Per Share 275% 600% 400% 500% 600%

(%)

Market Value Per 635.6 1180.8 969.9 3541.7 3401.6

Share at year end
(Tk)

Return on Asset (% 19.30% 17.00% 16.00% 18.00% 17.00%

Debt Equity Ratio 15.00% 0.00% 0.00% 18.00% 13.00%

(%)

Number of Ordinary 65,945 16,283 19,315 2,419 2,288

Shareholders

Number of 1,643 1,445 1,426 1,453 1,459

Employees

10. OPERATIONAL ORGANOGRAM OF BATB:

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 Corporate & Finance Human Legal Supply Leaf IT Marketing
Regulatory Resource Chain
Affairs

CORPORATE AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS:

Corporate & Regulatory Affairs (CORA) is one of the important departments at BATB. As
BATB deals with the controversial product, so in conducting the business they have to be
very careful. And this makes them a successful organization. However, through corporate
social responsibility they carry out their responsibilities towards their stakeholders and the
society. CORA mainly performs the following functions:
 Managing regulations
 Promoting Corporate Social Responsibility
 Driving Corporate Communications

FINANCE:
Finance is another very important function for any organization. Finance department at
BATB does not only work with their financial activities rather they work in alignment with
the other departments. Finance has various important activities including the following
things:
 Setting and delivering against financial objectives
 Planning and budgeting for optimal use of resources to grow the business and
to satisfy shareholder expectations
 Audit and business risk management
 Acting as a value adding business partner to all functions

HUMAN RESOURCE:
The Human Resources department of BATB has responsibility for energizing, developing,
retaining and attracting truly talented people all around the country. The department also
believes in maintaining harmonious relationships between the management and workers all
the time. The department ensures that managerial development contributes to organizational
development. Areas covered by HR within British American Tobacco Bangladesh are-

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  Managing performance and organizational development i.e., measuring &
aligning performance, rewarding performance, managing & administering
benefits etc.
 Resourcing i.e., recruiting, assessing and selecting, HR planning etc.
 Managing careers and development i.e., assessing competencies and potential,
career development systems, coaching and mentoring, training and
development
 Managing employment relations i.e., managing employment legislation,
managing workplace relations, managing HR customer services etc.

LEGAL:
Legal department mainly considers the Legal and Secretarial function of BATB. It helps
BATB to know what the right procedures to run their business are. As BATB is doing a
debatable business, they have to conduct their business in a very proper and legal way and
BATB is very careful about this. Legal department handles how to solve the problems, how
to follow and adjust with the state’s laws, the shares and stakeholders, auditing, AGM etc.
The major activities of Legal department are the followings:
 Litigation Management
 Trade & Agreement Management
 In-house Legal Counsel
 Corporate Governance

SUPPLY CHAIN:
To operate a business smoothly, operation activities of that business should be done in an
integrated and appropriate way. In BATB, operation is a major activity. It includes leaf
growing, storing of them, checking of their quality, quality control; sending them for
manufacturing, packaging, warehousing, distributing, procurement etc. Making quick
decisions based on the situation is another activity of Supply Chain at BATB.

LEAF:
The Leaf Department is very strong and efficient at BATB. They are responsible for all the
activities related to leaf growing, communicating with farmers, controlling of the leaf quality,
purchasing, processing, packing, shipping and storing of the leaves etc. It is a very important

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job, because the taste of the cigarettes depends on the quality of the tobacco leaf. However,
some of the major activities done by Leaf department are:
 Purchasing
 Processing
 Packaging
 Shipping
 Storing leaf of tobacco

Primary Manufacturing Department (PMD):

Here the leaf is prepared for the production activities.

Secondary Manufacturing Department (SMD):

After PMD, the products come into the SMD; here activities like wrapping tobacco with
materials, manufacturing etc. are done.

Supply Chain Management:

Checking and controlling the quality of the tobacco and its packaging is another task of
operations. As it is an operation, the factory is involved here. BATB has the nicest
environment for its working environment, they ensure the quality of work life, at the same
time they are very much careful about their employees. They provide an environment where
employees can work safely. That is why several times they have received the Zero Accident
Award. Under supply chain management, the following activities can be found:
 Supply chain
 Product
 Procurement
 Security
 Logistics
 EHS (Environment, Health, Safety)

MARKETING DEPARTMENT:
To increase the sales, brand image and create a value for the brand is very important for any
organization. This is a central focal point for every organization as the business means to sell
the services or experiences. BATB's marketing department mainly conducts two activities
called Brand marketing and Trade marketing which includes several other works. Besides
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this, promotion or advertising activities are very important for any manufacturing
organization. But as the promotional activities of tobacco products are banned by the
government, it is a very difficult task for marketing to run their business. However, they are
also succeeding in this case. The major marketing activities of BATB are:
 Building Brands
 Trade marketing and distribution
 Customer Insights
 Managing specialized channels

CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY

Population
The Head office of BAT Bangladesh is located at New DOHS Road, Mohakhali, Dhaka-
1206. The number of workers that are employed is limited to around 1500 people and around
50,000 people work indirectly as farmers, distributors and local suppliers (Collected from
BAT, Bangladesh). These employees work in different levels for the company maintaining
hierarchy.

Sources of Data
For collecting our data, we have approached two sources:
1. Primary Source
2. Secondary Source

Primary Source
The primary source for collecting the data was visiting the organization and meeting the Head
of Human Resource. The head of the Human Resource gave us the opportunity to interview
her personally. She gave us all the answers we needed regarding their Talent management
and Recruitment.

Secondary Source
Due to some insufficient data from the primary source, we have relied on the website of the
company and other articles on BAT Bangladesh. All collected data have been duly
acknowledged in the reference section.

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Methods of Data Collection
We decided that as the Head of Human Resource of BAT Bangladesh was going to answer
our questions personally, we picked all the questions that would be necessary for us to get the
idea of how the Company decides how to manage their talents and recruitment. We divided
the questions into two categories.

1. Recruitment process.
2. Talent Management strategies.

CHAPTER 5: ANALYSIS

[N.B: The interviewer at BAT is referred as “I” in this Q/A session.]

Q. What are the primary roles of an HR manager in the company?

Answer: As a Marketing HR Executive, I oversee the Marketing business partnering section

and I also look at talent. If I were to lost down some of the major roles I perform here at BAT
as an HR manager, they would include tasks such as-

 Recruit and hire employees

 Promote employees
 Manage life cycle of employees
 Move employees from one role to another
 Manage exit cases i.e., employees who are leaving or are having performance issues
 Development needs within the function
 Oversee performance development such as oversee training, acquire nominations for
training, assist the talent team deploy the training program
Apart from these roles, I also oversee some aspects of CNB, which is the Compensation and
Benefits and the most important bit for the organization, such as –

 Salary
 Annual increment of salary
 Payroll
 Increments coming with promotions
 Retirements

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As I mentioned earlier, I also look at talent acquisition and talent development. We have
several talent brands such as the Accelerate Program, the Exceed program among many,
through these programs I conduct talent reviews and assess potential candidates.

Q. What is your recruitment process? How do you assign candidates into different
roles?

Answer: BAT has a very well-organized structure it follows when it recruits employees. On
our website, there’s a portal titled, “BAT Careers.” The team at BAT regularly updates the
portal about certain posts and vacancies and interested candidates have an option to apply to
those vacancies through the internet. They are asked to fill out certain forms and applications
and submit their CVs. From there, if we like their responses and if their CV aligns with the
requirements for that post, we contact them for further screening.

Now about assigning candidates into different roles. Suppose, you interviewed for the post of
a territory officer. But upon interviewing and assessing your leadership qualities, personality,
outlook etc., the interviewer thought that you would be a better fit for another post in finance.
In this case, you would be shifted to the preferred department of finance after consulting the
shift with you. That’s how the entire recruitment process goes, roughly.

Q. Do you believe case competitions help in candidate recruitment? If yes, what are the
reasons?

Answer: Yes, we definitely believe that case competitions help in candidate recruitment. As
you guys may already know, BAT hosts the case competition named “Battle of Minds” where
undergraduates like you compete. We provide the undergrads with a case, a series of
problems, and they brainstorm and find out feasible ways of cracking that case, relative to the
practical world.

Case competitions are helpful for any sort of assessment in any MNC (Multi National
Company). These case competitions are designed in such a way that it triggers your analytical
thinking and these cases are a great tool for predicting your future behavior in similar
situations like the case. In these competitions, you’re sometimes roleplaying as an executive

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for that company and once you enter that company, you do have to make those decisions in
your real life. You have to pitch your ideas to other people and convince them in your favor
and have a good plan of action to deploy it. The case competitions groom the participants in
such a way that it gets really easy for them to perform well later on. Even when you’re trying
to get the job, most companies have some kind of a case in the assessment process. By
building up the habit of participating in those competitions, they can ace those assessments at
the time of applying to any company.

Q. You being a recruiter, what kind of preparation do you need to take before
conducting the interviews and all the screening processes?

Answer: Recruiters at BAT are just not only limited to HR. We have a specific 4-day training
program, which is training current employees at BAT who we think might be good recruiters,
through which we run them through the entire recruitment process.

As an HR manager, I will be organizing the recruitment rounds, different stages, the

preparation that goes behind the process etc. However, I will be needing input from someone
who already has been in this position before. For example, suppose I am recruiting for the
post of a territory officer. Before designing the interview process, I will consult someone who
is currently serving in that post or has served before. I prepare questions depending on the
post and also on the CV of the candidate. I also try to relate the candidate’s capability with
the company’s ethos. Our ethos is about being bold, fast, empowered, responsible and diverse
to create a future-fit culture at BAT.

As an interviewer, it’s their responsibility to ensure that the interviewee goes home after a
pleasant experience. You don’t completely ruin their morale in the process of taking the
interview.

Q. How do you address workplace diversity?

Answer: On a global perspective, BAT deals with workplace diversity in various effective
ways. But I will be answering this question according to the perspective of our country.

On our country’s perspective, we provide special attention to what percentage of the

employees must be male and female. When we’re recruiting, we try to recruit an equitable
number of male and female employees. Even when we’re promoting, we try to maintain an

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equitable number of male and female workers. In every employee life cycle, we give enough
interventions so that there’s an increased representation of gender, as well as other diversity
factors.

Q. Do you practice strategic HRM? If yes, how and what are its limitations that affect
the company? Is strategic HRM the future?

Answer: Yes, we do. Every employee process is linked through a particular portal that we
have that our employees have access to. Starting from new joiners to people who are already
in the system, their ratings are calculated, how much their performance rating should be, how
should they input the ratings, how much their salary is, how much their salary should be
incremented after promotion, their promotion cycle, the process of exporting our employees
as international assignees, managing the exit of an employee – everything is happening
through our HRM portal. The process through which these tasks are done is very efficient and
aligned because at the end of the day, this portal is not only followed locally but also
globally.

However, there are also limitations. Because this is done globally, if sometimes we have a
local need, that needs to be integrated within the existing policies of the company, then it’s a
lot of work to go back and forth through different levels of approval to actually implement it,
if it is possible.

In terms of benefits, of course strategic HRM is globally aligned and is the future. So, we all
know what’s happening globally and we all are aligned with the best practices. Only
challenge is it is sometimes difficult to tweak based on local needs.

Q. How do you design your job description?

Answer: As I mentioned before, I alone do not conduct the recruitment from HR. Before
preparing the job description, we conduct discussions with the leadership team of that
function about what they actually do, what they should do among many other things. After
conducting those discussions, we prepare the job description following the standard
procedures like –

 Listing down the responsibilities

 Defining the measure of success
 Defining who this position will report to etc.

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If I try to sum this answer up, only HR alone doesn’t design the job description. They are
taking in input from the entire function to do that.

Q. How does the company conduct appraisal?

Answer: At the end of every year, group wide strategic agendas are allocated and are
cascaded to different regions. From different regions, those agendas are again cascaded to
different areas to different end markets, which in this case is Bangladesh. After being
cascaded to Bangladesh, it gets divided into certain departments and from those departments
to different teams to individuals. So ultimately, one individual gets one objective and they
align their objective with their line manager. After aligning the objective, the objective for the
entire year is documented at that portal I was telling you guys about.

Q. How are you implementing talent management to achieve your company goals?

Answer: Every year, we conduct two preliminary sessions which we call talent review. In the
first session, everyone sits and discusses about everyone’s performance in the company and
they give a rating. At the second session, we review the rating at the end of the year and we
see whether the rating goes up or down based on the performance of the second half.

Other than that, there are different catchups every month between HR and the leadership
teams of a particular department. Those teams keep track of the progress of the employees.
At the end of the year, you get your rating and the salary increment that happens in the next
year, depending on the rating that you get. In the rating scale, there are four ratings. If you get
the highest rating, your salary gets the highest amount of increment and so on.

Q. Being a globally renowned brand, how do you gain competitive advantage over other
MNCs that are already in the market?

Answer: I think the most important thing is the culture that we have here at BAT. The culture
that we have is universally consistent. It is a truly global company so we do have the
optimum number of opportunities for people to have a global career.

I work in Bangladesh. However, I do have to collaborate with the other HRs within Asia and
others globally. There will also be opportunities available to employees based on their
performances where they can go and work in different markets. So there exists lots of
opportunities. Other than that, we have different salary packages which are very competitive
within the industry standards. Another aspect, which is very close to my heart, is that there

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are lots of growth opportunities within the company. You’ll see that the people move a lot
faster here than any other companies due to the sheer amount of exposure they get via
different talent interventions given to them. Considering everything, it is a very fast paced
and high performing organization that attracts people and allows us to be more competitive
than any other MNCs.

Q. What qualities do you look for in an employee that aligns with the goals of your
company?

Answer: Firstly, we look into the candidates and determine whether they possess the ethos of
our company. Our ethos is about being bold, fast, empowered, responsible and diverse.
Secondly, we look for people’s drives. This is a high performing organization made up of
high performing individuals. So, we look for these (ethos) traits in the candidates and that’s
what we look for in candidates.

CHAPTER 6: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

Responsibilities of BAT HR

Recruit and
hire
employees
Manage life
Promote
cycle of
employees
employees

Responsibilities
Move
employees of BAT HR Oversee some
aspects of
from one Compensation
role to and Benefits
another

Manage Oversee
performance
exit cases development

BAT Recruitment Process

Job circular: BAT Bangladesh gives their job circular on their website called "BAT Careers"

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whenever they have vacancies for certain posts.

CV Evaluation: After that, applicants fill up a form and drop their CV. If the applicants CV
and responses aligns with the requirements for that post, BAT contacts with them for further
screening.

Interview: BAT invites people for interview to evaluate their personality. There are two
types of interviews:

1. Mobile interview: In this process BAT asks some questions to the applicants via a
recorded video. Lighting, Quality sound and video are essential for this process.

2. Face to face interview: This process helps applicants to know about BAT. This is mostly
a panel interview. It also helps BAT to evaluate applicants’ leadership capability and
personality.

Recruitment: After the interview, panel of interviewers decide if that person is right for the
post or not. In that case sometimes if panel thinks applicants apply for territory officer but he
is perfect for finance sector, then panel would shift this person in that particular sector.

Job description of BAT:

Listing down the

responsibilities

Defining who this

position will report to
etc.
Job description of BAT

Defining the measure

of success

Workplace diversity of BAT: BAT follows five ethos. They are:

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1. Bold
2. Fast
3. Empowered
4. Responsible and,
5. Diverse

SHRM of BAT:

1. BAT practices a process of linking the employees through a portal where all the info of the
employees is updated and evaluations of their performances are done according to the goals
of the company.
2. Performance rating, promotion cycle, export of employees as international assignees - all
are done based through the portal. All assessments are done locally as well as globally by
BAT.

Appraisal process of BAT:

1. At the end of every year, strategic agendas are allocated to different regions countrywide.
by BAT.
2. BAT distributes those agendas accordingly and the employees are apprehended according
to the goals they succeeded in achieving.
3. Ultimately, using the portal, the employees are ranked and evaluated for appraisals.

Talent Management process of BAT:

For talent management BAT every year arranges two sessions.

1. In first session every employee of a department sits to discuss and gives rating to their co-
workers according to their performance.
2. In second session BAT leadership team evaluate those ratings and measure employee
performance every year.
3. BAT HR and leadership teams also track employee’s performance and give them ratings in
every month. In the end of the year if the employee gets highest rating, then he or she will

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receive highest increment next year.

Qualities that are essential to join BAT:

1. BAT is always trying to value their five ethos. Employees need to showcase these ethos
and follow them strictly.
2. BAT is a high performing organization that's why they always fond of those employees
who high performing individuals and dedicated to their works.

CHAPTER 7: RECOMMENDATIONS, LIMITATIONS,

CONCLUSION
Recommendations

We would like to offer some suggestions after reviewing the process of recruitment and
selection which might be beneficial to the organization. Here are a few recommendations we
presented to BATB:

1. In order to find the top applicants, BATB can schedule more campus recruitment events
during graduation season of undergrads.

2. Following selection, BATB HR should track the performance of graduates from various
universities to see whether their selection methods are successful and to identify which
universities produce the greatest performers.

3. BATB can schedule on a quarterly basis and reserve assessors' schedules using internal
software to guarantee they are available during that time. This will help solve the issue of
assessors' unavailability.

4. When hiring quickly, they should make good use of all available sources of candidates, but
they shouldn't limit themselves to just those. They might be prevented from developing a
variety of talents.

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6. A performance evaluation instrument called "Your Voice" was previously used to assess
employee happiness and acquaint new hires with their teammates and coworkers. Restarting
this project and paying closer attention to this tool are both necessary.

Limitations in Selection Process:

While doing the various rounds of the interview, we, as the interviewee, made some
observations on the recruitment and selection process.

They are:

1. Because of the interviewers' or assessors' hectic schedules, the interviews or

assessments are rescheduled multiple times during their internship. The interviewers
and assessors finalized the timings using the time they were given, but due to their
workload, they were unable to maintain the schedule. As a result, the candidates had
to wait a bit longer than expected.

2. Although BATB offers training in interviewing and assessment techniques to a

number of its employees, it is frequently observed that some regular employees are
doing the interviews and evaluations, whereas some employees tend to avoid them.
Most frequently, the employee cites a commitment to another work on their work
calendar as the main justification behind avoidance. Therefore, the employees'
training is still not being fully utilized as per the potential.

Conclusion:

This paper discusses the implementation and procedures of strategic human resource along
with talent management process at BAT Bangladesh. We have come to know about the
corporate culture at BATB and how the HR department plays an important role in the
organization’s success and development. Following the recommendations and limitations as

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per the findings can ensure better growth potential for the company. The overview of the
paper provides the valuable information needed for the readers to assess the situation as per
the discussed topic.

REFERENCES

1. https://www.reuters.com/markets/companies/BATC.DH/
2. https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/BD/XDHA/BATBC/company-people
3. https://www.batbangladesh.com/group/sites/BAT_9T5FQ2.nsf/vwPagesWebLive/
DOCCAF97/$FILE/BATB-Annual_Report_2021.pdf?openelement
4. https://www.lawyersnjurists.com/article/report-of-british-american-tobacco-
bangladesh-company-limited-and-try-to-analyze-and-understand-the-components-
according-to-our-best-effort
5. https://www.batbangladesh.com/group/sites/BAT_9T5FQ2.nsf/vwPagesWebLive/
DOAFPCFX
6. https://www.batbangladesh.com/
7. https://www.batbangladesh.com/group/sites/BAT_9T5FQ2.nsf/vwPagesWebLive/
DO9T5KMA
8. Human Resource Management – Gary Dessler (Book)

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