Telenor Pakistan Faces Challenges in Retaining its Employees

Telenor Pakistan – the number 2 cellular operator in Pakistan has started to lose control over its human resource (HR) as the year 2012, so far, has witnessed most of its seasoned employees leaving the company over clashes with senior management.

During past few months, 6 of its employees from the marketing and commercial division including Ahmed Bilal, Shariq Mustafa, Ahmed Mustafa and Muhammad Usman have left the company and joined ZONG. Few of these personnel were the integral part of teams that were taking care of Telenor’s famous brands such as Easy Paisa, Khamoshi Ka Boycott and djuice.

Sources at Telenor reveal that change in policies by senior management has caused the differences to surface between senior and middle management. Unlike past, the employee evaluation process has become biased which has almost frozen the promotional process at Telenor Pakistan.

In the start of August, Naushad Javaid, Director HR had also resigned from the company along with his other team members. Naushad was working with Telenor Pakistan since 2006 and was considered to be one of most valuable assets to the company especially for shaping up the HR system.

Sources at Telenor confirmed that in the coming days many other employees are expected to leave the company just because certain VPs are watching their vested interests.

Since the departure of Tore Johnson, Telenor Pakistan hasn’t witnessed a smooth sail. Once considered to be very friendly and supportive for its employees, business partners and vendors, it is rather turning out to be just another company where employee retention is no more a concern.

Being at number 2 position in terms of subscriber base, this inconsistent HR policy and lack of interest may not disturb higher management at Telenor Pakistan or Global but soon picture may change. It is to be noted that Telenor is among the pioneers in Mobile Banking in Pakistan whereas Youth brand has been the backbone for its Khamoshi Ka Boycott and youth related campaigns. Losing people from those important desks in a consistent way may turn out to be expensive for them in future.