The biggest challenge for Jang Group is to retain their employees. The H.

R
manager in Jang are most concerned with the fact that how to stop their trained
and qualified staff from switching to other organizations. Retaining was the most
important challenge and still is for Jang group.

In the early days of establishment of geoTV staffing was the most important
challenge for us because it was a new company and we wanted to hire the best
of the best we use to go to good selective candidates because we knew who
were the best in their work as we are news papers company so we knew every
thing about the news channel industry who is the best and where we can find
him.

On discussing strategic planning and forecasting planning he said: you need to

know a certain amount of manpower required for next couple of year. What
actually is you do is that you issue a kind of memo or a circular that circulates
with in the whole organization and is send to all department heads that we are
preparing forecast planning schedule for next 5 yrs and asked them to tell us
about the no of men power they will require in these yrs and we also asked them
that in which designation they will require their future employees. Then they tell
us their requirement or numbers such as IT department would tell us that in next
5 yrs they will be requiring 5 additional web page designers, 5 additional web
page developers, 5 hardware engineers, 5 additional software engineers
We usually collect this kind of information from all departments we gather them,
combine them, and tabulate them in one page information and with help of this
page we do employment-forecasting planning strategic planning which is done
for 5 yrs involves various different aspects of the firm such as financing,
production if it is related to production then we analyze what kind of printing
machines will be required in next 5 yrs time suppose jag group is launching new
English news paper from Peshawar then definitely they need a press for it. So
press as u know is very expensive item we have to allocate millions of dollars for
this section and we are doing budging for the new employees. so far that thing
we take loan from the bank and utilized that amount on these aspects
effectively .benefits will be provided to new employees when we make budget .

When we asked him about talent management and relations with HR he replied
that HR is more focused on talent management. He considers HR as a
business function, with a goal of effective handling of its talent as a main focus.
PM is rather more focused on managing people and their jobs.

Personnel Management is more of a system that is followed for handling and

managing people with profitability as a main concern.

On discussing how Jang group Job Analysis the kind of employee you need you
analyze their job and then make Job description and Job Specifications and also
their job responsibilities .job description and job specification are very important.

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For example you analyze a job for an IT engineer and prepare a Job description
and Job specification suited for that job.

The other tool by which we analyze the job is that by Hay evaluation points
system in which we give points according to the job requirements and job
specialization and design the salary package according to the given points to a
particular job.

The criteria for giving points includes:

 Responsibilities

 Education

 Degree of decision-making

 No of people reporting to him

 No of peoples he has to report to

Are some of the criteria’s which we evaluates when we give points the higher
the no of points given to the particular job the greater would be the
importance of that job.

On discussing Training of temporary employees he said in our organization

temporary workers performs such a minor job that we usually don’t provide
any training to them most of these employees are already trained daily wages
workers we use temporary workers usually for holding of magazines and
newspapers a little bit of orientation is given to them about safety and security
issues so that they may not fell in any dangerous situation and also take the
company into any unwanted situation.

As far as journalist training and security is concern it is usually not provided

by jang group this type of training and info about precautionary measures one
should take when covering a story is provided by different journalist body also
in these situations the police and other Law enforcing agencies draw a
boundary for the security purposes of the journalist they are provide a manual
in which every thing is written about what to do and what not to do when
covering a Bomb explosion or a suicide attack a part from that they are also
provided a bullet proof jacket and other equipment but they are responsible
for their security themselves.

On discussing the supply of inside candidates he explained that which is a

very general practice that for every new job inside candidates are preferred

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first. We circulate a memo in the organization or put a notification on the
notice board in the office building. Everyone can apply for that Job but before
applying he/she has to inform his/her department head. The candidate has to
take N.O.C. from his department head before applying for the Job.
Sometimes the interested employee gets news about a job through grapevine
process.

For executive positions all over the country we usually prefer our own
executives which are working anywhere within the country in our organization.
This is a part of organizational development, which is commonly referred to
as O.D. We give a great deal of importance to that aspect of O.D.

On discussing the recruitment complexities faced by jang group he answered

that sometimes people from reference of government may apply or the
government asks us to hire someone for a particular position. Then we have
to take under consideration that aspect but while we consider their request we
also see that whether the person applied for a job has the required
qualifications and skill sets required for that particular job. If his/her
qualifications or skills do not matches our requirements, in this case we have
to excuse the government authorities.

Other concerning area was the rapid development of electronic media in early
2000s. What happened that the electronic media created hype in the market
and almost all of the trained and senior staff or the print media switched to
electronic media. People like Kamran Khan, Hamid Mir who were employed
as journalists and wrote columns in our news papers when to electronic
media due to which the salaries of journalists suddenly went sky high and we
also faced a great deal of difficulty in attracting new journalist and reporters
for news papers because every body wanted to work for electronic media.

On discussing whether Jang group employees Off shoring technique or not

he said: as far as jang is concerned we usually don’t hire people from abroad
but when we were launching Geo tv for the First time initially we did hired the
technical staff from abroad they stayed in Avari Tower For Three months
training was provided to staff like new casters, new anchors, camera men,
and other technical staff were trained because at that time we did not had
these trained people available in Pakistan.

As far as training and development of journalists are concerned we do send

them abroad for training as well as conduct seminars for journalists in
Pakistan. Some of our senior journalists like Rahim Ullah Yousuf Zai, Kamran
Khan, Hamid Mir also attend world wide journalists conferences in which they
tend to learn new things and new aspects of journalism.

When we asked him how a candidate should elaborate his strength and
weaknesses

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The most important point is how many organizations the person has changed
during the last few years .It could be positive or negative. If you find a trend in
his C.V that he frequently changes his Job places. Then as an interviewer you
may ask him the reason for changing so many jobs in a short span of time
and if he replies by saying that “I change jobs for better future or for better
compensation then as an interviewer you get to know that in future if
someone will offer him/her a higher salary package then he may leave our
organization as well. There fore we don’t hire such people. This is a negative
aspect of that candidate and hence becomes his/her weakness.

Strength and weaknesses varies from person to person. If suppose a person

is working in a company which he joined 10 years ago and applies in other
organization then he may right in C.V. that “I have been working in ABC news
paper company for the last 10 years and I don’t believe in changing
organization frequently because I am not a rolling stone. So therefore in this
situation changing the organization becomes a strong point for him.

To see the weaknesses of the candidates we also conduct semantic

interviews. These interviews are basically conducted to see the psychological
behavior of the candidate. They are somewhat different to stress interviews
because in these interviews we check the mentality, religious mindset,
political affiliation and also the behavioral patterns of a candidate where as in
stress interviews we only see or check the degree of stress a candidate can
cope with.

In our business political affiliation with a certain party can be either your
strength or weakness. Such as in Karachi political affiliation with one party is
considered to be your strength.

On discussing when a journalist is targeted or accused by any political, social

or government official then how your organization handles that situation he
answered that there is a policy in Jang group that if a reporter writes or
publishes a story a writes a news in a newspaper which is based on actual
facts and concrete grounds though against one including the government
officials then in these situations we support our reporter for journalist.

On asking him about how he evaluates performance management he said

basically we measure performance management by using performance
appraisal forms. It is a two-page form, which is distributed in April or May. In
this form we write different skills, competency and measure the employees
performance against it. The form includes criteria’s like:

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  Discipline
 Late attendance
 Work performance under pressure
 Extra hours work and etc

It is also a part of annual increment if one employee has performed

outstandingly in the year, then he/she gets more average increment. So in our
organization each and every employee know that if he/she will perform very
well during the year, then he/she will get annual increment when performance
appraisal is done in our organization.

Employees in departments like marketing related to sales are evaluated in

every three months. They are given a target let say to bring advertisement of
Rs:500,000 or this year for our newspaper. Then if he meets that target with
in the given period allocated to him, it means he has done well and achieved
his target and if he brings Rs: 700,000 advertisement instead of Rs:500,000
this means he has done very well and if he brings a total Advertisement of a
total of Rs:100,000 its means he has performed outstandingly .This type of
performance appraisal is conducted in every department in 3 months in our
organizations.

When we asked him about what points he takes in consideration when employing
someone he replied that Employing is not a line type of a function that can be
done by following a basic procedure. It has various aspects such as: -

1. What does company want?

2. What are the situations in which company needs people?

3. Why does the company need them?

4. For how long does it want to get engaged with them viz. temporary or
permanent?

5. Qualifications needed for the application of the job?

6. Training is needed or not?

7. Personal qualities of the applicant?

8. Job profile

9. Faith of the applicant towards organization and his interests?

These questions need to be answered before selecting a employee.

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When we asked him about what he thinks is the most motivator for
employees according to him he said HR gives importance to human relations
and thus motivation is also based on the same grounds, thus we at Jang
Group we believe in motivating employees by giving them the perfect job
profile which suits them and from which they can get their job satisfaction.

Though HR gives less importance to money, but still in Pakistan money is

high influencer and motivator of the employees. so we make sure that
employees receive salary on the first of every month

Thus in Jang group we make sure that we offer a right mix of motivators
because each individual gets motivated by different means. For example
some employee gets a great boost even if you just pat on his back. While
other feels good if he gets some monetary benefit.

The company always makes sure that the policies that are framed by the
company are kept transparent and the employees are aware of it.Such
activities act as an effective motivator.

When we asked him how important is work sampling techniques for

evaluating the new candidates he answered by saying that it is very important
especially for journalist every journalist whether the reporter or a sub-ordinate
has to go through a written test. In which given various tasks to perform and
questions were asked about their general knowledge relat6ed to their area we
also asked them skill based questions

First we used to conduct the written test then tabulate the results then we
short list the best scorers and then and then call them for their interviews so
this is related to his job assignment same criteria is use for different job in our
organization as well we also take the same test for the musketries as well it
helps to bring out the skills and competencies of the candidates the questions
are made by the line manager or department dead in coordination with HR
manager.

When we asked him about how much importance he give to Snap judgments
he replied that Snap judgments according to him is very important criteria for
evaluating the candidates .no matter how much the candidate is educated,
qualified and skillful but if he lacks in his appearance or in visual features like
bad dressing during the interview, not properly shaved, improper hair style
and other physical appearances then we don’t usually hire these kinds for
peoples for the job no matter how qualified they are .because one person bad
behavior can effect the behaviour,attutites and performance other employees
as well and on the other hand the image of our newspaper is also declines .

When we asked him whether they use standardized forms for conducting the
interviews he answered that basically we don’t use standardized questions for

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conducting interviews .we generally use Multiple interviews .it is a very criteria
for evaluating a candidates .for multiple interviews we sometimes use
sequential interviews as well as non-sequential or panel interviews. In these
interviews the line manager sits along with H.R manager and department
head, for example in conducting an interview for marketing position the
marketing head site along with H.R head and a person from editorial
department may also sits along with them to conduct the interview. All of
these people will evaluate the candidate independently and will give their
independent opinion about the candidate in final decision-making process.

When asked about what are the future challenges for HR in this country he
said the biggest challenge for future of HR in Pakistan is its implementation
and penetration in all the industries and family run businesses.

The top class management has to understand its importance so as to

give a boost to HR in corporations in Pakistan .The biggest challenge would
be to develop such policies and developments so as to generate maximum
employee satisfaction and efficiency by which Pakistan will become a much
happier land to work and progress in.

Technically, the future will see HR in every face of life. A day might come
when even a college and school will have a HR dept. Recent trends have
made HRM to become more focused on bottom line of the organization.
Introduction of IT has made all the employees work more efficiently with
lightening speed. H.R considers people as not only assets but also as their
profit.