Bangladeshis from northern parts of Jessore to the Southern tips of Khulna are most likely to have one thing in common, they’re crippled without their mobile phones. Our love for all things mobile is just as populous as the nation itself. It is evident given that 117 million people own a cell phone. Covering such a vast topography mandates a formidable network. In that sector, Grameenphone (GP) can boast of doing a stellar job. The telecommunication giant has captured the portable screen of almost every other citizen with 65,329,000 mobile subscribers. Being the only network to cover 99% of the nation, the company raked in $1.7 billion. The company doesn’t just talk the talk, walk into their offices and you’ll find over 2,810 employees who precisely know what’s happening in a time where everyone wants the world at the tip of their stealthily typing fingers.
Loading your Arsenal with the Right Ammo
For GP, employer branding is more organically achieved than promotional campaigns. At every level of recruitment, they practice the highest standards of evaluations, which ensures some of the best talents in the market are working with GP. Employees of GP are authentic brand ambassadors to promote the company’s culture.
They believe that employees are a foundation for collaborative success and it starts with picking for passion. The company targets diverse career opportunities to specific groups in order to find an individual who will thrive in their particular area of expertise.
Pedagogy in Practice
GP offers programs that are tailored to attracting students because they understand that the right minds come from an appreciation for academia. The Telenor Youth Forum is a global year-long program that brings together the future leaders amongst the youth to collaboratively tackle social issues around the world. They had more than 1,500 applications last year. GP runs a nationwide competition to collect entries, followed by grooming and developing sessions after which they carefully choose the best. The Grameenphone Apprentice is a part-time corporate training program that focuses on merging on-the-job training and coaching from leaders of the company to ensure that the country’s talent pool is equipped with the skills that modern workplaces require.
Set on the Site
Embedded in the main site of GP, the career’s site (grameenphone.com/about/careers) showcases the company’s major flagship talent program and opportunities. Potential employees can find all the vacant positions within GP listed here with application details. Additionally, it provides career advice directly from employers. The career site works as an information hub for all vacancy related information; this is also where candidates apply for jobs as their application process has followed the global trend of being conducted online.
The Harvesting Process: Only Pick the Best Crop
The application processes in GP is extremely rigorous for all levels of recruitment; initially screened candidates go through online assessments and on spot tests before moving towards the first interviews. The recruiters are trained against bias and perception and base candidate scores on demonstration of their real-life examples; this allows them to identify whether the candidate will be a sufficient fit for the role. The focus is on channeling the right resources to jobs that they would love.
Grameenphone also offers online interviewing to demonstrate the need for flexibility and privacy of candidates while allowing itself to shortlist a greater number of talented resources. GP regularly attends career fairs in universities which allow potential candidates to get a thorough understanding of the application process and they get answers to their queries from recruiters and their alumni in GP themselves.
The Best Content Comes from Experience
GP takes great pride in the success of its family and likewise for the employees of GP for their company. Their employees frequently appear in media with their knowledge sharing/opinion segments and win awards and accolades recognizing their professionalism. Employees also apply these learning to mentoring, developing and career exposure. GP itself is based heavily on organic employer branding, especially for mid-level and higher level recruits. This target group is not likely to be affected by recruitment campaigns or gimmicks. They look for authentic sources of information about candidates from their circles.
GP has hosted knowledge sharing sessions and career roadshows across universities in Bangladesh. The content is entirely prepared by employees from every level. These individuals take sessions in their area of functional knowledge, leadership, and career development.
Whiteboard hosts regular sessions for both internal and external audience with a purpose of developing the digital ecosystem in Bangladesh within GP. They held 30 sessions last year with over 2,500 participants. These sessions are conducted by both internal and external resource pool. There are also frequent sessions arranged in GPHouse for university students. Students can directly interact with GP employees and learn about how the business runs and what it takes to succeed in a career.
A recent example of employee-driven content was IloveGP – an inter-divisional campaign that set to depict employee loyalty. Particular divisions would compete with one another by filming a micro video on why they love GP. Employees from seven divisions participated and GP accumulated 11,942 reactions. The internal campaign received some of the most creative demonstrations of highlighting the benefits, culture, and career development. They also recognized the winner via popular and jury choices.
Talent Knows no Gender
The fact that GP is working to shatter the glass ceiling is evident as they were the recipient of the Most Female Friendly Organization Award in 2016. That same year Telenor Group introduced Launch of Women Inspirational Network (WIN). GP executed a program to provide focused leadership development to women leaders at CXO-1 & CXO-2 levels. The following year, individual and customized development plans were prepared for 45 potential female talents with personality profiles mapping. The WIN members are now mentored by the company’s top management official.
GP promotes gender equality through one the most effective tools to convey a worthy message, the theater. ‘Shuhashinir Cholon Baka’- A first-of-its-kind-play pieced from six real-life stories that depicted both unintentional and intentional bias and discrimination in GP. It was staged in GP office throughout the region with the aim to insight behavioral changes through gender sensitization of all their employees. Furthermore, learning weeks, tailored session, online learning platforms and sponsored training participation and seminars are held to encourage the promotion of female employees to high positions. Interactive sessions are held by women in various sectors. These sessions were conducted by noteworthy women such as Rumana Rahman (BAT), Zara Mahbub (BRAC BANK), Mahmuda Afroz (ADCP), Samia Zaman (DU Faculty and Journalist), Fahmida Jahangir (Rangs) and Mahmuda Afroze (Honorable Secretary in charge, Labour & Employment Ministry).
Platforms that Set the Stage for Unity and Motivation
Through their internal employee engagement surveys, GP has found that employer branding to prime reasons that attract employees. They maintain communication throughout all of their offices via Workplace, a social media platform that is exclusive caters employees of Telenor. Employees can share their success, business updates and share advice with one another.
The company is consistently the recipient of the Divisional Quarterly Award, which recognizes the noteworthy demonstration of performance and values across the organization. The event showcases stories of employee contributions and is championed by top leaders of the company including CEOs and CXOs.
The Ripple Effect: Values that put the Employee First
Employees proactively take initiatives to reach out to communities outside their circles, sharing career advice and corporate grooming. They act as jury members in business competitions and speakers in panel discussions through such events. These actions allow them to highlight their own personal career achievements in the contribution to GP’s success.
GP’s brand promise is to empower societies with what matters the most. The GP Accelerator Program promotes startups that strive for change and Whiteboard creates career opportunities in corporate, technology and commercial units for the digital enthusiast. Their recognition of employees starts at every company’s exposure portal, their website. GP features testimonials of their employees and their content within the company. Campaigns such as the Next business Leader and Telenor Youth Forum focus on the experiences of candidates.
* Photos provided by Grameenphone
