Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Management at Bank Muscat

This project discusses about organisational behaviour and human resource management in the context of Bank Muscat. It explores the strategic goals, recruitment process, training initiatives, performance management, and employee relations at the bank.

Running head: BANK MUSCAT
Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Management
[Bank Muscat]
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1BANK MUSCAT
Executive summary
This project discusses about organisational behaviour and human resource management. It does
so in the context of the chosen company Bank Muscat. The study finds that Bank Muscat is the
leading banking and financial service providers in the Middle East simply for its excellence in
HRM practices and innovation. The HR practice drives employee performance and facilitates a
transparent recruitment process at Bank Muscat. It is being found that training and development
programs at Bank Muscat are driven by extensive use of strategies and the latest technologies.
This study further reflects on the performance management system at Bank Muscat. Performance
management as found in this study is driven with technologies such as Citrix and XenApp. The
study identifies a few issues concerning employee relationship at Bank Muscat. Employee
engagement as found in this study is pretty low at Bank Muscat.

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Table of Contents
1. Strategic goals/objectives towards human resource planning and development of human
resources..........................................................................................................................................3
2. Discuss the recruitment and section mechanism.........................................................................4
3. The initiatives adopted for training and development.................................................................7
4. The performance management system........................................................................................8
5. A critical appraisal of employee relationship..............................................................................9
Task 2: A brief report on industry expert talk and reflective learning..........................................11
References......................................................................................................................................14

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1. Strategic goals/objectives towards human resource planning and development of human
resources
Bank Muscat is being voted the best bank in Oman for seven years. There are various
factors, which enabled Bank Muscat to bag this achievement for consecutive years in a row. One
of the factors is its vision to provide employment to Omanis. The bank was able to achieve more
than 92% Omanis (Bankmuscat.com 2019). There is no stoppage to this as the bank is intended
to further this number. The bank was awarded for its national manpower initiatives. It was also
voted the best place to work in the Middle East. The mission is to recruit Omanis and to help
them equip with competency required to achieve its strategic business objectives towards the
development of human resources and human resource planning. The strategic business objectives
are to continuously work towards improving its productivity and customer service
(Bankmuscat.com 2019).
The bank gives high priority to human resources development. Hence, they have
identified innovative ways to achieve this goal. Bank Muscat has extensive strategies for training
and development of employees. They are intended to develop skills, which are also the
requirements of different departments. The multi-skill development programs have proved to be
beneficial for many staff of Bank Muscat. The training and development programs are not just
in-house oriented but also expanded to external resources. This means Muscat Bank has a
collaboration partnership with international institutes specialised in providing skill-based training
to professionals. The use of technology for the training and development programs is proving to
be beneficial for staff especially the millennials (Bankmuscat.com 2019). Millennials are
increasingly switching to media technology like smartphones for conducting their day-to-day
activities (Jha, Sareen and Potnuru 2019). The use of technology indicates the efficiency of

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human resource management in Bank Muscat. Indeed, the HRM is able to drive the sharing of
knowledge through training and development programs, and through adopting the latest
technology.
2. Discuss the recruitment and selection mechanism
The recruitment and selection mechanism at Bank Muscat happens through multiple
stages. These are as listed under (Bankmuscat.com 2019);
External Recruitment Policy:
The external recruitment policy is there to ensure a fair and transparent recruitment
process. The human resources department is committed to taking care of all recruiting activities.
HR managers take the assistance and guidance of the line manager and divisional head on a
regular basis. Strict confidentiality is maintained by each personnel involved directly and
indirectly in the recruitment process. Any exception to the range of clauses can only be made and
amended by CEO and Managing Director.
Educational Qualification:
Individuals possessing a graduate degree preferably accounts are eligible to apply for
cash and junior officer position. Professionals with a post-graduate degree are hired for clerical
and official positions.
Recruitment Steps:
Candidates applying for temporary and officer level jobs are needed to go through a
written test. For executive officer rank, written test is not required. The interview panel consists

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of at least three members. One member is from the human resource department, one cross-
functional and one from the line division.
Medical Test:
In Bank Muscat, the job is offered to those who pass the medical examination as
conducted by the nominated diagnostic center.
Reference Check:
HR managers can go for reference check wherever they feel necessary to do so.
Internal Recruitment Policy:
At Bank Muscat, staffs are given adequate opportunity to grow from within. They can
apply against any vacancy if they meet the eligibility criteria for each job. The internal job
posting is done along with external job advert. It is done to recruit the best of skills. Existing
staffs can apply for any suitable position after getting approval on the same from the divisional
head and line manager. Existing staffs need to have spent a minimum of six months in their
current role to be able to eligible for their desired and relevant job position. However, for a
higher position, the experience level should be at least one year.
External Recruitment Process:
This happens through various steps in Bank Muscat. These are as under;
 Headcount Planning
 Manpower Needs
 Recruitment Requisition
 Job Posting

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 Written Test
 CV Sourcing
 Short Listing
 Interview
 Job Offer
 Medical Test
 Appointment Letter
Internal Recruitment Process:
The human resource management at Bank Muscat follows various steps in the internal
recruitment process. These are as under;
 Job Posting
 CV Short Listing
 Interview
 Appointment to the New Role
Selection Procedure:
The selection process is time-consuming. It goes through several stages. All the processes
adhere to decisions being made in a decentralised setting. The whole processes consume a huge
amount of time. The applicants send or upload their resumes through the dedicated website. This
website is dedicated to receiving job applications. Once the resumes are received these are
shortlisted to keep only the competent applicant. These sorted resumes are carefully saved in the
database to check and eliminate whether any probable mistake has happened during the
shortlisting process. The whole process sometimes consumes longer than expected time span for

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the selection process. It happens in situations when the number of applications has reached a
staggering figure. Those who are shortlisted and selected are only contacted and informed about
the further formalities (Bankmuscat.com 2019).
3. The initiatives adopted for training and development
Bank Muscat is one of the very few banks in the Middle East and also the world to have
opened their arm for gender diversity. This is evidenced in the fact that 48% of employees are
women serving its various job positions including also the senior management positions
(Bankmuscat.com 2019). Apart from its transparent recruitment process, training and
development programs at Bank Muscat is in fit with its organisational objectives, which is to
increase productivity and improve the level of customer service. Human resource management at
Bank Muscat uses innovative ways to drive the development of skills. The introduction of a
program popularly known as Customised Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is one of these
examples (Bankmuscat.com 2019). This program is designed and customised from a
collaborative partnership of Grey Matter Academics (GMA) in India and Safety Technical
Services Company in Oman (Bankmuscat.com 2019). This program reflects a strong
commitment and dedication from Bank Muscat towards its employees and customer service.
Indeed, the learning programs have a fit with its overall strategies.
The bank is committed to driving talents from the locals. It creates and provides every
possible learning opportunity for its employees. The learning and development programs are
designed in such a way that it is both absorbing and path guidance to employees. This is
evidenced in the fact that Bank Muscat has been able to achieve qualitative advancement in the
human resources sector. It has been able to attract the best of Omani candidates and provided
them a platform to grow. Bank Muscat also holds the credit to launch and initiate assessment and

8BANK MUSCAT
development centers to groom talents. The initiative was first of its kind in Oman
(Bankmuscat.com 2019). These programs helped Bank Muscat to groom nationals for various
posts like critical senior management, international appointments for both branch network and
head office, and middle management. The impact of and return on investment (ROI) from these
development centers are evidenced in new heights that Bank Muscat has mounted to
(Bankmuscat.com 2019). Bank Muscat provides training on various skills and expertise. These
include but not limited to like Induction training, Risk management, Credit, IS-Audit, CBS-IT,
Accounts, Recovery, and Foreign Exchange, etc.
4. The performance management system
Bank Muscat apart from following traditional methods of knowledge sharing in the
workplace also uses technology to manage employee performance. Citrix is one of these
technologies that help the bank developing, supporting and engaging its widely dispersed staff
(Bankmuscat.com 2019). Any event such as the chairman addressing to all staff is made
available to employees through this technology. This consumes fewer data and provides viewing
even on slower connections. Citrix app is highly secured. The app dramatically reduces the
chance of any compromises. It is more user-friendly than many other apps available. Indeed, it
gives features, which is unmatched by many other apps of the same genre. Citrix, indeed, is
leading the transition to a software-defined workplace (Dahari, Abduh and Fam 2015). This
facilitates mobility management, uniting virtualisation, networking and SaaS solutions. These
solutions enable new ways impacting the businesses and helping the staff to work better. The
technology also powers business mobility through secure mobile workspaces. This provides staff
with instant access to a wide array of things like apps, data, desktops and communications.
Communications whether established on any device, any network or cloud can be accessed

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securely using Citrix solution (Dahari, Abduh and Fam 2015). On a similar note, XenApp is used
to deliver e-learning facility to staffs (Bankmuscat.com 2019). This e-learning site contains
tutorials in the form of audio and video materials. This can be accessed from anywhere across
the globe. This enables employees working in different locations at the different branches of
Bank Muscat to learn things that they require.
The automation and digitised work environment at Bank Muscat provide automation to
HR processes, minimise human intervention, brings transparency to the processes and make
processes intuitive. The automation of HR and other processes has done wonder to the
performance of Bank Muscat. It has helped the bank to improve its customer service standard,
lower the cost of the operations and improve the service speed. Performance management is
challenging in the banking sector. However, Bank Muscat has been able to drive employee
performance through technologies such as Citrix and XenApp. The use of technology is
influencing employees, leaders and managers. Indeed, a technology-oriented performance
management system is holistic and focuses on driving employee performance and maximising
employee development (Alalwan, Dwivedi and Rana 2017). The digital transformation is
proving helpful for Bank Muscat in regards to increased collaboration between management and
employees. This is enabling employees with performance tools and helping them develop
leadership skills. Indeed, a technology-driven workforce is a solid answer to rising millennials’
participation in the workplace. Millennials spend too much of their time on smartphones and also
prefer being connected to digital technology to be updated with the world around them (Stewart
et al. 2017). The use of an innovative piece of technology is not just impacting the costs but also
improving the process efficiency and accuracy (Tam and Oliveira 2016).
5. A critical appraisal of employee relationship

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Maintaining healthy employee relations is an utter need of an organisation. This is more
important for a bank. Indeed, strong employee relations generate high productivity and increased
human satisfaction. Strong employee relations promote safe and healthy work environment, high
employee engagement, effective organisational communication and increased employee
motivation. Good employee relations indicate that employees have a positive look towards their
job responsibilities, and organisational goals and objectives (Conway et al. 2016).
Bank Muscat also gives emphasis on strengthening employee relations in the workplace.
However, there are a few areas that need a revisit from the management teams. For good
employee relations, it is important that there is equality spread in the workplace, and that all
employees irrespective of their gender and culture are treated on the same ground in a fair
manner. This means employee favouritism should be avoided (Abdullah 2017). Indeed, Bank
Muscat has been able to drive diversity in the workplace. There are 48% women in the bank
representing all positions including also the managerial positions (Bankmuscat.com 2019). This
is indeed a feat being achieved by Bank Muscat considering a low women participation in the
workplace in the Middle East and across the globe (Schultz 2018). Employees are given a
competitive salary, which has no biases for gender and culture. Rather, salary is decided based
on skills, talents and competencies. This is one of the reasons why Bank Muscat has been the
leading banking and financial solution providers in Sultanate of Oman.
However, the nature of the job becomes monotonous for employees at some point in time
when they are two or three years old to the system. The job nature is not very engaging though
the Bank Muscat incentivise employees to increase their motivation level. Motivation according
to Mikkelsen, Jacobsen and Andersen (2017) is not just about creating monetary solutions to
employees but also fostering many other things. Job satisfaction is one of those things. It boosts

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employee motivation in the long-term. Bank Muscat should focus on increasing employee
engagement. They should assign greater responsibilities to employees to keep them engaged with
their job. They should feel the difference every day they come to the office (Porter, Riesenmy
and Fields 2016). If this could happen, will impact on their interest level for their participation
with Bank Muscat. There should be training programs on a regular basis as this will create the
opportunity to interact with the employees and come closer to form a lasting relationship with
them.
Task 2: A brief report on industry expert talk and reflective learning
I as the industry expert in the banking sector feeling like have learned quite a thing about
organisational behaviour and human resource management. An organisational structure
according to my understanding is a road map, which is being followed to perform daily
workplace activities. This includes but not limited to communication between personnel sitting at
the different levels of an organisational structure. There are commonly four widely used
organisational structures like administrative structures, divisional structure, functional structure
and matrix structure (Coccia 2015). Each structure is different from the others in regards to the
efficiency of tasks handling and organisational communication.
Management practices, which I have understood is their working styles that vary from
one to another manager. It usually and broadly refers to innovations and working methods that
managers implement to train staff, empower staff, introduce various latest and emerging
technologies, and introduce a various policy to improve the service quality level. Effective
leaders as I have understood from working on Bank Muscat capably handles management
practices like those mentioned below (Donate and de Pablo 2015);

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 Model the way
 Inspire a shared vision
 Challenge the process
 Enable others to act
 Encourage the participation
As long as I have understood by working on this project, both personnel management and
human resource management serve alike purposes. Personnel management is a traditional
approach to manage people in organisations. It focusses on a few things like labour relation,
personnel administration and employee welfare. On the other hand, human resources
management focusses on the development of skills, acquisition of talents, employee motivation,
and of course maintenance of human resources in the organisations (Noe et al. 2017). However,
the global human resources management is facing challenges in acquiring talented and skilled
people, creating ways to promote employee motivation and employee engagement and retention
of human resources. There are various reasons that make these factors challenging human
resources management. This includes but not limited to gender and generations diversity in the
workplace. Gender diversity requires diverse work setting to diverse gender group. Similarly,
Millennials want a more engaging and cultural workplace whereas baby boomers have the least
interest for an engaging workplace (Hall 2016).
The project on Bank Muscat helped me learn a few key areas of HR practice. These are
strategic planning, development, resourcing, motivation and reward (Conway et al. 2016).
Strategic planning as I have understood from this study is linking human resources practices
with organisational goals and objectives. This requires a strategically-driven approach towards
countering barriers and strengthening strategic plans. As per my understanding of resourcing, it

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is to be able to attract and recruit talents possessing diverse skills. Resourcing should be a
transparent process supporting both gender and generations diversity in the workplace (Boroughs
and Rickard, 2017). Development of skills is one of the core HR activities (Bell et al. 2017). I
have found the development of skills as benefitting to the organisations considering that it trains
people on the different expertise and create assets for them. I have found motivation and reward
both as interrelated factors. When employees are rewarded they possess high motivation for
work. Motivation can be either intrinsic or extrinsic (Albalooshi, Ali and Al-Ansi 2017). Many
researchers have identified intrinsic motivation as the most effective of all forms of motivation.
To conclude, it can be said that HR practice has a bigger role in contemporary work
situations. The contemporary HRM is not just dealing with one city or a nation but the whole
world. They are bound to face people from different cultural and ethnic groups. There are gender
and generation-based diversity in the workplace. One universal solution is no longer fitting the
workplace. Instead, there are growing needs for customised practices that fit with a diverse
workforce. Despite so much of innovation and hard works from the global HRM, they face
distinguished challenges n efficiently managing the workforce. Even in this project on Bank
Muscat, I have found that the HRM of the company has so far struggled to make workplace
engaging for their employees.
On a recommending note, the global HRM should practice strategic organisational
change to boost productivity, enhance quality and employee satisfaction. They should also
devise an effective training program. They should promote the reward system to drive
employee motivation. The HRM should also design benefit packages to the employees. The
values of these packages should be evaluated appropriately before implementing these to
practice.

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