UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------- Nguyen Thi Anh Nguyet SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING QUALITY OF EMPLOYEES’ PARTICIPATION IN SUGGESTION SCHEME AT BOSCH VIETNAM BACHELOR OF BUSINESS Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2017 II UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------- Nguyen Thi Anh Nguyet SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING QUALITY OF EMPLOYEES’ PARTICIPATION IN SUGGESTION SCHEME AT BOSCH VIETNAM BACHELOR OF BUSINESS SUPERVISOR: Ho Trong Nghia Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2017 III Table of Contents INTRODUCTION. Primary research: The interview with SS managers. Primary research: The interview with Bosch Vietnam employees. Structure of the final report .6 CHAPTER 1 – PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION.
Bosch Vietnam’s introduction. Bosch Vietnam’s culture. Suggestion Scheme overview. Suggestion Scheme board of management (BOM).
Suggestion Scheme procedure. No-go suggestions. Secondary data – results. Primary data – results: Interview with SS managers.
Primary data – results: Interview with Bosch Vietnam’s employees. Summary of the chapter. 25 CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of used terms.
Importance of knowledge sharing. The roles of knowledge sharing. Factors that influence knowledge sharing. Different categories of motivators.
Bosch Vietnam employees motivation analysis. Motivation for joining SS. Motivation for knowing other suggestions. Summary of the chapter.
34 CHAPTER 3 – SOLUTIONS AND ACTION PLAN. Detail of solutions.1 Bosch Connect webpage.3 Formal award days. Summary of the chapter. 47 LIMITATION AND CONCLUSION.
SS tracking file. Suggestion Scheme’s card. SS’s evaluation criteria. Guidelines for in-depth interview in manager level.
Responses of the interviews with managers. Guidelines for in-depth interviews with employees. Responses of the interviews employees. 62 V LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Overviews of Bosch activities in Vietnam .7 Table 2: Suggestion categories.
11 Table 3: People supporting the process. 12 Table 4: First interview series: Information of interviewees. 19 Table 5: Pending suggestion of 2015. 21 Table 6: Second interview series: Information of interviewees.
22 Table 7: Bosch Connect: SS introduction. 37 Table 8: The layout of topics and suggestions in sharing section. 43 Table 9: Overall timeline. 44 Table 10: Timeline of SS page on Bosch Connect.
45 Table 11: Timeline of SS Workshop. 45 Table 12: Timeline of SS award. 46 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: SS BOM structure. 10 Figure 2: The suggestion procedure.
12 Figure 3: Overview SS 2014. 16 Figure 4: Overview of SS – Manufacturing. 17 Figure 5: Overview SS – Office. 18 Figure 6: Overview of SS.
18 Figure 7: Overview of SS – Office. 19 Figure 8: SS categories based on employees' perception. 23 Figure 9: Factors that affect knowledge sharing among employees in companies. 29 Figure 10: A model of knowledge sharing among employees in companies.
29 Figure 11: The iceberg model. 31 Figure 12: An ice-berg motivation of Bosch Vietnam’s employees. 33 VI LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviation Stands for SS Suggestion Scheme Dept. REP Department representative HoD Head of department BOM Board of management HcP Ho Chi Minh Plant CSR Corporate Social Responsibility Suggestion Scheme categories CS Cost Saving PI Productivity improvement HSE Safety, health, environment improvement WI Work efficiency improvement No.
Number of suggestions Name of department TEF Technical function MFG Manufacturing LOG Logistics FCM Facilities Management QMM Quality Management & Method HRL Human Resources PJM Project Management PRS Protection & Security HSE Health, Safety & Environment CI Corporate Information PM Plant management INTRODUCTION 1. Project overview This material offers a brief introduction of the Bosch Vietnam in terms of company overview, its culture and core values; and introduction of its tool used to manage knowledge and solution sharing. It aims to identify challenging problems by analyzing secondary data from annual reports and exploring the core team and department representatives’ view and perception about their employees in contributing their ideas. In the meantime, interviews with employees, who are the end-user of this idea sharing system – Suggestion Scheme (SS) are also conducted to strengthen the importance of current problems, figure out the motivation and attitude of employees towards this system.
In other words, two methodologies (secondary source, qualitative researches as in-depth interviews with system’s managers and employees) are utilized in this project. After reviewing literature, theories and defining problems, a set of solutions are proposed in the hope that they can address current concerns and boundaries, together with promoting high-quality contribution of ideas and solutions from Bosch Vietnam’s associates. The limitation and conclusion of this project will be presented. Reference and Appendix are also included.
Project objectives This project is to strengthen the fact that knowledge sharing and innovative suggestion play a crucial role in the development of a company. In other words, this process determines the competitive advantage over its competitors and is valuable capital source of the firm. Its concentration is to discover the challenges grappled by the company’s management in terms of effectively utilizing SS and calling their employees to participate and contribute to its next innovative step. Root causes will be searched and revealed by conducting qualitative researches and collecting secondary data provided by company in order to figure out the ongoing situations and challenges.
Afterwards, plans as solutions will be presented and analyzed 2 in an effort of utilizing and triggering the SS effectively and efficiently to meet board of management (BOM)’s requirements. Secondary research To make the project more precise, secondary data as monthly and annual report on performance of all departments in Bosch Vietnam is took into consideration. By reviewing the report on Overview of SS in 2014, 2015 and 2016, this project processes in the hope of finding problem via past data and speculate current difficulties which the company are grappling with. In addition to that, secondary source is approachable, convenient and easy to collect because these reports were stored in the Bosch document systems and always ready to review.
The rich information from these is valuable and up- to-date as they record data in the 3 latest years from 2014 to 2016, which assist to reflect the current situation of the implementation of SS. Primary research: The interview with SS managers 3. Purposes and motivation Besides secondary source, primary research is put into account to figure out the ongoing situations of SS systems in the view of those who manage this system in order to compare with those from employees who will be interviewed in the second interview series. These managers’ perspectives are important because they are not only the ones who control and have a right to access the most confidential information (data of suggestion, annual reports) which ordinary employees will not know but also have an overall view about the system’s operation and its limitations over the period of 3 years.
The guideline consists of four main areas with twelve questions. In each interview, an expected duration is approximately 30 minutes with a variation of ten minutes according to the length of answers and the level of openness for sharing. The sample size of this series is five people who were randomly chosen from 15 members of SS managers (core teams and dept. Areas to interview The first interviews with managers include questions to discover the current situation of SS regarding to quality and quantity of submitted suggestions, encouraging programs and events and information flow.
That information is asked because they are indicators of whether the system works effectively and efficiently and if it has any promoting events to communicate with employees. And based on annual reports and what they witness in reality, their perceived comments and evaluations towards SS operation are also recorded and analyzed with primary data. In the next area, the ways which manager perceived that their employees think about the system’s purpose is also asked during this first series so that the differences between two different levels’ views become manifest and obvious to compare for analyzing purposes. The perception of SS’s influence on them as individual worker and their company is another point to be considered from manager’s mindset in order to understand how they – as in the role of SS managers, see the level of this system ‘s signification in company vision and culture.
Furthermore, there are questions which are targeted to reveal managers’ comment and knowledge about up-to-date status of implementation. Primary research: The interview with Bosch Vietnam employees 3. Purposes and motivation After considering all components which exert considerable influence on the process of contributing and sharing knowledge, ideas and solutions, the underlying element is motivation and attitude of employees since the opportunity to share is manifest and nature of knowledge in this field does not exert significantly negative impact on the SS. Therefore, this research now focuses on discovering Employees' motivation and attitude towards participating in contributing ideas as a form of the SS by in depth interviews.
Afterwards, by figuring the root causes of the problems, an elaborate plan for solving problems and improving the situation will be presented, discussed and analyzed. 4 If the first series of interviews concentrate on discovering the SS from the managers’ perspective, the second series take advantage of the first and continue to find out the root cause from employees’ side. Six areas will be interviewed with roundly 20 questions and some other additional questions to fully understand about employees’ motivation and perception about SS. Each interview will last from 30 minutes to 40 minutes and occur in formal context – meeting rooms.
The chosen target interviewees are employees working in office areas and technical-office areas because according to secondary source, people in these areas have the lowest and average number of submitted suggestions. They are newcomers and those who have been in this company for more than 2 years. Based on current situation and possibility of the interviews, the sample size is six persons. Areas to interview The second series focuses on evaluating employees’ general understanding about SS in terms of SS fields which currently highlighted by Bosch Vietnam, how to submit a suggestion and a SS evaluation process.
In this section, it aims to obtain information of what is in employees’ top of mind when mentioning about SS, which will be utilized to compare with current expectation and understanding of SS managers on their employees. The size of this gap will be used to form solutions if it is significant enough to be a tremendous concern. Other information worth taking into account such as personal participation and KPIs in this system and general comments about SS is simultaneously asked. Knowing what is expected from them and their contribution makes it easier to further develop guideline to uncover the reasons of their performance in joining in this SS.
In addition, this second series’ guideline digs into root causes relating to their motivation and obstacles when participating in the SS from the first step to getting approved. This is the main part of this series and a base for plan next steps for SS’s improvement. In other words, this second series of interviews is a foundation regarding to 5 behavior and attitudes for setting plans of justification, modification and improvement of the SS, making it more end-user-oriented. Last but not least, the guideline is also asking for their suggestions to improve the system and their willingness to engage themselves in SS future step.
As drafting for solution needs signal of potential success and expected engagement, a number of questions will be asked to gain a hint of whether it is applicable or not.