THE LEVEL OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES WITHIN THE BANKING SECTOR IN SRI LANKA: A CASE STUDY WITH REFERENCE TO THE PEOPLES BANK

Abstract

Human Resource Management (HRM) can be distinct as active organizational management of people. This study has been conducted with the core purpose of identifying the level of HRM practices within the Peoples’ bank branches in Rathnapura District. The co-objectives of the study are to identify the causes for the identified level of HRM practices. Moreover, this study provides recommendations to enhance the HRM practices among the Peoples Banks branches in Rathnapura district. The population was narrowed down considering only the employees who have more than five-year experience in the same branch. Therefore, Purposive random sampling method has been used to select the sample for this study. Accordingly, the selected sample size was 60. Data for this study has been gathered from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data is collected using an online survey followed by a partial-structured questionnaire and interviews over the phone. The secondary data has been gathered from the banks, corporate plan and by reviewing the data related to human resource management in Peoples’ bank branches. Gathered data has been analyzed using mix method approach. SPSS software was used to have the basic statistics for the study. Accordingly, the answers received for open-ended questions and the data gathered from interviews have been analyzed descriptively. As per result of this study, it was revealed that there is less practice of HRM in the selected People’s bank branches in Rathnapura district. The main causes for the less HRM practices within the Peoples’ bank branches were the absenteeism of proper internal communication chain, less interest on HRM by the top management, poor monitoring the circulars distributed, focus on the short-term costs rather than the long-term benefits and less awareness of the benefits of HRM. Further, the recommendations to increase the HRM practice has also been provided.