# Introduction ncreasing endorsement of private commercial banks by the government in Bangladesh in recent times has made this sector highly competitive and challenging than ever before thus being a labor-intensive service organization banks must optimize the utilization of its human resources to effectively tackle those challenges and to secure a sustainable competitive position in the market. Due to this rapid growth in banking sector, the demand for efficient and experienced human resources has increased in the manifold (Mizan, et al., 2013). Thereby to attract new competent workforce and to retain the existing talented personnel sound administrative policy, consistent HR practices, employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment are highly imperative (Ahmad & Schroeder 2003;Khera 2010;Mohammod 2004;Mizan etal., 2013). So every bank should concentrate on sound HR practices to ensure employees' motivation and job satisfaction. The impact of Human Resources Management (HRM) practices popularly known as HR practices on organizational performance and employee attitudes has been a leading area of research in the developed countries for years (Delaney and Huselid, 1996;Huselid, 1995;Katou and Budhwar, 2007; Petrescu and Simmons, 2008). But surprisingly, a few studies have been conducted on HR practices in the context of developing countries in general (Schuler as cited in Budhwar and Debrah, 2001;Sing, 2004;Yeganeh and Su, 2008) and Bangladesh in particular (Mahmood, 2004). This study has been conducted to analyze the influence of HR practices on employee job satisfaction in the context of Bangladeshi private commercial banks. Practitioners, researchers, academicians, policy makers, local and foreign entrepreneurs of Bangladesh and other developing countries could benefit from this study by exploring the association between HR practices and job satisfaction. This study will enhance the contemporary research and practice of human resource management. Furthermore, it would also be helpful for the developed countries as they find developing countries (like Bangladesh) as an attractive place for investment due to their large markets, cheap and skilled workforces (Budhwar and Debrah, 2001). # II. # Research Objectives The prime objective of the study is to address the influence of HRM practices on employee job satisfaction. The other specific purposes are: ? To find out the degree of association between HRM practices and job satisfaction. ? To recommend some policy measures regarding the pattern of HRM practices that will boost high employee job satisfaction for the selected private commercial banks. III. # The Methodology of the Study This part has been categorized into five subsections. These are discussed below. # a) Research Design The study undertaken is an exploratory research. Typically exploratory studies are a valuable way of finding out what is happening; to seek new I insight; to ask questions and to assess phenomenon in a new light (Robson, 2002). It is similar to the activities of travelers or explorers (Adams and Schvaneveldt, 1991). # b) Sample Design There are 48 private commercial banks in Sylhet, Bangladesh out of which we have randomly selected 20 banks (42% of the population). Respondents were interviewed as per convenience. # c) Sources of Data and Instrumentation Both primary and secondary data were used in the study. Personal interview through a structured questionnaire was conducted to collect primary data from 80 employees of the banks (i.e., four employees from each of twenty banks). Secondary data were collected from various articles and books relevant to the study. A five-point Likert scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5) was used to measure the variables of HRM practices and job satisfaction. # d) Reliability and Validity of the Scale To measure how consistent results the scale would produce if the test had been administered repeatedly is vital to understand the merit of the scale used to analyze the data. Cronbach's alpha is the most widely used method to test the reliability of the scale. Mentionable that, its value ranges from 0 to 1 but the satisfactory value is required to be more than 0.6 for the scale to be reliable (Malhotra, 2002;Cronbach, 1951). We, therefore, used Cronbach's alpha scale in our study as a measure of reliability. Table -1 shows that the estimated reliability value is between ?= 0.621 to 0.834 throughout the scales. Hence it can be said, that the scales we used are adequately reliable because our reliability values are higher than the standard alpha value of 0.6. Validation of the questionnaire was done by consulting it with several experts, and they considered the face and content validity of the questionnaire as adequate. IV. # Research Hypothesis In this research, the following hypotheses have been developed. Hypothesis1: H 1 : HRM practices have a significant relationship with job satisfaction. Hypothesis 2: H 2 : HRM practices have a significant influence on job satisfaction. V. # Literature Review a) Human Resource Management Human Resource Management (HRM) is a philosophy of utilizing the workforces of the organization to optimize their contribution by satisfying both employers and employees. HRM deals with the people dimensions in the organization especially HR planning, job analysis, recruitment and selection, orientation, compensation, performance appraisal, training and development and labor relations (Dessler, 2013). (Senyucel, 2009) sees HRM as a blend of peoplecentered management practices that recognizes employees as assets and geared to creating and maintaining skilled and committed workforces for achieving organizational goals. # b) Job Satisfaction Job satisfaction is "a positive or pleasing emotional state resulting from the evaluation of a person's job" (Locke, 1976, p.1304). Job satisfaction is a general attitude of employees either favorable or unfavorable towards their job. Some studies have shown a positive relationship between job satisfaction and job performance (Judge et al., 2001). Therefore, it may be assumed that customer satisfaction hinges on employee satisfaction (Koc, 2006). # c) HRM practices and Job Satisfaction HR practices and job satisfaction has been studied widely in different parts of the world, and it is assumed, that HR practices are closely associated with job satisfaction (Ting, 1997). Many researchers have demonstrated that sound HRM practices resulted in better job satisfaction which ultimately improves organizational performance. (Lamba and Choudhay, 2013) Revealed how HRM practices provide an edge to enhance employee's commitment towards achievement # Year ( ) A of a firm's goal in the global competitive market. The study concluded that HRM practices such as training and development, compensation and welfare measures have a significant impact on organizational commitment and are associated with superior organizational performance and also help in the retention of knowledgeable and skilled employees. (Majumder, 2012) Conducted a study to gain insight into the current HRM practices i.e. recruitment and selection, compensation package, job security, career growth, training and development, management style, job design and responsibility, reward and motivation and working environment and their impact on employee's job satisfaction on private banking sector of Bangladesh. The study revealed that most of the employees are dissatisfied with the compensation package followed by reward and motivation, career growth, training and development, management style, and job design and responsibilities. (Goyal and Shrivastava, 2012) Found that appropriate HR practices of an organization can improve the job satisfaction level of the employees and strengthen their commitment towards their organization. (Martin, 2011) Conducted a study to find out the influence of HRM practices on job satisfaction, organizational commitment and intention to quit. HRM practices included recruitment and hiring, compensation and benefits, training and development, and supervision and evaluation. The result of the study found a significant relationship between perceptions of HR practices and intention to quit, mediated by organizational commitment and job satisfaction. (Absar, Azim, Balasundaram and Akhter, 2010) Found that human resource planning (HRP), training and development (TND) have a positive impact on job satisfaction (JS).They also found that TND has the most impact on JS. (Gurbuz, 2009) Investigated that, proposed practices which were participation, empowerment, job rotation, self-directed work teams, and contingent compensation had a positive correlation with employee's job satisfaction. (Aswathappa, 2008) Argued that an organization should have sophisticated HR plans to motivate its employees. Sound HR planning can enhance job satisfaction of employees by providing opportunities for employees to participate in planning their careers (Weeratunga, 2003). From the above literature review, it has been found that there exists significant relation of employee satisfaction and productivity with HRM practices thereby organization especially service-oriented ones such as banking organizations should focus on proper HR practices to satisfy and motivate their employees and gain competitive advantages over their rivals. # d) Data Analysis & Findings SPSS version 20 has been used to conduct the test of the hypothesis by using correlation and multiple regression analysis, ANOVA and t statistics coefficient table. The findings of the study are discussed below. As shown in Table -2 all the HRM practices RNS, TND, PA, CNR, WLBP are independently and positively correlated with JS at 1% levels which denotes highly significant. Hence, Hypothesis -1 of the present study has been accepted. Here it is evident that the maximum correlation (r=0.582) is existed between WLBP and JS, followed by TND and JS (r=0.547), CNR and JS (r=0.531). So the emphasis should be given more on WLBP for superb job satisfaction of employees. Training and development and compensation and rewards are also very crucial for ensuring high employee job satisfaction. Despite the link between RNS and JS (0.490) and PA and JS (0.417) is not so influential but these are also necessary for job satisfaction. HRM practices are pair-wise positively correlated with one to another and also statistically significant at 1%-5% level. The relationship between PA and TND (r= 0.566) is the highest followed by CNR and TND (r=0.484) among the five HRM practices. # e) Regression Analysis A multiple regression analysis was performed to find out the predictors of job satisfaction as conceptualized in the model. Table 3 and 4 show the summery measure and ANOVA of the model and table 5 shows the coefficient for the predictors of JS. The standardized regression Model is: JS = ? 0 + ? 1 RNS + ? 2 TND + ? 3 PA + ? 4 CNR + ? 5 WLBP (i) The The HRM practices (RNS, TND, PA CNR and WLBP) in the above model articulated the ability to predict job satisfaction (R 2 =0.573). In this model the value of R 2 indicates that 57.3% of the observed variability in the job satisfaction can be explained by HRM practices specifically, RNS, TND, PA CNR and WLBP. The remaining 43.7% of the variance is not explained by these variables which mean that the rest 43.7% of the variation in job satisfaction is related to other variables which are not depicted in the model. This variance is highly significant as indicated by the F value in the ANOVA table-4 (F= 19.847 and P =0.00). From table-5 we can see that, all the HRM practices (RNS, TND, PA CNR and WLBP) are positively influencing job satisfaction of employees particularly WLBP, CNR and RNS respectively have the most significant influence on employees job satisfaction since the value of ( t for WLBP is 4.466, p=0.00, df=74,) for CNR value of (t=3.530, p=0.001, df=74) for RNS value of (t=2.280, p=0.025, df=74) and PA (value of t=1.244,p=0.217, df=74) and TND (value of t=0.679, p=0.499, df=74) have moderate influence on employee job satisfaction. Thus, we accept all those hypotheses 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. # VI. # Conclusion & Recommendations On the basis of the findings from correlation and regression analysis regarding the association and impact of HRM practices on job satisfaction of private commercial banks' employees of Bangladesh, it has been found that all the factors of HRM practices covered in this study are positively and significantly associated with employee job satisfaction and also predict about 57.3% level of job satisfaction. It has also been observed that, work-life balance practices (WLBP), compensation & reward (CNR), training & development (TND) and recruitment & selection (RNS) have the highest degree of association and influence on employee job satisfaction, thus we can recommend that to ensure the job satisfaction of employees and thereby to boost their commitment and performance banks should emphasize more on these HRM practices, especially banks should have arrangement to balance employees' work and family responsibilities, should ensure some welfare measures like heath care, foodaid, stress management and counseling, should offer attractive and competitive compensation packages to their employees, rewards and incentives should be fairly distributed, training and development opportunities should be adequate and career-growth oriented, recruitment and selection process should be impartial and strictly based on merit. # VII. # Limitation of the Study Due to the busyness of the bank employees, we had to resort to convenience sampling to collect data rather than random sampling. Data have been gathered from banks operating only in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh, thereby the findings of the study should not be generalized to the whole private commercial banks operating throughout the country. # Global Journal of Management and Business Research Volume XVIII Issue III Version I Year ( ) A 1ScaleNo. of ItemsCronbach's Alpha(?)Recruitment & Selection6.625Training & Development8.621Performance Appraisal6.706Compensation & Reward5.652Work-life Balance Practices7.701Job Satisfaction16.834 2VariablesRNSTNDPACNRWLBPJSRNS1TND0.482 ** (0.000)1PA0.349 ** (0.001)0.566 ** (0.000)1CNR0.321 ** (0.004)0.484 ** (0.000)0.230 * (0.040)1WLBP0.298 ** (0.007)0.422 ** (0.000)0.308 ** (0.005)0.246 * (0.028)1JS0.490 ** (0.000)0.547 ** (0.000)0.417 ** (0.000)0.531 ** (0.000)0.582 ** (0.000)1Source: survey data: **& * Correlation is significant at 0.01 & 0.05 level respectively. 3fitted Regression Model is:JS = -2.113+ .201 (RNS) + .075 (TND) + .116 (CBPA) + .310( CNR) + .379 (WLBP)(ii)Here, ? 0= ConstantTND = Training & DevelopmentDependent Variable: JS = Job Satisfaction Independent Variables:PA = Performance Appraisal CNR = Compensation & Reward WLBP = Work-life Balance PracticesRNS = Recruitment & SelectionModelRR 2Adjusted R 210.757(a)0.5730.544Predictors: (Constant) RNS, TND, PA CNR and WLBP. 4ModelSum of SquaresdfMean SquareFSig.Regression2941.1395588.22819.847.000 b1Residual2193.2487429.638Total5134.38879a. 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