Project : Human Resource Management

Respondent’s Name : Muhammad Arsalan

Organization : TRADEKEY

Department / Function : Human Resource Management

Designation of Respondent : Assistant Manager HR Department

Date : 19-APRIL-2013

Name of “BRAVO’’ Members: Mohammad Salman Qureshi (267)

: Mohammad Waqas Mazhar (292)

: Shahzeb Iqbal Paracha (10688)

: Ehsaan Qasmi ()

: Dildar ()

COMPANY’S PROFILE:

TradeKey.com is the world’s leading and fastest growing online business-to-business (B2B) marketplace

that connects small and medium businesses across the globe for international trade.

With a mission to help the world do business smartly, TradeKey.com was established in 2005.

TradeKey.com currently boasts a member base of over 5.7 million businesses from 240 countries and it

welcomes visits of over 9.5 Million buyers and sellers every month.

TradeKey.com helps small businesses convert into global enterprises by providing them a state of the art

online platform using which they can market their products internationally, find genuine buyers, satisfy

their buying needs and explore regional and international business opportunities.

TradeKey.com is the first B2B marketplace that got Google Page Rank 8 and its also the world's first B2B

marketplace that earned ISO 9001 Quality Management System and ISO 27001 Information Security

System certifications to ensure maximum customer satisfaction, security and safe online trading.

TradeKey.com is a multinational company and it has offices in Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan, and its

partners are located in various countries across the globe.

MISSION:

“Help the world do business smartly”

VISION:

“Be the NO 1 company of the world”

CULTURAL AND VALUE:

Customer Loyalty

We go beyond customer satisfaction to earn customer loyalty.

Integrity

Our employees are expected to maintain high standard of integrity

and honor their commitments.

Team Work

We believe in each other and aim for one shared goal.

Agility

We should be flexible, quick to respond and adapt

to fast changing business environment.

Innovation

We must find new and betters ways to make doing business smartly.

Continuous Improvement

Our today should be better than yesterday.

Learning Culture

Creating a learning culture by providing our associates

opportunities to learn and grow.

Care, progress and development of

employees and the society

We care and strive for the well being of our employees

and the society

Q1) Nowadays, good organization has realized the importance of hr department. Can you please, tell

us how your hr department is playing a strategic role in your organization?

Our HR department involves in Strategic management. In Every aspect HR plays a strategic role in our

organization in Tradekey they told us that they have launched a new business model where they

involve in customer support department and sales department where there HR looks after their

personal issues their conflicts and almost every aspects and he told us he mingles around with them

by himself and he listens their issues in their words and then try to resolve them if they couldn’t HR

gets seminars arranged that how to resolve that particular issue in future if they come up again so

basically this model were named as HR business partnership and he further state that from every

aspects HR plays strategic role and he epitomized that let’s suppose if we hire a right and the best fit

sales person and he gives a effective outcome and meet his goals who ultimately gets benefit through

his benefits our organization ultimately gets benefit out of it so in this way HR play a strategic role in

our organization.

Q2) How many functions of HR do you have in your company? Please, provide brief about their

responsibility?

ANSWER) HR department has following functions in TRADEKEY:

They have Recruitment & Selection, Compensation & Benefits, Legal Compliance , Performance

Management, and Learning and Growth includes in Performance Management.

Recruitment & Selection:

For recruitment TRADEKEY practicing they usually use external, For external sources word of mouth

networkingis the most effective tool in Tradekey and almost 50% of requirement is filled by employee

referrals. Apart from that they have their own maintain website and as the last resort when huge or

extensive recruitment is to be done they go for jobs portal as the last resort.

Learning and Growth (training and development)

They have the learning and growth department as sub department in HR and it is performing the same

responsibilities as any training and development sub department perform and HR perform this function in

Tradekey it includes conducting all the necessary training and development lectures, seminars,

workshops, for making the employees fit for the organization not only for present but also for future.

Compensation & Benefits:

In compensation & benefits include payroll, funds management, management’s objective and rewards.We

give monitory and non-monitory both type of benefits First of all there is some innovation in the perks

and benefit which is being provided in Trade key is that they have benefit portal where in every three

month employee performance is being assessed and then in exchange of their performance they are

granted some performance points then they go to performance portal where they find every kind of

products from all our the world to motivate themand in against of that point they can purchase any one of

the product which their points have ability to buy so they go in that portal and may buy from written

ticket to a small bar of chocolate other than that they have sick leave’s, casual leave’s and then annual

leaves and annual leaves are cashable than they have O.P.D and I.O.D allowances separately then trade

allowance and transportation allowance there as well in trade key so in order to manage this all activities

HR perform this function in TradeKey.

Performance Management:

Performance appraisal and training and benefit are sameTraining structure this function is also performed

by the Trade Key HR department.

Q3) what are the biggest challenges which HR is facing now days in your organization?

In trade key they are facing the challenge of huge turnover ratio reason because it is I.T industry and

you will find big turn our ratio everywhere in I.T and sales industry. Trade key is SALES and IT

organization. The very second issue and challenge which is told us they are facing employer branding

They had not been working on that previously but now they have started working on that they have

launched a project on it to improve online and offline to their product .on the other hand they also

told us that when one person comes as an applicant he does not remain just an applicant or rather he

becomes a tool of negative or positive branding for any organization that ultimately impact the image

of any organization. They have also been getting published their advertisements in dawn for last two

months for taken this particular purpose into account.

Q4) Haman resource planning is a critical activity. To realize the objectives of human resources

planning companies follow succession planning. Can you please, provide details?

We have never done succession planning because we don’t need to work on it and this is time and

resources wastage for us because we have clarified the overall procedure and we have set the

standard that so and so you will do and you will be promoted to the next level. Succession planning

requires where performance appraisal system is not so strong to promote the specific person but in

our organization everything is guided offhand you are told the specific road map to get yourself

promoted to the next level.

Q5) please, explain recruitment and selection procedure of your prestigious organization (if possible

please, provide flow chart)?

The don’t have the flow chart. They have four Steps

Q6) what type of recruitment sources do you use while recruiting manpower in your organization

They just recruit externally and most of the time they do not have to go for the different external

recruitment sources because their referral and personal networking is so strong that it fills

requirement as soon as possible because the main reason behind this strong referral procedure is that

if one person refers any one and he or she fills the requirement and assessment test and come up the

required skills and abilities and appointed in their organization so that person who is referred by an

existing employee. That employee is given a certain amount as reward so that reward becomes

motivation and for all employees and every existing employ tries to refer and bring their acquaintance

to get reward. When in rear cases the requirement is not filled by the personal network or much

extensive hiring comes then we are to go for our own portal.

Q7) similarly, what type of selection (interviews) and testing your organization follows while finalizing

a potential candidate? Please provide the brief description of tests and interviews?

Yes our HR department conducts selection interviews that a bit different from other organizational

interviews because they mostly check the person technical side and his specialized working capability

and our interviews are unstructured is taken in panel of two person one HR and one departmental

head once the candidate pass out the interviews then he is sent to assessment center where his I.Q

E.Q and then personality type is being assessed and personality type is evaluate through two ways

that are MBTI types one and then MBTI type two that is almost 1.5 hour complete test itself through

these test they evaluate which type of people are required in specific department? That’s a good thing

because they find the person whose behavior could match the norms of specific department. After the

assessment center evaluation of a person the most astonishing thing of Tradekey is that when the

person is appointed and approved by the concern manager and department he is taken interview by

the C.E.O of Tradekey. And he is acquainted by the C.E.O of TRADEKEY.

We have the ninth hour’s process for selection and they call it “ninth hour selection” and they have to

pass five interviews before appointed. One personality assessment, I.Q than your written assessment

then lastly your communication is critically assessed and lastly one formal interview is taken by C.E.O.

Q8) how is your training and development section is contributing towards your organization?

We have to meet the changes and challenges faced by the IT industry, in order to be a competent in

the market. If the organization did not adjust with the changes in the industry than its productivity

can be affected, which will ultimately results in loss of the market share, which any of the

competent organization don’t want to. The changes may be of Political, Technological, Legal,

Social, Economical or Natural. So if the organization wants to be productive in accordance with the

global or industry changes, than their employees should be trained so that they can easily meet the

changes. And we consistently provide our employees necessary training and development under the

umbrella of our learning and growth department. we have recently launched the new platform for

the businesswomen our this SBU will just serve for the women who want to become importer or

exporter or their products want to get globally sold so for this purpose we trained and developed f

our employees that how to deal with the businesswoman customers because there is huge different

between the nature of business man and a women and on the other hand we have also recruited

some new females employees for serving the women entrepreneurs. Apart from that we provide

many sorts of training and development to our employees for example recently in our HR department

most of the people were unaware about Excel that was the critical issue because we had to call

another departmental person for any sort of Excel task so one of the training session were conducted

by our department for the whole HR department for learning Excel, so now each & every employee of

HR has the capability to solve any sort of Excel task. After doing that, our HR has become more

efficient and effective for contributing our organization. So in the same way other departments are

also contributing more toward our organization.

MICRO NEEDS:

These are the needs for a small group of people within the organization. Micro needs appear when:

New employee are hired and their needs will be the knowledge about the organization,

departments etc. These needs can be fulfilled by giving Orientations.

When a person is rotated or promoted to another job or position, then the expectation from that

job or position and the abilities of that employee have to match by filling the gap between two,

through training.

When a special task is assigned to the group then there a training need appeared.

When people are identified as high potentials than in order to perform well, they need training.

Apart from the above mentioned needs, there might be other needs as well for a small group of people.

Thus the needs for small group are the micro needs for training.

MACRO NEEDS:

These are the needs for a large number of employees of the organization. It may include:

Technological change in the organization.

Whole department has to give precautionary training of safety, health etc.

A new business unit is established or extending the same unit like in TRADEKEY they are

extending their business and developing a new web side for businesswomen.

In TRADEKEY HR department learning and growth section plays a very important role because they

have to check through performance appraisals or the organizations need that whether the employee’s

performances are meeting the expectations of the organization. If not, then they must train and develop

them.

Q9). What sort of Training & Development opportunities is available for your employees?

One thing is that we prepared the training calendar in the very start of the year that shows the whole

planed schedule for the upcoming training session and workshop and for development on and off job

session this calendar is drawn after the coordinated interaction of HR and different department of the

organization and each and every aspects is taken into account if includes all the environment that is

going to have impact on organization that could be change in the marked technological and others as

well. One thing is that we prefer internal trainer unless special training requires if there is

requirement than we invite for external trainer. And we have the different type of training and

development opportunities. Whatever type of training required by an employ he/she can get himself

registered and whenever in any department that specific training are taken place that employ is

informed for that training and he can avail that opportunity. Workshops were gotten conducted by

the chine’s motivational couch last year it was the complete motivational and learning session for

maintaining the motivation of their employees and it was very expensive training workshop they had

to pay very big amount for that.

Q10)Can you please, share T & D cycle?

IDENTIFY TRAINING PLANS

PREPARING TRAINING CALENDER

LECTURES AND COURSE IDENTIFICATIONS

LOOK FOR INTERNAL SOURCE

LOOK FOR EXTERNAL SOURCE

CONDUCT TRAINING SESSIONS

ASSESS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TRAINING

YES

POSITIVE RESULT

NO

ANALYZING THE ENVIROMENT

Q11) Do you give orientations to your newly selected employees. And what area is covered in it?

We have hired a personal who conduct orientation for all of the newly appointed employs and he

conducts five hour orientation and defines whole structures of the organization and it defines all the

benefits and hierarchy and give them the complete information about the organization. That includes

the basic information of organization culture its values and other aspects which is necessary for an

employ e to know in order to adapt him in the new culture of the organization.

Q12) evaluation of performance is not a simple task can you please’ tell us how performance appraisal

are conducted and what tool is your organization is using to evaluate performance of employees?

Our organization has implemented a unique and unconventional strategy and performance

management system which is known as Grow Unlimited Program (GUP).

The Grow Unlimited Program (GUP) identifies, appraises, recognizes and develops performance of its employees in order to meet business objectives. Unlike other conventional performance management systems, GUP gives growth of employees in their own hands and they can choose the pace of their own career development. This is achieved by pre-defined performance criteria and promotions based on performance. This program handles the promotions of employees through a pointing system. Employees earn points every quarter based on their performance. The faster he accumulates the points, the faster he can grow. He can be promoted as fast as in three months time! So GUP basically makes time irrelevant and emphasizes more on performance. Employees don’t have to wait for annual appraisals and they know when their promotion is due. This doesn’t mean that they don’t get annual appraisals. Annual appraisal exercise is also conducted in addition to their normal promotions. Salary of many employees has increased by 3 times or more within a year since the inception of this Program and as soon as an employee accumulates certain level of points, he becomes eligible for a promotion.

Q13) The important of strategic compensation in organization cannot be over emphasized what

strategy do you follow in order to maintain internal and external equity?

We have to maintain that in order to keep our employees motivated. If our employees found that they are

getting low as compared to the person in the same industry or in comparison of the person from the same

organization, than they will become de-motivated resulting either the performance of the employees

affected or they might switch and leave the organization. For maintain internal and external equity we

always compensate our employ more than what is being granted in I.T industry recently for that purpose

we have recently revised all the salary and has improved salaries to extend of 5%. On the other hand we

have revised all the allowances and non monitory benefits as well.

Q14) how frequent do your organization is conducting salary survey?

Once in a year survey are conducted in our organization but as I have told you sometime there is

urgent basis requirements comes from the industry so we do survey in the middle of the year as well

and it happened last year we did survey in the mid of year but our formal survey which has been

planed we do it on the yearly basis.

Q15) what factor do you consider in salary survey?

First of all we consider our competitor that’s only one “ALI BABA” that’s china's company. And after

our competitor salary comparison we take market norms into consideration for the same post what is

being paid in I.T or sales industry most of the time we focused the IT industry of Pakistan while doing

salary survey. In some cases we have to consider experience, Position, Performance, Budget and

internal and external quity.

Q16) what perks and benefits other than salary are offered to employees?

PERKS AND BENEFITS:

We give monitory and non monitory both type of benefits First of all there is some innovation in the

perks and benefit which is being provided in TRADEKEY is that we have benefit portal where in every

three month your performance is being assessed and then in exchange of your performance you are

granted some performance points then you go to our performance portal where you will find every

kind of products from all our the world to motivate you and in against of that point you can purchase

any one of the product which your points have ability to buy so you go that portal and may buy from

written ticket to a small bar of chocolate other than that we have sick leave’s, casual leave’s and then

annual leaves and annual leaves are cashable than we have O.P.D and I.O.D allowances separately

then trade allowance and transportation allowance there as well in trade key.

TRADEKEY strongly believes that the growth of employees is basically the growth of the company. That is why it puts a lot of focus and resources on the well being of its employees. HR Philosophy is that people are not the asset of the company, but the right people are. Once they are identified, the company should partner with them and make their wish, company’s wish. This is one of the reasons TRADEKEY prefers to call all employees its associates. TradeKey offers a wide range of benefits to its associates, keeping its HR philosophy in mind. Following is the details of some of these benefits:

. Health and Wellness • Medical Insurance (for all eligible family members) • Life Insurance • OPD Coverage (for all eligible family members) Financial Benefits • Performance based Annual Bonus (up to 10 gross salaries!) • Performance based Quarterly Bonuses • Provident Fund • Associate Referral Program • Mobile Phone Monthly Credit • Subsidized Lunch Program • Possibility of more than 1 salary increments in a year (up to 5 increments possible!) Paid Leaves • Annual Leaves (up to 20 leaves in a year) • Sick Leaves • Casual Leaves • Paternity / Maternity Leaves etc

Benefit Portal As the associates of TradeKey.com prove their potential and grow, they get some points using which they can avail numerous benefits that help them improve their lifestyle. These benefits are hundreds in number and cover various categories such as Foreign Trips, Automotives, Home Appliances, Smart Phones, Computers and Accessories, Furniture, Sports & Fitness, and Dining etc.

Some Other Position Based Benefits • 1300 cc Car • Laptops & iPhones

• Internet Routers etc

Q17) Do you have standard job description for your employees. And if possible can you share format

of it.

This is confidential and we cannot share it with you because this is our assets.

Q18) Do you have assessment center facility to identify potential employees and candidates?

We have an assessment lab and all of the assessment is conducted there that could be understood as

a separate department.

Q19) if yes, please, mentions the main characteristics of assessment center?

We have the best experienced people there who conduct I.Q TEST E.Q TEST and written test then

personality test also took there and MBTI test patron is followed there as I have mention before we

have surely tight criteria for selection and recruitment process a person is assessed from every angle

and for that purpose five different types of interview are conducted and all of the interviews are

taken by the different trainers of our assessment center specialist and I think MBTI personality test is

somehow unique characteristic of our assessment center.

Q20) Does your organization have the system of HR audits? If yes, please provide details.

Yes we have the system of HR audits is done here and basically the main purpose of HR audit is to

check It that whether HR department is working effectively or not and on the other hand forecasting

is done through HR audit means what changes and what adjustment are needed to be made in HR

department for making it more efficient and effective for the entire organization. And on the other

hand forecasting is also done for expansion level or for revenue reviews means now we have achieved

this target so they forecast how much potential could be left there so what could be the next level

target and then develop different products and then implement those products than different

resources are conducted so for every activity whether there would be requirement for expansion in

the HR department as well or not? In short HR working effectiveness in evaluate in HR audit for

present and for future as well.