Besides the production and personnel issues, the production manager (PM) remained involved in many pre-and-post production activities. The purchase of machinery and spare parts, maintenance of the equipment, excess materials, especially fabrics, etc. were attractive areas of interest of the production manager.
 The production manager had a pivotal role in selling fabrics and left-over garments to local businessmen keeping the owner in the dark. They were involved in many other unethical earnings for themselves. During those times, manual register was maintained. They hid actual working hours and attendance of the workers and showed more attendance in register to earn unethical financial benefits from both sides. The PMs had no required education but gained experience by working in the factories for years. They were privileged to exercise the power beyond their expectations. Many malpractices were their regular practices. Working even up to midnight was usual and female workers had to stay in the factory for the rest of the night. Corrupt and autocrat PMs abused their power and authority as they wished. Because of these, a negative impression was created about the industry. Absolute power corrupts one absolutely. This trend existed until 2000.
 With the increased manpower as business went upwards, it was difficult for the production managers to control the activities beyond their capacity. Increased numbers of employees, their payroll, issuing appointment letters, identity cards (ID), calculation of overtime hours, store, security, loader, etc. were not possible for a single person.
So, the term 'time keeping' section got converted to 'Personnel Department'. But in many cases, functional authority remained with the production manager. Workers were given manual card (time card) which they had to submit to the personnel department in the morning and members of the personnel department punched those cards to confirm workers' attendance. The role of the personnel department was limited to time-keeping management only.
Recruitment, selection, promotion and financial control still remained with the PM or the factory manager as the case might be. Workers used to take notes of their daily OT (over-time) hours on a piece of paper carried in their pockets for fear of deprivation. They were smart enough to produce those notes of self-record when any mismatch was found with the official record. The industry faced many unpleasant incidents on account of those mismatches.
The year 2006 was a remarkable one in the country's RMG (ready-made garment) industry for many reasons. Unrest on the issues of wage and working conditions broke all previous records. Protests at home and abroad against prevailing working conditions, loss of lives of workers in fire and building collapses and demonstrations by workers for wage hike compelled the government to formulate in 2006 a labour law focusing RMG sector with the title 'Bangladesh Labour Law- 2006'.
Pressure was built up on the owners to become compliant with buyers' code of conduct (CoC) and the newly-passed labour law. Being compliant following the buyers' CoC and the labour law became a pre-condition of running business. Buyers introduced audit system to measure the status of the factory with regard to ethical practice, which was commonly known as ethical audit or social compliance audit. To face those audits, the factory had to introduce proximity or electronic attendance system and many more requirements came into effect in response to those audits.
There was no scope to run factories with traditional time-keeping section or so-called personnel department. Many companies responded positively. The previous perception of the industry still played a de-motivating factor to attract deserving candidates for jobs in the industry. Those who joined, as their last option, found the jobs very challenging to break an established faulty system. Lack of a functional organogram created unhappiness and uneasiness to the HR (Human Resources) persons. Maximum responsibility with no or little authority made them dissatisfied with their jobs. The requirement of the HRD (Human Resource Development) did not come from the owners' side. Rather they were compelled to hire HR people to face the compliance audits.
The HR people with modern concept were not welcomed by other departments, especially by the production department personnel who lost their authority owing to the introduction of HRD. If there were any conflict between the HRD and the production department, top management always sided with the production department, as most of them considered the production department on income side and the HRD on the expenditure side. With a few exception, most industries did not empower the HRD department with necessary authority to shape the business in corporate culture or in a structured form.
Most of the owners did not recruit HR people keeping welfare of the workers and organisational development in mind. As first-generation businesspeople, they consider themselves successful even though they do not follow any internationally-recognised practices. So, they are not ready to listen to anyone. Rather they expect everybody will follow their order without any question and argument.
With 'we know everything' mentality they prefer to get only hard skills, not soft skills of the HR people. When this is the reality, they appoint HR people against their will only to comply with the requirements of audits. So having a competent, qualified team in HR is not their consideration. They try to hire them with a pay as low as possible. Poor relatives with presentable academic certificates having no idea of HR are their first choice. If such relatives or near and dear ones are not available, then they prefer anyone who has no other choice and voice.
Ultimate power remains with the owners or their unofficially nominated person(s). As a result, HR becomes non-functional and HR personnel concentrate more on administrative jobs like security, discipline, housekeeping, etc. The core functions of HR like job analysis, training and development, motivation, etc. are ignored. Obedient and loyal to the owners, HR people generally work to the satisfaction of the owners with a view to securing their jobs.
The prime objective of the most owners is profit maximisation. The owners view the workers' awareness, skills enhancement, etc. as threat to their business secrecy and profitability. If workers are aware of their rights, benefits, applicable working conditions, etc., then it may not be possible for the owners to manipulate them which otherwise will hamper their business strategy. On the other hand, this sector is growing fast. So demand of skilled workers is sky high.
Though Bangladesh is an over-populated country and the number of the poor is very high, yet it lacks skilled manpower. As a result, an unhealthy competition among the factories in the industry is a common scenario. So, owners prefer to hire skilled workers from competitors' factories rather than opening skill enhancement opportunity for the workers in the form of an in-house facility.
Many owners do not want to provide training to their own workers lest they leave them. This is another reason why HRD department is kept non- or mal-functional. When the HR people themselves feel insecure and are dissatisfied with their jobs, how will they ensure others' job security? How will they satisfy hundreds of unsatisfied minds? Basically, the main preoccupation of HR people in the RMG industry are to comply with owners' policy and play the 'manage game' with audit people.
This writer has visited factories and met people there who have been engaged in compliance-related jobs. Most of them are having visiting cards showing the responsibilities of administration, HR and compliance. There was a huge gap between departmental and organisational strength, both in quantity and quality. For an example, a factory having around 2,400 manpower usually has less than 0.5 per cent people responsible for three activities.
From welfare activities to housekeeping, from transport to handling of the local goons, from payroll management to organisational discipline, from personal file to compliance documents and so on with many unseen jobs are to be performed by a weak and small team. The team members are offered lower wages compared to other departments, even the members of the former team having higher academic certificates some times. Lack of required skills, fear of losing jobs and dissatisfaction are common among the HR members. A dissatisfied team can't satisfy others. It is widely known that HR people in the industry used to satisfy the owners at the cost of workers' deprivation in order to secure their positions.
The writer is working in the RMG sector for decades. He is also a PhD student. mohammadhasanbg@gmail.com
HRD plays limited role in RMG sector
Mohammad Hasan in the second of his four-part article, titled Human resource development in RMG factories | Published: February 09, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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