Karachi University Business School

Human Resources Development and Management

Course No. BA (M) – 552

CASE STUDY University of Business

Engineering and Technology (UBET)

AUTHOR : AAMIR BAIG

Senior Manager | Human Resources at Deloitte Pakistan
& Visiting Faculty Member at Karachi University Business School

Contact email:
aabaig@deloitte.com & baig_aamir@live.com

University of Business Engineering and Technology (UBET) is a

private sector academic institution, which offers Graduate and Post
Graduate level degree programs in Business Management, Information
Technology and Engineering. UBET was established 20 years ago by a
leading business group of the country. It is situated in Karachi and has two
campuses, the main campus, which is located in the outskirts of the city,
near a major industrial area. While the city campus which houses the
Business Management College and is situated in Clifton area.

UBET is considered as one of the top four business management

institutions of the country. While its engineering and information technology
college has also developed a good reputation both locally and
internationally and is currently ranked among the top 10 institutions of their
respective fields.
Though, UBET works as a nonprofit organization under the umbrella of an
educational foundation, but the annual revenue of UBET is more than
Rupees One Hundred Million. The major share UBET’s revenue comes
from the Business Management College and the profit margins from the
Business Management College are higher than that of College of
Engineering & IT. There are more than 1500 students, though there is no
limit on the maximum age of the students but the 90% of the students fall
within the range of 18 – 32 years.

There are 120 permanent employees (70 teaching and 50 non-teaching

support staff). In addition to the permanent employees, at a given time
there are around 35 - 40 visiting faculty members, who are being paid on
hourly basis. There are more permanent teaching and non-teaching
employees associated with the Engineering and IT college, thus the payroll
costs of the Engineering and IT college are the more than that of Business
Management College.

The janitorial and security functions have been outsourced and there are
15 security and 8 janitorial staff, who works at both campuses, but they are
the employees of two different services providing companies.

The Vice Chancellor is the head of the institution, in addition to the Deans
of Business Management and Engineering & IT Colleges the following
executives directly reports to the Vice Chancellor:
• Registrar (Admissions, Examinations and Students Records)
• Manager Finance & Accounts
 • Manager Administration (Procurement, housekeeping, maintenance,
security, general administration, employee records of non teaching
staff)
• Manager Students and Alumni Affairs

There is no human resources (HR) department at UBET, different HR

functions are performed by different individuals or departments. For
instance every college and department is responsible for its own hiring.
Personnel records of teaching staff are maintained by the college or the
department head, while the records of non-teaching staff are maintained by
Administration.

Business Management College

In addition to the morning BBA and MBA programs, Business Management
College also offers the MBA – Executive (Evening) Program and MS in
Management leading to PHD. There are three program directors reporting
to the Dean, each for BBA, MBA and MBA Executive Programs. While
Dean directly oversees the MS and PHD programs.

Engineering and IT College

Engineering and IT C ollege is organized into following four departments:
§ Mechanical Department
§ Electronics Department
§ Telecommunication Department
§ Information Technology Department
The college offers Bachelors of Engineering (BE) degrees in each of the
above technology. In addition to the BE programs the college also offers
BS in IT degree and MS degree programs in all four technologies.

UBET also houses two more Academic Departments, which are Social
Sciences/Humanities department and Physical Sciences Department
(Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Statistics).

For many years, UBET relies on a single recruitment method, which is to

advertise all teaching positions in the job opportunities sections of Daily
Dawn. Basic advertisements, stating the name of the position along with
the respective level (e.g. Lecturer – Business Management College) are
placed in Dawn, once every year, and interested candidates are instructed
to contact the university to request an application package. The application
package includes the following:
§ A letter detailing how to apply for the job, a brochure about the
university,
§ An application form,
§ And any additional information is sometimes enclosed. This additional
information may include the information about the current staff in the
department, examples of departmental projects (e.g., the head of the
Electronics Engineering department included information about the
department’s collaboration with a leading telecommunication
company, where the students and faculty gets an opportunity to work
on the actual projects side by side with the industry professionals).
Other universities in Pakistan also use Daily Dawn for recruitment, but in
addition to Dawn, they have regularly placed advertisements in other
newspapers and also post the openings on their web-sites. Some
universities have even launched a page on their university’s web site to
enable candidates to download the application information and/or submit
their applications on-line.

At UBET, interested candidates generally submit an application form along

with the contact information for two people who could provide references to
the respective head of the department or program director. All the
applications submitted remains stored with respective department head or
program director’s office for at-least a year till the publication of next
advertisement. When the next advertisement is published the applications
stored with the respective program director/department head’s office are
normally discarded.

Once the closing date had passed, one clerical staff member reviews the
applications and grades them A, B or C (where A is the highest mark and C
is the lowest) based on the candidate’s ability to meet the selection criteria.
Application form’s are then stored in a database kept with the secretary of
each department head/program director.

When a position becomes vacant or a new position is identified then a

panel of two faculty members convene to discuss the A-rated application
forms and agree on a list of candidates, who would be invited to attend a
selection day. Generally the selection process is carried out during the
semester breaks, but depending upon the need, the hiring process could
also take place during the semester. If sufficient number of A-rated
applicants are not present in the databank, then the panel considers the B-
rated candidates. The staff members assessing the applications are usually
teachers from the relevant subject area. This panel assesses the
candidates based on the academic qualification, experience and
achievements of the candidates. Job descriptions of different positions
have never been prepared at UBET.

Before the selection day, references are requested for all short-listed
candidates. Copies of the references are provided to interview panel
members, employment offers are contingent on the receipt of satisfactory
references. Selection day usually involves interviewing four to five
candidates for each position, depending on how many applications have
been received and short-listed. UBET generally relies on two interviews for
all of their teaching vacancies, first an informal interview and then a formal
interview. The first (informal) interview is usually conducted by the same
faculty members, who had reviewed their CVs earlier. This interview is
used to learn basic information about the candidate and to further explore
the information on the application form. The second interview is more
detailed and explores a wide range of issues with the candidate. The panel
of final interview normally consisted of the Dean, Department
Head/Program Director and any Senior Professor. Due to time constraints,
panel members are usually unable to meet in advance, so they develop
their interview questions independently. Although the Dean chaired the
interviews, they are rarely carried out in the same manner and there is not
a high level of consistency with the questions. There is no formal scoring
system, nor is there any interview assessment tool, which is being used.
Different departmental heads have devised their own forms to evaluate the
interview performance of the candidates. At the end of the interviews, there
is a panel vote to see which candidate should be offered the job. This often
leads to a heated debate about the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.
The final interview for all Professor level positions and also for the
Department Head positions are taken by Vice Chancellor himself. But due
to his very busy schedule, most of the time it is a mere formality and he
generally goes with the decision of the panel. The complete hiring process
is done very discreetly to minimize any outside influence on the selection
decisions.

Candidates usually remain at the university until a decision is reached so

they can be informed personally of the outcome. If they are unable to wait
for the outcome, they are normally phoned later that day with the decision.
Unsuccessful candidates receive no feedback, sometime the unsuccessful
candidates contact the university and ask for feedback, which is rarely
provided by the concerned Department Head due to his busy schedule.

In case lower level non-teaching staff, generally only one interview is

conducted by the respective Head of the Department and upon his
recommendation the candidate is hired. But for all the managerial level
non-teaching staff positions, a panel of consists of the Registrar and
Manager Administration conduct the first interview. The final interview is
then conducted by the Vice Chancellor himself, who generally approves the
candidates recommended by the panel.
Vice Chancellor many times feel that inappropriate candidates are being
hired at various levels because the best practices recruitment and selection
methods are not being used. There has been a rise in the complaints by
the students that many of the teachers, though may be highly qualified but
lacks the teaching skills or are not motivated enough. Furthermore, many
of these highly qualified faculty members have the tendency of leaving
UBET, as soon as they find a lucrative opportunity in the industry. A rumor
has also been circulating that to be hired in UBET one must have good
connections with its senior management. Furthermore, many of the junior
faculty and recently qualified students feel that they have been deprived of
growth opportunities, because the hiring is done in a very discreet manner,
they only come to know about the position only after the joining of the
candidate.

At UBET, there is no formal appraisal process, at the end of each year

Department Head/Program Director prepare two lists of their permanent
employees, one for the teaching and one for the non-teaching staff, as per
the following format:

Name of Position Department Date of Last Current

Employee Joining Promotion Assessment
Date

They are required to grade each employee as per the following grades:

§ A = Excellent
§ B = Good
 § C = Satisfactory
§ D = Unsatisfactory

Majority of the employees feel that very little or no feedback is provided to

them regarding their performance. Since, all promotion/increment decisions
are made upon the recommendation of the respective Department
Head/Program Director. Some employees also feel that to be successful at
UBET one need to master the art of buttering, as it is the assessment of
just one individual boss, which will decides about their future. In a similar
manner, Deans conduct the evaluation of their reporting Department
Heads/Program Directors, while the Vice Chancellor conducts the
assessments of his direct reportees.

There is no practice of the evaluation of the visiting faculty, generally a

visiting faculty member continues to teach at UBET, till he or she decides to
leave or if there is a serious complaint by the students regarding the
competency or behavior of the visiting teacher.

There are no formal pay grades at UBET, although in case of teaching staff
the following designation/position are present:

§ Assistant Lecturer
§ Lecturer
§ Senior Lecturer
§ Assistant Professor
§ Associate Professor
§ Senior Professor
 § Department Head / Program Director / Manager Finance, Admin,
Other
§ Dean / Registrar
§ Vice Chancellor

(Note only Associate or Senior Professor can become the Department

Head or Program Director, while only a Senior Professor can take the
position of Dean or Vice Chancellor).

UBET has kept its compensation structure very simple, all employees are
paid a lump-sum gross monthly salary. The salary of each individual
employee is normally negotiated at the time of joining. There are certain
guidelines for deciding the salary levels of teaching staff. But there are
instances, where lower designated employee is offered a higher salary than
someone who is hired at a higher designation. The salaries are normally
revised in the month of January each year, at the time of annual
increments. However, in certain cases, if a valuable employee submits
his/her resignation or just shares the intention of leaving UBET in near
future, the management generally raises the salaries of such an individual
immediately in the middle of the year. Annual salary increment percentages
are based on the general inflation in the economy, financial performance of
UBET in the preceding year and the performance rating of the individual.
Generally the annual increments are made within the range of 10% – 20%
range. However, it has been noticed that there is no limit on the mid-year
special increments, recently when a Department Head resigned, his salary
was immediately doubled by the management.
The only end of service benefit which UBET offers to its employees is a
Provident Fund, the contribution to which was equally shared by employee
and UBET at the rate 10% of basic salary.

Although the salary levels at UBET are generally higher than its
competitors, but there have been numerous complaints from a large
number of dissatisfied faculty members, who feel that they are being under-
paid. Generally, the senior faculty complaints that the junior faculty
members are being paid higher salaries. The Business Management
College faculty feels that since their college earns higher profits thus their
compensation level should be higher than the Engineering and IT College.
While the Dean of Engineering/IT is of the opinion that experienced
Engineering faculty members are very hard to find, thus they should be
paid a premium, while the business and management teachers are easily
available, thus their salary levels should be less. Furthermore, there are
technical assistants in various engineering labs, who are being paid higher
salaries than the junior lecturers in the same department and this is
causing de-motivation among the junior lecturers in the college. Recently,
the security guards stationed at the main campus went on strike,
complaining about their 12 hours shift and monthly salary of Rs. 5,000 with
no overtime. Since, the security guards are the employees of a Security
Firm, thus the trouble makers were replaced the very next day, but it
generated a lot of bad publicity for UBET.

There are no formal faculty development programs at UBET, faculty

members from time to time are sent on training courses organized by
different educational and management bodies/institutions. Students
routinely complaint about the junior faculty members, that they lack
teaching and general communication skills. Recently a group of IT students
complaint about a Senior Professor that he is not aware of the recent
developments in his field, though he is a good communicator.

There have also been some issues about the administrative abilities of
certain department heads, although they are good academics but many of
them lack proper management and administration skills. They are unable to
effectively manage their departments and consequently the office
assistants are basically running the affairs of the department. Due to the
bureaucratic style of these office assistants, at times very simple routine
matters of the students and/or employees get delayed and causes undue
grievances. On many occasions the Deans or even the Vice Chancellor
has to get involved in resolving students and employees’ issues. Some of
the Department Heads are not able to amicably resolve the grievances of
students/employees on timely basis and also fails to maintain proper
discipline. The Admin Manager, who is retired Army Colonel is of the view
that all disciplinary matters should be tackled with an iron fist and the
culprits should be immediately thrown out of the institution, without any
hearing or inquiry.

UBET rarely terminates the employment of any of its permanent

employees, thus an employee, who is once confirmed may only be asked
to leave in case of any extreme circumstances, like repetitive complaints
about some one’s behavior. Despite of high job security at UBET, its star
performers generally do not stay for longer period and they continue to
leave the institution with regular intervals.
Assignment

You are hired as an HR consultant by UBET management to conduct an

operational review of UBET’s HR systems. You are requried to identify the
main HR issues (along with the reasons) and weaknesses in the current
HR systems of UBET. You should also suggest the improvement areas in
the current system. You have to present your finding and recommendations
in a report, which will be presented to the Board of Directors of UBET.

You are also requried to propose a comprehensive HR system for UBET

covering the following areas :

§ Recruitment & Selection

§ Performance Management
§ Compensation Management
§ Training and Career Development
§ Other Peripheral Areas
 FINAL ASSIGNMENT
TOTAL MARKS 15 MARKS
REPORT 10 MARKS
PRESENTATION 5 MARKS
DEADLINE JUNE 5, 2009

Sections of Report
1. Preliminary Sections

1.1 Title
§ Content of the report, as concisely as possible.
§ Author(s) of the report.
§ Who commissioned the report.
§ Date submitted.
§ Other information (as part of HR MBA course curriuculum,
KUBS)

1.2 Synopsis

One page summary of the report.

1.3 List of illustrations

1.4 Table of Contents / Index

Name each chapter – along with chapter number and page
number.

2. The Report Proper

2.1 Introduction
§ Background information
 § Objectives of the report
§ About HRM
§ Any Assumptions

2.2 Main body of the report

2.2.1 Identification of issues / problem areas

§ The oveall major issue / the big picture.
§ Then for each HR functional area (can have a
separate chapter).

2.2.2 Recommendations/suggestions for improvements

2.2.3 Design of proposed HR systems

Recruitment & Selection

§ Recruitment Sources
§ Recruitment Procedure
§ Tools/Forms (annexures)
§ Authorities of selection
§ Selection Criteria for different positions
§ Selection methods
§ Interview Assesment Forms (as annexures)

Performance Management
§ Procedure
§ Appraisal Forms (as annexures)

Compensation Management
§ Compensation elements for different positions
§ Compensation structure/plan

Training and Career Development

§ Training plans/programmes
§ Career paths / succession planning, etc.
 Other peripherial areas
§ HR Planning
§ Organogram (Organizational Structure)
§ Job description sample (one for teaching and one
for non teaching staff)
§ Grievance handling and Disciplinary Matters
§ Employee motivation
2.3 References

2.4 Bibliography

2.5 Appendices

You also have to make a presentation to the Board of

Directors and Senior Management UBET, summarizing your
findings, recommendations and proposed HR system.

Please note that your presentation will be marked on the

following criteria.

PRESENTATION 5 MARKS
Introduction 15%
§ Reason for speaking to audience
§ Relevant background information
§ Objective of prsentation/report
§ Rapport established with audience

Body of talk 25%

§ Logical structure
§ Balance, focus, emphasis
§ Transitions between sections
§ Delivery of information and ideas

Language 15%
§ English language proficiency
§ Word/phrases choice
 § Grammer

Conclusion 10%
§ Linked to the objectives
§ Major points reinforced
§ Note of finality

Visual 10%
§ Presentation design, size, colour, etc.
§ Relevance and impact

Delivery 25%
§ Enthusiasm
§ Eye contact/Confidence/Posture
§ Appropriate style and manner
§ Facial expressions/Gestures
§ Vocal clarity / variety / fluency
§ Timing