Organizational Behavior

Training History and the Evaluation of Recent Training Programs of Grameenphone Ltd

Training History and the Evaluation of Recent Training Programs of Grameenphone Ltd

Executive Summary

People always want to be in touch with others. Cell phone is a very popular instrument for this contact purpose. Alike other countries Bangladesh also waved away by this Cell phone. Cell phone industry of Bangladesh has getting vast expansion from the end of the Twentieth century. Grameenphone is the largest Cell phone company in Bangladesh which first introduced various innovative services and acquired the largest number of subscribers in this country. It also has the largest network coverage in Bangladesh. The fast growth of this company created the largest contribution to the Government exchequer in direct and indirect taxes.

Maintaining the leading position with 43% share in the market, GP needs to ensure its consistent services to its customers. This will not be possible without efficient work force. Technology in the telecom sector changes frequently. Also employees need to exercise their technology knowledge to provide better service. For that reason GP has a dedicated department under Technology division named Partner Management. There duties were to maintaining relation with partners and arrange trainings for GP employees.

GP has several technology partners. Major of them are Huawei, Ericsson, NEC. They are providing technology supports to GP and related trainings to the employees. There are some other vendors providing trainings such as Actix, CiscoValley, ESI India etc. These trainings provide theoretical or practical sessions or both of them. For practical sessions, GP switch rooms are used which is located in Kaderia Tower near Mohakhali. From others GP depends on external venues. Some training is held inside GP-House based on the availability of venue. GP also arranges foreign trainings but these are few in numbers and very few employees get the opportunity. Technology trainings are for the seven departments of the technology division. Non-technical trainings are open for all. Training has three levels based on their covering topics, complexity and importance. They are advanced, intermediate and basics.

GP is going to introduce its training portal. For that reason they want some backend training history database. The main element of this report is the training database from January 2007 to April 2011 which will be used in the portal to show the history. The analysis of the database is an important part of the portal showing all about the performance of GP training arrangement team so far. The evaluation of trainings held during January to March 2011 can give an overview of the effectiveness and lacking in several areas. Some recommendation is made after close observation and working in the process. These provide the area of improvements for the training arrangement team.

The training providing activities were handled by several employees in this long run. So data was so scattered and not in the similar format. There were a lot of missing data that can’t be recovered now. These data was ignored when analyzing the database. The analysis shows that, in the period total 528 trainings were held and 7383 employees were trained. More than 400 trainings were technical trainings held in Bangladesh with foreign trainer. 208 trainings were intermediate and 154 were basic. Most of the employees from operation took trainings. Highest number of system engineers took trainings with deputy superintendent engineers in second position. 472 trainings were 1-5 days duration with 268 as local. Equal number of foreign and local trainings with more than 10 days duration was held. Though in 2009 less training were held than in 2007, in 2009 more training hour is provided as trainings in 2009 were more in duration. Intermediate trainings were more successful than basic trainings held during January to March 2011.

GP has taken the initiative to significantly improve the training process and facilities. For that reason the training portal, dedicated training venue, training library etc will be developed. The recommendation made in this report can also help them to improve the training quality and effectiveness.

Introduction:

Grameenphone Ltd (hereinafter referred to as “GP”) is the largest Cell phone company in Bangladesh which first introduced various innovative services and acquired the largest number of subscribers in this country. It also has the largest network coverage in Bangladesh. The fast growth of this company created the largest contribution to the Government exchequer in direct and indirect taxes.

Maintaining the leading position with 43% share in the market, GP needs to ensure its consistent services to its customers (GP annual report, 2010). This will not be possible without efficient work force. Technology in the telecom sector changes frequently. To remain up to date with the technology and to ensure better network GP arranges trainings for its employees. These trainings maintain high standard and provide world class technology knowledge to the employees.

 Origin of the Report

The internship report is an integral part of Internship program to complete the BBA program successfully. It is also an official requirement of the company in which the author was working for internship. For this reason the report on “A Synopsis of Training History and the Evaluation of Recent Training Programs of Grameenphone Ltd” is being prepared.

 Problem Statement

The drive for making this report were felt when the author was working in Partner management under technology division of GP. It works for strategic competence development of the employees. To do such things they organize a vast schedule of trainings throughout the year. From January 2007 to March 2011, they have trained their employees in diversified sectors. Recently GP is going to introduce its training portal. A training portal is a secure web site that allows users to access training and other job performance resources that are part of a company’s training and development mission (Source: http://www.dennistester.com/portals.htm). For that reason they want a backend training history database. So, this report is being prepared to partially meet that necessity and offered some recommendation after close observation and working in the process to make this training procedure effective. These provide the area of improvements for the training arrangement team. This report can

give the partner management team an overview of the training history according to many factors and constricted analysis of the training database.

Objective of the Report:

Broad Objective:

Provide an overview about the trainings to the training arrangement team of GP so that they can use it in their training portal.

Specific Objectives:

  1. Analyzing the training history of GP during January 2007 to March 2011.
  2. Based on the analysis, summarizing the findings about the activities of the training arrangement team.
  3. Analyzing participant’s evaluation about recent trainings.
  4. Making recommendation to improve the quality of training arrangement.

 Scope of the Report:

Only the trainings from January 2007 to March 2011 are being covered. So the report is not presenting the complete scenario of the training history of GP as GP started to give trainings from the year 2003. But this report will consider the most recent training data which can help GP to understand its recent performance. There are not many variables or factors. So findings are based on few factors. Also a lot of data was missing which will not give us the proper scenario.

Methodology:

Research Design: Research design is the overall procedure to collect the data and to analyze of data. Research design includes both primary and secondary research based on primary and secondary data respectively. GCSE Business Studies (2009) argued that the primary research is aimed to collect information that are not available or that does not exists, that is, a collection of original data. And with the view of Hill and Kerber (1967) the secondary research usually solutes contemporary issues; spotlights on past and future scenarios; enables to generate hypotheses, theory and conceptualization of what found in the past.

This report is exploratory in nature and secondary data is used. All the data and information those are used in this report are mainly collected from secondary sources- training history database, annual report 2010 and the company profile of GP. Again since this report is intended to spotlight on an analysis of technology training history in GP, it highly used the training history database. So it fulfills the requirement of being secondary research. All the data in the organization part (Chapter I) is taken from the annual report 2010 and the official website of GP (www.grameenphone.com). The training process (pp 16) is made by the author from the experience to work in the process. The recommendations were made based on being a part of the training arrangement team, by close supervision and being closely involved in the training process.

Sampling: The sampling plan of this report includes all the training, workshops and experience sharing sessions of last five years from year January 2007 to March 2011 based on the availability of data.

Variables and Data Analysis Procedure: Training History of GP is very large enough. And GP have a huge quantity database about their training history which is maintained in organized way throughout the year. So to analyze the training history of GP, cross tabulation is used here for the data summarization. Besides some simple statistical tools are applied, for example, percentage, mean, standard deviation etc. And the analyzed data were presented through tables and different types of graphs. The training database contains data about employee ID, Employee name, mobile number, designation, division of employee, training venue, course title, start date, end date, duration, course fee, vendor, training type, training level, and total training hour/employee.

Benefit of this Study:

This analysis is done to give an overview to the training arrangement team about there performance from January 2007 to March 2011. Also the summary of the analysis can be provided to the training portal of GP to inform others about the activities of training team. The findings and recommendations will increase the performance of the training arrangement team significantly.

Limitations:

The database for training is huge. During these 5 years different employee had managed these training programs. So data is scattered and not in a similar format. Again not all the data can be managed. To make the data in a similar format is a huge challenge. There may be few missing information in some case due to unavailability of data.

Overview of GP

GP is the leading mobile phone company in Bangladesh with the largest number of customers to serve with. Starting its operations on March 26, 1997, the Independence Day of Bangladesh, GP has come a long way. The company has a customer base of 32.4 million* and the number is further growing. From May of the last year more than 5 million people made GP their preferred service provider and in this year the numbers of customers have reached to the new height of 30 million.  With more than 81% growth, the market share remained over 43%**, even though the overall competitive environment had considerably intensified.

Total six (6) companies are present in the market among which the number of subscriber of GP is far ahead than the second position holder Banglalink (20millions). Strong internationally reputed companies like Orascom and Axiata is present in the market. Recently Airtel entered in the market by purchasing Warid Telecom. This way the industry is becoming increasingly more competitive because of the entry of these internationally experienced operators.

GP is seeing the Bangladeshi market as a great opportunity to do business. Recently it introduces its subsidiary company GP-IT. Diversified services are being offered by GP and they are committed to continue their excellent performance in future. GP has built the largest cellular network in the country with over 13,000 base stations in more than 7,000 locations. Presently, nearly 98 percent of the country’s population is within the coverage area of the GP network. GP has always been a pioneer in introducing new products and services in the local market. GP was the first company to introduce GSM technology in Bangladesh when it launched its services in March 1997. GP was also the first operator to introduce the pre-paid service in September 1999. It established the first 24-hour Call Center, introduced value-added services such as VMS, SMS, fax and data transmission services, international roaming service, WAP, SMS-based push-pull services, EDGE, personal ring back tone and many other products and services. The entire GP network is also EDGE/GPRS enabled, allowing access to high-speed Internet and data services from anywhere within the coverage area. There are currently nearly 2.6 million EDGE/GPRS users in the GP network. And GP will continue to make the network quality better and capacity improvements through the country by using latest technologies. Very recently they will introduce 3G network in Bangladesh.

Operating Coverage of GP

Presently GP has covered 440 upazillas of 61 districts. 98% of the total population is under coverage of GP’s network. GP has so far invested more than BDT 15,900 crore to build the network infrastructure.

Brief profile of GP

The full name

:Grameenphone Ltd.

Head Office

:Grameenphone Ltd. GPHOUSE, Basundhara, Baridhara, Dhaka-1229.

Date of incorporation

:November 28, 1996.

Service Launched

:March 26, 1997.

Product & Services

:More than 50 products, services, promotions and features, 1,600 Customer service points and 82 GP Centers in all the divisional cities.

Employees

:More than 5,000 full and temporary employees, other 300,000 people are directly dependent on GP.

No of divisions

:7.

No of Subscribers

:32.4 Million.

Shareholders

:Telenor (55.8%), Grameen Telecom Corporation (34.2%), 10% shares belong to general retail and institutional investors.

Source: http://www.grameenphone.com/about-us on May 28, 2011.

History of GP

November 28, 1996

:GP offered a cellular license in Bangladesh by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.

March 26, 1997

:GP launched its service on the Independence Day of Bangladesh.

June 1998

:GP started its services in the port city of Chittagong, the second largest city in the country. Cell to cell coverage in the Dhaka-Chittagong corridor also enabled GP to introduce its service in a number of other districts along the way.

1999

:GP started its service in the industrial city of Khulna. Once again, a number of other districts came under coverage of GP because of the cell to cell coverage between Dhaka and Khulna.

2000

:GP started its services in Sylhet, Barisal and Rajshahi, bringing all six divisional headquarters under the coverage of its network.

2001

:Launched WAP service.

2002

:
  • Bangladesh Business Award for “Best Joint Venture Enterprise”.

August 2003

:After six years of operation, GP has more than one million subscribers.

October 2005

:GP continues to being the largest telecommunication operator of Bangladesh with more than 5 million subscribers.

2006

:GP reached 10years of its operations and 10 millions of subscribers.

November 2006

:GP re-branded with new logo.

September 20, 2007

:GP announces 15 million subscribers.

January 2008

:Introduced Black Berry Service to Bangladesh.

June 2008

:
  • Reached 20 million subscribers.

Feb 2009

:Launched GP Internet Modem.

Sep 2009

:Launch of GP Handset.

March 2010

:Mobitaka Brand launch with E-ticketing.

June 2010

:1st Annual General Meeting of GP.

Source: http://www.grameenphone.com/about-us

 Vision, Mission, Objectives and Values of GP

  • Vision: GP vision is “We’re here to help”. That means GP exist to help the customers get the full benefit of communications services in their daily lives. They want to make it easy for the customers to get what when they want it.
  • Mission: The mission of GP is to provide a total communication solution to its customers. To do this the service development of GP has significantly developed over the last few years. GP subscribers can now enjoy all the modern data communication and content services. Mobile office, internet access, MMS and modern music and download services are available through the nationwide EDGE enabled network.
  • Objective: GP has a duel objective to receive an economic return on its investments and to contribute to the economic development of Bangladesh through telecommunication. This is why GP, in collaboration with Grameen Bank and Grameen Telecom, is aiming to place one phone in each village to contribute significantly to the economic benefit of the poor. It is on the way to bring a total revolution in the telecommunication field. By attaining the success factors, GP would like to be recognized as a reliable, honest and committed company to its valued subscribers and stakeholders.
  • Values: Make it Easy; Keep Promises; Be Inspiring and Be Respectful.
  • Brand Promise Stay Close.

Board of Directors, Management and Organization structure

Board of Directors

Mr. Sigve Brekke: Appointed on September 1, 2008.

Ms. Hlide Tonne: Appointed on January 20, 2010.

Ms. Nurjahan Begum: Appointed on January 20, 2010.

Mr. M. Shahjahan: Appointed on June 26, 2006.

Mr. Pek Erik Hylland: Appointed on June 25, 2007.

Mr. Md. Ashraful Hassan: Appointed on January 20, 2010.

Mr. Knut Borgen: Appointed on January 20, 2010.

Mr. Snorre Corneliussen: Appointed on March 23, 2009.

Dr. Jamaluddin Ahmed FCA: Appointed on March 19, 2010.

Organogram and Management of GP

Source: http://www.grameenphone.com/about-us/corporate-information/corporate-governance/organization-structure

Divisions and No of Departments of GP

Currently GP has 7 divisions and 49 departments under these divisions to run its operations smoothly. The divisions and number of departments under them are:

  • Commercial Division (9 Departments).
  • Communication Division (6 Departments).
  • Corporate affairs Division (5 Departments).
  • Finance Division (6 Departments).
  • Managing Director Division (8 Departments).
  • People and Organization Division (6 Departments).
  • Technology Division (9 Departments).

 Products of GP

Currently GP is selling six types of packages:

  • XplorePostpaid connection and is available with Mobile to Mobile with BTCL connectivity. BTCL incoming is absolutely free in Xplore.
  • ShohojPrepaid connection comes with pre-activated package to talk to any operator number at a low, flat rate of Tk 0.79.
    • BondhuHighest number of F&Fs allows to talk to near and dear ones at the lowest rate.
    • AaponCan talk to over 25 million GP numbers at a very low rate of 49 Paisa per minute.
    • BaadhonDesigned to serve the rural population of Bangladesh.
    • SmilePrepaid connection that gives freedom, opportunities and more reasons to smile!!

 Internet Packages

GP offers the most affordable internet packages for handset browsing. One can easily connect to internet by availing any of the internet packages offered by GP.

  • Minipack Pay Per Use (Max BDT 20/day): Is for only prepaid subscribers where Internet usage is chargeable at BDT 0.02/KB up to a maximum of BDT 20/Day, between 12am-11.59pm daily. Fair Usage Policy is applicable after crossing 10 MB usage for that day.
  • Package 1 (P1): Is a pay-as-you-go offer which is applicable for Post Paid subscribers only. For every kilobyte (KB) of data browsed, subscribers are charged BDT 0.02(excluding VAT).
  • Package 2 (P2): Unlimited browsing with 30 days validity, monthly charge is BDT 850 (excluding VAT).
  • Package 3 (P3): Unlimited night time browsing with 30 days validity, monthly charge is BDT 250+VAT.
  • Package 4 (P4): For prepaid subscribers only. From 12:00AM to 11:59PM (within a day) with 150MB data usage limit in a day and daily charge is BDT 60+VAT. From 12:00 AM of the next day, pay-as-you-go (P1) charges will be applicable.
  • Package 5 (P5): An internet offer of 3 GB per month @ BDT 700+VAT. The package has a validity of 30 days (from the date of activation). After expiration of 3 GB, BDT 0.0002/KB +VAT will be charged. After expiration of 30 days validity, the charge is BDT 0.02/KB +VAT.
  • Package 6 (P6): An internet offer of 1 GB per month @ BDT 300+VAT. The package has a validity period of 30 days from the date of activation. After expiration of 1 GB, BDT 0.0002/KB without VAT will be charged. After expiration of 30 days validity, the charge is BDT 0.02/KB without VAT.
  • Minipack 15MB (P7): An internet offer for pre-paid subscribers with data browsing/downloading capacity up to 15MB @ BDT 29 (+VAT). This package has duration of 15 days starting from the date of activation. After using the full volume of 15MB or the expiration of validity period of 15 days (whichever comes first), the package will be automatically deactivated. However, a subscriber can repurchase ‘Minipack 15MB’ in any quantity anytime.

 Distinctive Features of GP

In order to be successful and preferred by GP’s most important stakeholders’ i.e. small & medium enterprises, individuals, Village Phone users and sub-lease clients of transmission capacity the GP will be recognized by the following distinctive features:

  • Wider Coverage
  • Wide Distribution Network
  • Low start-up cost
  • Competitive tariff
  • Achievement of sales target

Apart from the main distinctive features, in order to be successful in relation to GP’s owners/shareholders they also focus on increasing the subscriber base, Average Revenue per User (ARPU) that will increase company value. They have to build good brand value among all segments and be more organized for better reporting.

Performance of GP

GP currently has 43% of the market share. It generates high revenue and each year it is increasing. In 2006 GP generated revenue of 45,640 million BDT and increased in s steady way. But in 2010 it increased in a good amount and became 74,733 million BDT than the year 2009.

The no. of subscribers has nearly tripled in 2010 to around 30 million from around 10 million in 2006. From the figure we see that every year the no. of subscribers had increased significantly.

The average revenue per user (ARPU) has a picture like the graph given in the next page. Though the ARPU decreased the number of subscriber increased significantly, as a result revenue increased a lot.

The Average minutes per user (AMPU) of GP have decreased in comparison of the previous year, yet it is in a satisfactory level. The AMPU is highest is 2008. Its now in a decreasing trend be. One reason for this is that, the telecom industry has become more competitive. People are not depending on a specific operator rather more than one operator.

Internship Responsibilities

The author worked in the training arrangement team under the supervision of Md. Shahanur Rahaman, Lead Engineer in Partner Management. The author worked as a coordinator between the participants and the team. All operational tasks as well as on the venue job was performed by the author. Different reporting to the supervisor and other department heads is fulfilled by him. Managing inventory, communicating with the trainer and participants from the starting of the procedure to arrange training to the end of the training, ensuring all facilities, maintaining several database regarding training and reporting continually to the higher authority is done by the author.

Overview of the Training Process

GP is the leading telecom service provider in Bangladesh. It has better network with better services. Its wide coverage of network and flawless customer service makes it the pioneer. To remain the market leader and provide quality services in terms of network and all the related areas is a challenging task. To remain up to date with the technology and to ensure better network GP arranges trainings for its employees. These trainings can be foreign, in-house or local in nature. Foreign trainings are few in nature. In-house trainings are provided by employee from GP provides. Most of the trainings in GP are local where trainers are foreigners but the training held inside Bangladesh. Partner Management department deals with the external partners of GP. They have only one government partner that is “Bangladesh Railway”. Other partners are mainly Huawei, NEC, Ericsson, Emersion etc. These partners mainly provide network technology related supports to GP and also provide technology trainings to the employees. The competency development unit decided which training to conduct based on discussion with other department heads. They fix up about the trainings level and type. Based on the requirement they decide who will be the trainer, whether he will be from GP or outside. Again, they decide whether it will be a basic level training or intermediate level training or advanced level training. Considering their day-by-day work employees may feel the need for a specific training or the team decides by itself to provide trainings to employees to make them more knowledgeable. After deciding which training to perform they communicate with the partners (mostly Huawei and Ericsson) to provide the training. These companies have foreign trainings specialized in many topics. After deciding this, a date is fixed based on trainer availability and considering all the constraints. Then there will be a trainer interview session where competence development team and all related department heads of technology division interacts with the trainer. Main objective of this interview is to check the knowledge of the trainer about the topic and his/her communication skill. If the team faces any problem regarding the trainer from this interview they change the trainer otherwise the training comes to the training arrangement team. Training arrangement team then starts its work to ensure all the facilities regarding the training. Training usually has a capacity for 20 employees. So every department gets specific number of seats for their employees based on the importance of the training to the department. After that participant list are requested from the department heads. At the same time other arrangements like foods, venue, training equipments are managed. The training providing company is responsible to provide training books before the training starts. After getting the full participant list all of them are enrolled in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. The venue and time is communicated with all the participants before two days of the training via e-mail and sms. The training arrangement team also looks after the participants during the training period. It ensures all the facilities in the training venue.

Before the end of training an evaluation about the training arrangement and all other facilities are done by providing a questionnaire to the participants. Most of the trainings take place outside the GP-House, very few takes place inside GP-House. Mostly trainings are conducted in a suitable restaurants situated in Gulshan area. Whenever there is a practical session or there is a full practical training the trainings are held in Kaderia tower near Mohakhali where GP has its switch room. This is a restricted place and to arrange trainings here requires more efforts because permission regarding entry, arranging food and other facilities requires more time and effort.

Literature Review

GP is well known for its better network and continuous service. GP tries to use the latest technology of the world. To adopt such technologies and to maintain the present technologies, frequent training is needed for the engineers of GP. GP emphasizes in this issue seriously and have a complete department to provide such trainings. These trainings have a high standard in terms of trainer, training books and other facilities. GP doesn’t compromise in this regard and works to improve its training quality continually. It designed several types and levels of trainings for different level of employees.

In GP, trainings have two types.

  1. Technical: These trainings are provided to technical people to improve the technology.
  2. Non-technical: These trainings are provided to improve employee’s leadership skills, language ability, stress management etc which can improve employee’s capabilities in diversifies areas.

GP trainings have three (3) levels.

  1. Basic trainings: To provide any new concept introduced to the employee or to give initial knowledge about something.
  2. Intermediate trainings: Most of the trainings are under in this level. It discusses vast knowledge about something.
  3. Advanced trainings: Provided to selected employees on selected topics.

Trainings are of 3 types based on the venue.

  1. Foreign Trainings: The venue is outside Bangladesh and trainer is foreigner.
  2. Local Trainings: Trainings are held inside Bangladesh but the trainer is foreigner or from outside GP. Most of the trainings in GP are local in nature.
  3. In-House Trainings: The trainer is usually an employee of GP who is experienced. These trainings are casual in nature.

GP has a switch room in Kaderia Tower from where total network is being controlled. That place is known as test bed.

 Analysis of the Training History

Total Number of Employees Trained By GP

The training history of GP started from the year 2003. But for the training portal mainly the last 5(five) years data is used. Below is a simple scenario of the number of employee those had taken trainings in different years. It can be found that in 2008 highest number of employee had taken trainings. The number was also huge in year 2007 and 2009. At that time, GP was in the growing stage of its huge operation. So employees were trained frequently to provide the best service to the customers. In 2011, about 11%* of the total employees have been trained by GP. The average person per training increased every year. At present GP accommodates 20 employees in each training. This trend had started from 2011. Before that it was 12 in 2007 and gradually increased to 16 in 2010. It’s an indication that training facilities are increasing in GP every year.

Year

Number of Training

Total Number of Employees

Average Person per Training

2007

159

1811

12

2008

168

2452

15

2009

109

1621

15

2010

61

937

16

Up to March 2011

29

562

20

Grand Total

526

7383

15

Table 1: Total Number of Employees Trained

Yearly Training Distribution based on Training Venue

From January 2007 to March 2011 a total of 526 trainings were held. Among them highest number of training was held in the year 2008. But gradually the number had been declined year by year. One reason for this decline can be that, before 2008 the company was at its growing stage. So vast training was held till 2008. In the year 2010, the number of training was very low. Every year most of the trainings were local trainings. The percentage of trainings held in different venues in a year is also mentioned in the table. Number of foreign trainings decreased significantly from year 2007 to 2011. Now a days GP is emphasizing on in-house trainings. Because, GP wants to create trainers from their employees. The number of in-house trainings had a declined trend from 2007. In 2010, a good number of in-house trainings were held. From the year 2011 GP is determined to increase the number of in-house trainings. The process in on going and GP has targeted to provide at least 25 in-house trainers in this year.

Year

Foreign

Percentage of foreign trainings

Local

Percentage of local trainings

In house

Percentage of in-house trainings

Total

Year 2007

68

43%

62

39%

29

18%

159

100%

Year 2008

44

26%

101

60%

23

14%

168

100%

Year 2009

31

28%

72

66%

6

6%

109

100%

Year 2010

0

0%

32

52%

29

48%

61

100%

Up to March Year 2011

1

3%

26

90%

2

7%

29

100%

Total

144

27%

293

56%

89

17%

526

100%

Table 2: Training Distribution Based on Venue

Yearly Training Distribution based on Training Type

GP trainings have two types. Technical and non-technical. Technical trainings are provided to engineers on technology related topics. On the other hand, non-technical trainings are provided to all types of employees regarding general issues like leadership skills, English efficiency, stress management etc. After 2009, data regarding types of training is unavailable. There are few data missing for the period of 2007-2009. Those are mentioned as undefined in the table. Before 2010, Most of the trainings provided were technical in nature. In 2008, highest number of technical training was provided that is 157 trainings which is 93% of the total trainings in that year. Number of non-technical trainings declined significantly from 2007 to 2009. The number was 29 in 2007 to only 4 in 2009. This vast number of technical trainings indicates that how much importance GP had given to improve its technical issues like better network and others. Again, non-technical trainings indicate that GP always cares about its work force and consider them as its best asset. GP continuously works to make its human power more effective and capable.

Year

Technical

Percentage of Technical trainings

Non-technical

Percentage of Non- technical trainings

Undefined

Total

2007

122

77%

29

18%

8

159

2008

157

93%

9

5%

2

168

2009

104

95%

4

4%

1

109

Total

383

88%

42

10%

11

436

Table 3: Training Distribution based on Training Type

Yearly Training Distribution based on Training Level

In GP, they have 3 training levels. Advanced, intermediate and basic. Intermediate trainings are more in numbers. These trainings deal with all important topics which in general important for everyone. Basic level trainings are used to give introductory knowledge to the employees when advanced level trainings are complex in nature. So far a total 208 intermediate level trainings have held during January 2007 to March 2011. Then basic level trainings were held which were 154 in number. Advanced level trainings are very few in these days. Most of the intermediate trainings were held in the year 2008. In this year a good number of advanced level trainings were also held. There were a lot of missing data about the training level in the year 2009. All the missing data is given as undefined in the table. The percentage of different levels of training based on the total training in that year is also mentioned in the table.

Year

Basic

Percentage

Intermediate

Percentage

Advanced

Percentage

Undefined

Total

2007

65

41%

75

47%

19

12%

0

159

100%

2008

34

20%

97

58%

37

22%

0

168

100%

2009

6

6%

9

8%

4

4%

90

109

100%

2010

37

61%

21

34%

0

0%

3

61

100%

Up to March 2011

12

41%

6

21%

0

0%

11

29

100%

Total

154

29%

208

40%

60

11%

104

526

100%

Table 4: Training Distribution based on Training Level

Department wise Distribution of Trainings

Based on Venue:

Employees from the 7 departments took part into different trainings happened in different venues during the period of January 2007 up to March 2011. In this case there are a lot of data missing, those are mentioned as undefined. But it can be find out from the rest of the data that mostly employees from operation took training. But employees from implementation took part into foreign trainings than others, whereas highest number of employees from operation took part in both local and in-house trainings. In local trainings, quite similar number of employees from both operation and PDD took part. Though Operation is a huge department consisting huge number of employees and an important part of the network management activities, the employees from other departments must also be trained well. Especially the participants from Assurance are very low. LTSB, PFCM, PM is new departments but also their participation must be increased. Below is the total data summary.

Training Venue

Assurance

Implementation

LTSB

Operation

PDD

PFCM

PM

Undefined

Grand Total

Foreign

2

80

0

25

37

0

0

366

510

In-house

5

20

1

355

53

5

0

64

528

Local

102

639

10

1258

1022

22

2

3307

6362

Undefined

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

7

8

Grand Total

109

739

11

1638

1113

27

2

3744

7383

Percentage

1%

10%

.15%

22%

15%

.4%

.03%

51%

100%

Table 5: Department wise Venue of Trainings

Based on Year:

Now we have to deal with seven departments of technology division. Before 2010 there was different department structure and for that many departments went to other divisions including technology division which is kept black in this database to keep the remaining data fair. Below is a picture of number of employee in different years under the seven departments in technology division. In the undefined portion there can be huge number of employees those belong to any departments in this division. But due to lack of data it was difficult to detect them. Employees from operation department took highest trainings so far where as PDD is in the second place. Another important thing is that employees from assurance is very poor than other departments.

Row Labels

2007

2008

2009

2010

Up to March 2011

Grand Total

Assurance

3

24

3

42

37

109

Implementation

272

254

92

46

75

739

LTSB

0

0

0

4

7

11

Operation

71

199

597

489

282

1638

PDD

57

228

410

269

149

1113

PFCM

0

0

7

11

9

27

PM

0

0

0

0

2

2

Undefined

1408

1747

512

76

1

3744

Grand Total

1811

2452

1621

937

562

7383

Percentage

25%

33%

22%

13%

8%

100%

Table 6: Department wise Distribution of Trainings in Different Years

Position wise Distribution of Different Levels of Training

A specific Training is not for all level of employees. There are three levels of trainings and these trainings are provided to different level of employees that is of different designation of employees. Below table shows the data of which designation employees took which level of trainings. For example, advanced level trainings were provided to mostly deputy superintendent engineer and system engineers. Highest number of system engineers (2902) took trainings so far. Quite similar number of system engineers took basic and intermediate level trainings which is far ahead than other designation employees. A good number of deputy superintendent engineers took advanced level trainings but very few had taken other trainings in comparison with system engineers. Mostly deputy superintendent engineers and system engineers took trainings than others. Additional, deputy chief engineers and engineers took less training than. Missing data is mentioned as undefined in the table.

Designation

Advanced

Intermediate

Basic

Undefined

Grand total

Additional Chief Engineer

6

1

0

0

7

Additional General Manager

18

0

1

1

20

Deputy Chief Engineer

9

17

7

0

33

Deputy General Manager

36

9

4

0

49

Deputy Manager

5

22

22

0

49

Deputy Superintendent Engineer

312

595

375

54

1336

Deputy Superintendent Specialist

0

3

11

0

14

Engineer

20

64

65

15

164

Manager

37

19

20

0

76

Officer

0

10

40

0

50

Superintendent Engineer

119

145

119

1

384

Superintendent Specialist

0

1

0

0

1

System Engineer

323

1184

1164

231

2902

Technician

4

0

4

0

8

Undefined

36

483

710

1081

2290

Grand Total

925

2533

2542

1383

7383

Table 7: Position wise Distribution of Different Levels of Training

Duration wise Training Distribution

Most of the trainings in GP are not more than 5 days. So far about 472 trainings were held that have duration of 5 or less than 5 days. There were a good number of long trainings in comparison with 6-10 days training. In comparison between foreign and local trainings, foreign trainings were mostly more than 10 days also there are few 6-10 days training. Most of the local trainings were short duration trainings. The more the duration of training the more topics it can include and the more elaborative the training is. The percentage of trainings of different durations based on their venue is also given in the table to get a clear overview.

Training Venue

1-5 days

Percentage

6-10 days

Percentage

10+ days

Percentage

Undefined

Total

Foreign

124

83%

12

8%

8

5%

5

149

100%

Local

268

92%

14

5%

8

3%

2

292

100%

In-house

80

94%

1

1%

4

5%

0

85

100%

Total

472

90%

27

5%

20

4%

7

526

100%

Table 8: Duration wise Training Distribution

Department wise Total Training Hour provided based on Year

Below is the list of the total training hour provided by GP to the employee of the seven departments of technology division. A full training day is considered 7 hour. Avoiding the undefined data employees from operation did a total 37891 hour training where employees from PDD did 20902 hour. This training hour is important because based on this it will be decided that which employee has to give trainings rather based on how many trainings he had taken. Based on data from the below table the charts are showing total training hour based on year and departments.

Year

Assurance

Implementation

LTSB

Operation

PDD

PFCM

PM

Undefined

Grand Total

2007

28

4606

0

1127

833

0

0

25200

31794

2008

448

4270

0

3983

4984

0

0

38038

51723

2009

21

1330

0

14980

7483

119

0

10969

34902

2010

1582

973

77

11018

4914

161

0

1820

20545

Up to March 2011

854

1267

210

6783

2688

203

56

35

12096

Grand Total

2933

12446

287

37891

20902

483

56

76062

151060

Table 9: Department wise Total Training Hour provided based on Year

Type wise Level of Training Distribution

Below table shows the scenario of training types and levels provided to employees since 2007. Non-technical trainings were provided to less number of employees. Most of the employees were provided technical trainings among which intermediate and basic trainings were more in number. A good number of employees were given advanced level trainings also. The difference employees who had taken non-technical and technical trainings were huge in number. More non-technical trainings should be arranged to make all types of employees more efficient.

Type of Training

Advanced

Intermediate

Basic

Undefined

Grand total

Non Technical

63

289

248

15

615

Technical

855

1715

1466

1220

5256

Undefined

2

452

796

262

1512

Grand Total

920

2456

2510

1467

7383

Percentage

12%

33%

34%

20%

100%

Table 10: Type wise Level of Training Distribution

  Cost Distribution per Training Hour:

Year

Total Cost

Sum of Total Training hour

Average cost per Training hour

2007

$ 440,067.00

31,794

$ 13.84

2008

$ 189571.06

51,723

$   3.67

Table 11: Cost Distribution per Training Hour

Training cost related data is available for only the year of 2007 and 2008. Based on the available data it is found that, average cost per employee hour decreased significantly in the year of 2008. The number of foreign trainings in 2007 was 68 which decreased to 44 in 2008. Foreign training cost a lot than any other type of training. In 2008, a total of 101 local training were held which cost very low. For these reasons, cost per training hour decreased in 2008 than 2007.

 Analysis of the Evaluation of Training

During the internship period (January 10 – April 10) the data summary of trainings are in the following page:

Total Number of Trainings held:29 Different Levels of Trainings held  
  • Local Trainings
:26 
  • Basic Level
:14
  • Foreign Trainings
:1 
  • Intermediate Level
:12
  • In-house trainings
:2 
  • Undefined
:3
       
    Total Number of Participants:547
Vendors provided training:   
  • Operation
:267
  • Huawei
:19 
  • PDD
:149
  • Ericsson
:2 
  • Assurance
:37
  • Cisco Valley
:3 
  • Implementation
:75
  • IMS-Asia
:1 
  • LTSB
:7
  • Actix
:1 
  • PFCM
:9
  • ESI-India
:1 
  • PM
:2
  • GP
:2 
  • Undefined
:1
    Total training hour provided:3829 hour.

An evaluation sheet (Annexure-A) is used to take feedback from the training participants. Through this evaluation sheet they want to get an overall picture of the training arrangement and the effectiveness and usefulness of the training. Based on the evaluation of the participants of the training they try to improve the trainings quality and all other facilities. This evaluation sheet is provided just before the end of the training. The participants can rate the training in several fields. The highest ranking is five (5) which represents excellent and the lowest ranking is one (1) which is poor. They can add comment for each and every question. There is also a provision to give generalized comment about the training overall. (See the evaluation sheet in Annexure-A) All the participants’ evaluation in different sections is being averaged to find out the overall performance of the training in the below three broad sections.

  • Overall Course Module: It has three questions regarding the importance of the training, the performance of the training team and the other facilities like course materials etc. The evaluation of a participant in these three questions is averaged to find out his evaluation of the overall course module and by averaging all the participants rating the evaluation of overall course module for training is being found out.
  • About Trainer: There are five questions under this section where the participants need to evaluate the trainer. Their ranking in these questions are averaged to find out the overall trainer evaluation.
  • Overall training arrangement: A participants rating on all the questions is being averaged to find out overall training arrangement and all the participants rating is averaged to find out the training’s overall arrangement.

Now considering all the basic level trainings the following data is being calculated. Below table shows the mean, largest and shortest values in the individual questions and the three broad sections.

 

About the Course Module

About the Trainer

Overall Training Arrangement (c)

 

How valuable is the course to you in your daily work?

What is your overall rating on support and service(s) of the whole training?

What is your overall rating of the course on whole?

Overall Course Module (a)

Knowledge on Topic

Presentation skill

Attention to trainees

Explaining the course

Speaking Clarity

Overall Trainer (b)

Mean

4.01

3.66

3.91

3.86

4.12

3.77

3.93

3.98

3.56

3.87

3.87

Largest Value

4.50

4.15

4.50

4.28

4.75

4.40

4.50

4.58

4.25

4.45

4.34

Lowest Value

3.39

2.65

3.21

3.30

3.55

2.55

3.35

3.30

2.25

3.00

3.08

Standard Deviation

0.78

1.06

0.91

0.69

0.85

1.31

0.81

0.91

1.41

1.03

0.89

(See Annexure-B for details)

Similarly the mean, lowest and largest value of the evaluation of the intermediate level trainings is below (See Annexure-C for details):

Mean

4.10

3.65

3.95

3.90

4.36

4.33

4.34

4.27

4.21

4.30

4.10

Largest Value

4.86

4.50

4.52

4.44

5.00

5.00

5.00

4.92

5.00

4.98

4.77

Lowest Value

3.50

2.62

3.30

3.29

3.95

3.77

3.78

3.86

3.73

3.85

3.59

Standard Deviation

0.96

1.3

0.8

0.9

0.74

0.9

0.9

0.7

0.9

0.8

0.83

If we compare the mean of these two levels of trainings in different aspects we can find that there is very similarity with the value of mean, highest and lowest evaluation about the course module. In both levels of trainings it varied between 3.85 to 3.9 which are near about 4 and 4 indicates a very good evaluation. Participants gave almost similar type of evaluation for the importance, effectiveness and facilities of the trainings. But on the other hand, there is a huge difference about the trainer in these two levels of trainings. In the intermediate trainings the mean evaluation is 4.30 which is very good to 4.98 which is near about excellent when on the other hand in basic level trainings it is 3.87 that is moderate to near very good (4.45). Also intermediate trainings get 4.1 in overall training arrangement from the participants but basic level trainings have got a value of below 4. Overall these values indicate that intermediate level trainings were more effective and more successful according to the participants. The trainers of intermediate trainings also get better evaluation from the participants. On the other hand, basic level trainings were less effective and have got lower evaluation from the participants. A training that got less point in overall course module and about trainer also got less point in overall training arrangement. 6 basic trainings out of 10 were evaluated below 4 in overall training arrangement and 4 basic trainings were evaluated above 4. So the success of basic level trainings was 40%. On the other hand, 5 intermediate level training out of 10 was evaluated below 4 and 5 were evaluated above 4. So in the case of intermediate level trainings the success rate is 50%.

Department wise Evaluation of Training by the Participants

Now to find out a pattern, the trainings (both basic and intermediate levels) that got below 4 in overall training arrangement is taken and the participants were from which department is being find out. Below is the table that shows the percentage of employees from different departments in the trainings that got below 4 and above 4 in overall course module (See Annexure-D for details).

Operation

PDD

Implementation

Assurance

PFCM

LTSB

PM

Percentage of the participants in the training below 4

65%

21%

8%

6%

1%

0%

0%

Percentage of the participants in the training above 4

27%

44%

14%

11%

2%

2%

1%

There is a major difference between the participants of Operation, PDD and Implementation. The participants from Operation ranked most of the trainings below 4. On the other hand, participants from PDD and Implementation evaluated trainings well in most cases. That means that the employees from Operation department is facing more problems with the trainings and trainings are not meeting their expectations. To overcome this scenario an open discussion regarding the training process and facilities with the employees of Operation can be done. This will identify their problems and the training arrangement team can improve the quality of the training in future. Another important finding is that, those training that got below 4 rating is conducted mostly by Huawei and very few is by Ericsson. On the other hand, training those got more that 4 was conducted by several vendors like Huawei, Actix, ESI, Ericsson etc. That means that depending on different vendors to provide trainings is better than depending on few vendors. Also, the trainer performance is important. There were a good number of basic level trainings that had been taken by such trainers those have a poor communication skill. Participants faced a lot of problems to understand them. This eventually reduced the overall effectiveness and contribution of those trainings to the improvement of the participants. The training arrangement team must be careful when choosing the trainer and also about basic level trainings to improve the quality.

 Month wise Evaluation of Trainings

Following is the evaluation of the two segments of trainings happened between January to March. It is showing the evaluation of the overall course module, overall trainer and overall training arrangement (See details in Annexure-E, F and G).

Months

Overall Course Module

Overall Trainer

Overall training Arrangement

January

4.09

4.27

4.165

February

4.08

4.08

4.09

March

3.69

3.97

3.8

In the month March, evaluation of the participants about the training is below four. It indicates moderate. There are several reasons for this evaluation. In March, most of the trainings were held in Kaderia Tower where training facilities are not available but practical sessions have no other suitable location. Some venue and trainer related problems happened in some training which ultimately reduced the overall rating of these months trainings.

Findings

So far in this report, the training data from January 2007 up to March 2011 is analyzed and based on that several findings have come out. Those findings are given below:

  1. 1.      Total 7,383 employees were trained. Highest 2,452 employees were trained in 2008, then in 2007, 1811 employees. Only 937 employees were trained in 2009. In 2011, 11% of the total employees are trained.
  2. 2.      Total 526 training were held, highest 168 in 2008. Most of the trainings (293, 56%) were local; very few (17%) were in-house trainings.
  3. 3.      During the 2007-2009, most of the trainings were technical (88%) with highest in 2008 (157, 93% of total). Non-technical trainings were very few (10%) than technical trainings.
  4. 4.      The arranged trainings were mostly intermediate level trainings (208, 40% of total)). Advanced trainings (60) were less in numbers than basic trainings (154).
  5. 5.      Employees from operation mainly took part in trainings (1638, 22% of total). Though employees from operation took part in local and in-house trainings (343) than others, mostly employees from implementation (80) took foreign trainings, then PDD (37) and then operation (25). However from assurance participation in all types of trainings were very low.
  6. 6.      After 2008, participation from operation had increased a lot than other departments in trainings. In 2007 and 2008 highest participants were from implementation. Highest number of employees was trained in 2008 (33%).
  7. 7.      Highest number of system engineers (2,902) took trainings so far.  A good number of deputy superintendent engineers took advanced level trainings (312) but very few had taken other trainings in comparison with system engineers. Mostly deputy superintendent engineers (1336) and system engineers (2902) took trainings than others. Additional, deputy chief engineers and engineers took less training than others.
  8. 8.      Most of the trainings (472, 90% of total) have duration of 1-5 days among which local trainings were highest in number (268). Percentage of local and foreign trainings become almost same as the duration of trainings increased. Both 8 foreign and local trainings were held with more than 10 days duration.
  9. 9.      Total 151060 training hours have provided. Highest in 2008 (51723) but second highest was in 2009 (34902) though in 2007 more trainings were held. But trainings in 2009 were more in duration and larger based on training hour. Highest training hour (37891) was provided to operation and then PDD (20902). Here a lot of data was not available.
  10. 10.  Average cost per training hour decreased to $3.67 in 2008 from $13.84 in 2007. The reason is foreign trainings decreased between these two years.
  11. 11.  Intermediate level trainings were more successful during January-March, 2011. The trainer was more effective in intermediate trainings than the trainer in basic trainings. The overall training arrangement got moderate (3.87) rating for basic trainings but in intermediate trainings it got very good rating (4.10). This difference is made actually by the difference in trainer’s rating.
  12. 12.  The trainings consisting mostly participants from operation (65%) got a below 4 rating. Participants from PDD (44%) gave above 4 ratings to trainings. It shows that employees from operation are facing problems regarding training model.
  13. 13.  The monthly evaluation shows that January and February trainings were very good (4.1). March training were below 4 (3.8) for some venue and trainer related problems.

Recommendations

In the internship period, a total of 29 trainings were held. Arranging and organizing these trainings gave a clear view of the training process. Working closely in these trainings have showed several problems regarding training arrangement. Sometimes there were multiple trainings held in several locations. In some trainings participants complained about several issues where the arrangement team had few to do to improve that. There were few common problems in some training. There were a lot of limitations of the arrangement team regarding training facilities. Yet several things can be done by them to increase the effectiveness of the trainings. Based on the experience gathered in those three months the following recommendations can be given. By following and improving these issues the trainings in GP can be made more effective, successful and participants friendly.

  1. Careful about choosing trainers: The training arrangement team must choose a trainer who has better communication skill with good knowledge about the topic. Without having a good communication skill a knowledgeable trainer adds a few values to training.
  2. Appropriate training material must be arranged on time: The vendors are responsible to provide training materials for each training. They provide at the beginning day of the training. Sometimes the training materials arrive late or after the training starts. Getting the training materials that is specially books must arrive before training starts so that the participants get an overview about the training and know that what they are going to cover in the specific training. This supply of training books must be ensured before the training starts to increase the training effectiveness.
  3. Practical sessions must be given more emphasis: Technological trainings sometimes require practical sessions. To do such practical sessions participants need to move to Kaderia Tower where switch room of GP is located from the training venue. Sometimes trained don’t cover the practical sessions properly which reduces the effectiveness of a training. Practical sessions are very important for technology trainings. Trainers need to give more emphasis on practical sessions as because participants get more opportunity to learn. In addition, more training with practical sessions can be arranged to keep the employees more knowledgeable.
  4. Venue environment must be calm and all arrangements must be done: Participants faced several problems in the trainings held in March regarding the training venue. Most of the trainings are held in restaurants, which is normally a crowdie place. Sometimes insincerity of the restaurant authority creates problem. Again there are unavoidable circumstances like sudden problem in air conditioner, power failure etc. These types of problems are uncertain but the restaurants must be proactive to reduce the chance to happen such problems.
  5. Co coordinator must be present at least at start and end date and introduce trainer to all: The main coordinator must visit the training venue during the training session. Its better he or she must be present there at the starting of the training to introduce the trainer with the participants and discuss about any problems or query they have or not. This will increase the participants’ motivation.
  6. Select a coordinator from the trainee to communicate with the arranging team: In the last few training some communication problems had happened between the participants and the coordinators. It is also one of the reasons of the low evaluation of the last few training. To reduce such communication problems one thing can be done, selecting a training coordinator from the participant’s end to communicate with the arrangement team regarding any problems arises during training. These will facilitate fast communication and fast problem solving from the arrangement team’s side. This method was tested in few trainings and it worked well.
  7. Training schedule should be circulated before training: Proper training schedule for trainings should be fixed before training. That is whether the training has any practical sessions, if yes then where and when these things should be fixed before the starting of the training. This information should be communicated to the participants and the trainer through the vendor. Who will decide these things must be fixed. Whether the trainer or the vendor or the training team.
  8. Arrange transport: Not all the trainings are held in GP-House. Most of them are held in any restaurant near Gulshan-1 area. Practical sessions usually held in Kaderia Tower near Mohakhali. Sometimes venue is in other places like Dhanmondi or Mohakhali. Participants are told to arrange their own transportation to reach to the training venue. This creates problem for them. They often argue for transportation facilities. Though arranging transportation creates a lot of complexity for the arrangement team but it will really help the participants. Transportation can be arranged from the training arrangement team and participant can be asked to communicate with the drivers.
  9. More communication needed: The training arrangement team has very few human resources. Sometimes there are two, three even four trainings continuing at a time. It becomes really difficult for them to coordinate all these trainings at a time. Participants need to understand the limitations. They need to cooperate with the training team properly. Frequent decision change, participant name change, schedule change etc creates a lot of problems for the training arrangement team to ensure all the facilities regarding training. All the parties must understand this and communication should be make more effective regarding all issues.

Conclusion

GP always wants to provide quality trainings to its employees to make them their ultimate asset. GP trainings have a good standard and well known about its overall facilities. It has a good long term relation with its partners and never compromise training quality. Sometimes extra pressure of training, any sudden circumstances and limitation of the team reduces the effectiveness of the training. But the steps that have already taken to improve the future trainings facilities will reduce those problems. This report will give them an overview of the trainings, their so far performance and will provide necessary information regarding training portal.

It is always expected that this report would help them to improve some issues and work as training history summary for Grameenphone Ltd.

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        <http://www.grameenphone.com/about-us> on May 26, 2011.

Grameenphone (2011). Vision, mission, objective, values, brand promise. Retrieved from

        <http://www.grameenphone.com/about-us/corporate-information/our-brand> on May 26, 2011.

Grameenphone (2011). Products of GP. Retrieved from.

<http://www.grameenphone.com/products-and-services/packages>  on May 26, 20111.

Grameenphone (2011). Internet Packages. Retrieved from.

<http://www.grameenphone.com/products-and-services/internet/internet-packages> on May 26, 2011.

Btrc (2011). Subscriber of GP and Banglalink. Retrieved from.

        <http://www.btrc.gov.bd/newsandevents/mobile_phone_subscribers/mobile_phone_subscribers_april_2011.php> on May 26, 2011.

Grameenphone Ltd (2011). Annual Report 2010.

Grameenphone Ltd. (2011). Grameenphone company profile and corporate presentations (unpublished).

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Grameenphone Ltd