Comprehensive Analysis of HR Policies and Their Effects on MTN Group

This report provides an overview of the HR policies within the MTN Group, a multinational telecommunications company based in South Africa. It focuses on three key areas: leave policy, handling ill capacity, and succession policy. The leave policy is categorized into statutory and non-statutory leaves, with recommendations for leave exchange. The handling ill capacity policy aims to ensure employee safety and promote mutual respect, with a suggestion for a work-from-home policy for certain illnesses. The succession policy outlines guidelines for management and talent identification, with a recommendation for periodic training. The report also addresses challenges in determining the impact of HR policies on business performance, such as insufficient data and unclear incentive structures. The conclusion highlights the alignment of HR policies with the company's business strategy and core values, emphasizing the potential for improved productivity, employee care, and retention. The report includes references to academic sources and provides a comprehensive analysis of MTN's HR practices.

Running head: HR POLICIES
HR Policies in MTN Group South Africa
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Overview
MTN group that, also formally known as M-cell is a South Africa based
multinational Mobile telecommunication company. The company also operates in
European countries, African countries and Asian countries as well. MTN has a pure play
emerging market. The new digital opening world is spreading their services all over
Africa and many other middle-east countries. Infact, the total numbers of consumers of
the company are also growing rapidly due to their effective, quality and reliable services
(Horwitz 2017). The internal service of the organization is running efficiently because of
the responsibility and roles playing by their human resources.
This paper depicts the role and impact of human resource policy in MTN
Company. The three different group HR policies that are selected and elaborated in the
paper include leave policy, handling III capacity and succession policy. Not only this bot
also internal relationship and dependency of these policies among each other are also
elaborated in this paper.
MTN group HR policy
Leave policy
The leave policy maintained by the MTN group is categorized into two -Statutory
leave and Non-statutory leave. Statutory leaves of the employees are approved
according to the basic employment act: 75 of 1997. Statutory leaves are sick leave,
annual leave, family responsibility leave, public holiday, maternity leave and paternity
leave. However, the company is allowed to make statutory amendments and withdrawal
whenever required. Any sort of decision, rules and policies are finalized by the company
itself.
On the other hand, the non-statutory leaves are other additional type of leave
granted manly by the company above the statutory leaves granted (Noor-ul-Ain and
Akhtar 2018). The non-statutory leaves include adoption leave, study leave, overseas

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leave, cumulative leave, religious, unpaid, national sports leave, absence needed for
legal actions, relocation leave, leave in Lieu of overtime etc. It helps to promote the well
being of the employees and their families as well. However, during resignation or
termination notice period the employees are not allowed to take any sort of annual
leave. An employee must take the annual leave dropping a mail in advanced and wait
until the leave is approved from the company end.
The Leave policies designed and maintained by MTN group are well aligned to
their business aspects and strategies. The leave management system maintained by
the group is satisfactory for the employees. Thus, it helped to provide transparency and
increases the rate of satisfaction among the employees (Kelana, Mansor and Sanny
2016). It also helps to reduce the rate of unscheduled among the working staffs and
employees as well. It is analyzed that, business have a better leave management are
capable to reduce or eliminate the issues of excessive absenteeism (Akunda, Chen and
Gikiri 2018). The cost of he leave and the rate of absenteeism contribute approximately
35% of the total organization’s payroll. Thus, it can be sad that effective leave
management policy which is maintained by MTN group is very essential and aligned to
the business success.
A better leave management policy helps to increase the overall productivity of
MTN group. The workplace productivity as a whole increased in MTN group because of
the time off tracking policy, self service functionalities, multiple numbers of integrations,
leave management slack bot. The company also has a paid leave policy which makes
the employee tracking system smoother and also helps to maintain the program
integrity of MTN Group.
The leaves taken by the employees and all the related information are recorded
and monitored by the HR coordinator and are stored in both the hardcopy and softcopy
(Claudiu et al. 2018). It helps the HR track the numbers of leaves taken by each
employee. The record control system operated by the company is again maintained by
document control system which helps to meet the business strategy of employee
retention.

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Recommendation
Leave exchange policy: Mostly it is found that people who are forced to take
leave when it is marked in roster but this does not gives workplace flexibility and
motivational environment to employers. Employee who is willing to work on a fixed
Holiday (or gazeeted Holiday) must be allowed to work on that day. Again, if they ask to
take that leave on any other day instead of the spefic gazeeted one then, the HR must
allow them to take leave as per their choice.
Justification: This leave policy will give effective workplace flexibility to the
employees, staffs and management team members as well. It is completely applicable
for all the team associates.
Handling ill capacity
The purpose of developing ill handling capacity policy by MTN Company is to
make sure that all the employees are safe in their workplace and they are the most
valuable asset for the company. The policy makes sure that the employer who is
represented by fellow employees and the line manager as well shares a very common
understanding of ill health incapacity as well (Straub et al. 2018). This policy prevents
an employer to take any manipulating or pressure creating situation to an ill employee.
The policy is aligned towards the business operation of MTN because it helps in
promoting mutual respect between the employer and the employees. It also helps to
support the constructive employment relationship within the company (Olson et al.
2018). This policy is applicable for all the working employee of the organization.
The health incapacity management process developed for the MTN Company is
quite strong and beneficial for the employees and staffs. It is found that if an employee
is unable to come to the office for a period of time due to any injury of illness then, the
company has policy to replace that employee for another employee for that temporary
time. This possible replacement of the employees with another employee helps the
business to avoid any work level challenges. The company procedures for temporary
incapability and temporary incapacity in terms of counseling sessions are also aligned
to the business strategies.

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Recommendation
Work from Home Policy: Stomachache, headache, little fever are some health
issues those do not take multiple days to recover from. However, MTN group HR policy
mentioned that without any kind of medical certificate they ever approve leaves of staffs.
For such illness or accidental illness such as broken legs or throat infection, the
company should implemented Work from Home Policy.
Justification: According to this policy the employees would be able to complete
their office work from home only. For such facility no salary deduction or leave
deduction is applicable.
Succession policy
The use of succession policy helps to give a model rather framework to the
employees to make sure that the operations and functions operated by the organization
are all error free. Infact, in order to establish a consistent approach towards succession
management this HR policy implementation is very important. The methodologies
maintained for the succession of the policies followed by and maintained by the MTN
group are also aligned to the business success and clients expectations (Ybema, van
Vuuren and van Dam 2017). The objective of the policy is to properly lay down the
guidelines as well as standardized process of succession management in the MTN
service agreement.
This is essential to make sure alignment with the MTN group policy and the detail
operation and functional planning strategies. Apart from that, succession policy is used
in MTN to identify the succession categories within many talented people, to establish
the processes and rules around the succession outcomes for management. It helps to
find out talented people from pool candidates. For instance, this policy is applicable for
leadership development, fast tracking and growth opportunities as well (Straub et al.
2018). It helps to state the rights and obligations of the business organization and also
the individual in regards with to the succession. Succession policy principles are also
elaborated in the principle policies to pretend the processes from risks and others
challenges and that assist MTN group to earn commercial profit..

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Recommendation
Arrangement of periodic training: With changing time the use of technology
and other aspects are keep on changing. It is responsibility of the HR team to arrange
such on job training and development program for their staffs and employees
Justification: Training and development program will help the staffs and
employees to improve their knowledge and skills on specific aspect. HR team needs to
allow individual staffs to attend such newly arranged training and development program.
Challenges in determining the impact of HR policy on business
performance
The HR policies developed by HR department of MTN Company are well
organized and employee focused but during the identification of its impact on the
business some challenges were faced that are as follows:
Insufficient data: Related data and other details were not available. The HR
policies were again not clearly elaborated and as the business was running efficiency,
thus it was difficult to identify the actual negative impact of the policy on business
performance
No clear Incentive structure Reward policy: The incentive structure for the
employees who are in leave either sick or others whether there will be any incentive
structure for them or not was not clear. Challenges were faced in collecting those data.
Conclusion
From the above discussion it is concluded that, the HR policies of MTN group is
aligned towards the organizational business strategy. The HR policies of MTN company
helps them to process the selection and recruitment approach, training and professional
development opportunities, employee’s concern handling, improved workplace safety,
develops organizational structure and employment rule as well. The advanced leave
policy suggested will give flexibility to the employees and they will feel motivated to their
job roles. It will improve the quality and productivity of the MTN group. The Work from

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Home policy will help to show the company cares for their staff’s wellness and
requirements. Besides this the periodic training and development program would give
the working employees opportunity to improve their skills and knowledge as well. As a
whole the policies are aligned to the company’s core values -“quality and productivity”
and would help to promote stronger group cohesion that may lead enhanced staff and
employee care and retention.

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