Future of recruitment in Bangladesh

Published : Sunday, 27 June, 2021 at 12:00 AM Count : 2492

Qazi Tafsirul Islam and Md Asif Hossain

The unemployment rate of Bangladesh has been around 5 percent for the last two years. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the economy has prevailed well compared to its neighbours in this part of the world which is reflected in the unemployment rate as well.

However, despite having an unemployment rate, there are employees who find themselves underemployed and employers find it more challenging than ever to find the right person for the right job at the right time. As the economy grows, more and more local companies become multinational, many start-ups achieve unimaginable growth and thus more manpower is needed. These corporations need qualified people with the right skills. With the rise of local start-ups, SMEs, and corporations our own employment culture will evolve as well.

For a long time, companies in Bangladesh have been winging it when it comes to recruiting employees. Very often, the recruiters are hiring people through referrals and going for experience as often these companies did not have clear job responsibilities set for their employees, and job experience was deemed to be the safest form of measuring criteria for them. However, things are changing. The emergence of foreign companies operating and collaborating with local companies in Bangladesh brings a wave of change in companies' understanding of the value of employees being the perfect fit for their company's culture.

There have been further changed because of Covid-19 situation as companies adopted online recruitment, interviews, and selection methods replacing conventional selection tools including the introduction of Work from Home (WFH). Due to these initiatives, the future of recruitment in Bangladesh is expected to have several changes in the coming years.

Automation/Digitalization/Technology: One of the biggest influences behind this change would be technology and digitalization. This has been affecting for a very long time now since the beginning of the introduction of BDjobs.com in Bangladesh, the first online job search portal in the country. This is further influenced due to the introduction of recruitment options through social media.

Furthermore, the importance of data has been more evident than ever before. Recruiters prefer a seamless platform where they can analyze and compare a number of employees from a pool of data. Thus, these corporations prefer services and companies, able to provide that. Therefore, it can be said that there will be an increase in automation and usage of technological software when it comes to recruiting employees.

Better integration with company objectives: Recruitment will seek out employees who truly align with the goals of the organization rather than filling out vacancies for the short run only to result in a possible turnover. Companies are realizing the long-term expenses of hiring wrong candidates, turnover, and training costs. This is why to increase the chances of finding the right candidate, multinationals and large companies nowadays require candidates to pass multiple recruitment stages to filter out the wrong ones.

Women empowerment and diversity: With Bangladesh fighting tooth and nail for achieving equality, the companies understand the importance of diversity and how it can be beneficial for the company to be more innovative, creative, and more empathetic. Therefore, it can be suggested that not only can we expect an increase in more women employees in offices but we can expect an increase in women in decision-making roles as well.

Looking for employees who can adapt to changes rather than experience: With technology and the market changing more radically than ever before, it is highly important to seek employees with the right mindset, attitude to adapt to today's highly changing world of business. Someone who graduated a decade ago did not learn about social media marketing in university. Whereas if you are a marketer in today's world, it is almost impossible to survive without knowledge about marketing. With technological advancement and the market changing dynamically, companies need employees who can quickly adapt to changes and learn new skills. Therefore, companies are putting emphasis on employee's adaptability skills and their new skill learning ability rather than just focusing on degrees and experience.

A lot needs to be changed if we intend to reap the benefits of the economic growth our country is enjoying right now. From a legal standpoint to the cultural treatment of employees, an overhaul is necessary in order to prepare and integrate our workforce and make them partners in the developments. Necessity of expanding legal boundaries in order to accommodate wider human resources practices in industries to ensure fair and ethical practices is no longer optional but mandatory.

Besides, universities need to play a crucial role to address the challenges pertaining to the lack of skills among the graduates. Ample research is required in the Bangladeshi context regarding organizational behaviour and employment practices since Bangladesh is a growing market. Universities should also plant the seeds of awareness and ethical organizational practices among today's students who will become leaders of tomorrow.
The writer is a lecturer of Strategy, Management and HR, Department of Management, School of Business and Economics, North South University

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