UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ Do Nguyen Hoang Quan INAPPROPRIATE JOB ASSIGNMENT IN PLANNING DEPARTMENT OF THACO GROUP MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2019 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ Do Nguyen Hoang Quan INAPPROPRIATE JOB ASSIGNMENT IN PLANNING DEPARTMENT OF THACO GROUP MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION SUPERVISOR: Dr. NGUYEN PHONG NGUYEN Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2019 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. CAUSE EFFECT MAP. 37 APPENDIX 1: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT.
48 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Currently, according to the work requirements of the organizational chart of Thaco group, the general planning department acts as a focal point to synthesize periodic information on the business results of the independent brand teams, developing, process and analyze, then devise solutions, proposals and development plans in the coming periods. However, the reality is showing that the personnel in this department are doing not in accordance with the original orientation. Their tasks are currently only revolving around sales figures, market data. that are not capable of in-depth analysis of the factors affecting business results, core values of the brand, the competitiveness of the product in the market.
Meanwhile, the above jobs are under the responsibility of the independent brand teams' sales team, increasing the volume work and pressure on the staff of these teams. That comes from an inappropriate job assignment, which main cause is overlapped organizational structure. The work of these two departments has overlapping aspects, not clearly defined, plus the orientation is somewhat superficial, lack of reality from senior managers, thus making the employees of the planning department feels confusing, leading to depressed psychology, and the end result is an increasing rate of retrenchment. Through analysis of the current state of the problem, I came up with two solutions to dissolve the company's planning room, and set up a new planning department for each brand- specific team, so that both can be solved.
The above point, at the same time, improve the value and work efficiency of the increasingly intensive planning department, adapting to the increasingly strong change of the market. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. COMPANY BACKGROUND: Truong Hai Automobile Company (1) was established on April 29, 1997, its head office is located at 19 Road 2A, Bien Hoa 2 Industrial Zone, Dong Nai Province. The founder is Mr.
Tran Ba Duong, currently the Chairman of THACO's Board of Directors. In 2007, Truong Hai Automobile Co. converted into Truong Hai Automobile Joint Stock Company (THACO). Currently, THACO has 3 offices located in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Chu Lai (Quang Nam).
In particular, the Chu Lai - Truong Hai automobile assembly and production complex (Quang Nam) was established in 2003 on an area of nearly 600 hectares, including 25 companies and affiliated factories. Thaco's main business activities are manufacturing - assembling - distributing, providing maintenance and repair services and auto parts: including production and trading of commercial vehicles (trucks and buses); Manufacturing and trading passenger cars brands: Kia (Korea), Mazda (Japan), Peugeot (France), BMW (Germany). The distribution system consists of 93 showrooms and 59 agents spread across the country. As of early 2018, the number of employees of the company has reached nearly 18,000 people.
Currently, Thaco is the only company in Vietnam to produce and assemble fully 3 cars: passenger cars, trucks and buses with the localization rate of 16% - 50%, giving people Vietnam car products are diversified and quality at reasonable prices. In 2014 and 2015, Thaco was the leading company in the ranking of Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers Association (VAMA). As a leading company in the field of manufacturing, assembling and distributing automobiles in Vietnam, Thaco's goal is to uphold this position and expand its market in ASEAN region, strengthen international cooperation to select appropriate technology, increase localization rate, join global value chain, create a foundation to develop into a multidisciplinary industry group, improve competitiveness to reach the top position area. 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
SYMPTOMS: Turnover rate 2016-2018 35.0% 2016 2017 2018 Thaco (Headquarter) Planning dept Figure 2.1: Turnover rate of Headquarter & Planning Dept in 2016-2018 2016 2017 2018 Employees of Thaco (Headquarter) 292 335 367 Employees of Planning dept 16 18 19 Employees quit Thaco (Headquarter) 32 36 42 Employees quit Planning dept 4 5 6 Table 2.1: Turnover rate of Headquarter & Planning Dept in 2016-2018 Turnover rate between divisions in 2018 35.0% Sales Planning Marketing Human resources Accounting Figure 2.2: Comparing of number of current employees & employee left among departments 6 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2018 Current employees Employee left Sales 68 8 Planning 19 6 Marketing 65 4 Human resources 13 1 Accounting 15 1 Table 2.2: Comparing of number of current employees & employee left among departments According to the statistics of the above table, to meet the requirements of the company's operation development, the number of employees working at Thaco’s headquarter has steadily increased in the period 2016-2018. However, the Planning department - one of the departments playing a key role in business operations at Thaco – nearly has no big change in the number of personnel. After I calculated the annual voluntary leave rate in Thaco and its Planning department (I took the number of employees who are off work annually / the total number of employees of the company or department), I found out that the average annual leave rate of this department is much higher than the average rate of absenteeism of Thaco (the difference is 2.5-3 times, and the gap is getting bigger and bigger over the years). The number given is not so much different when compared to the 2018 voluntary leave rate in Thaco (even some departments have lower rates).
It was an evident that there is a significant gap between the voluntary leave rate in the planning department and other departments. This is considered a serious problem, needs evaluation and analysis to find the cause and solution. 7 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Number of staff changing department 4.5 0 Number of staff changing department 2016 2017 2018 Figure 2.3: Number of staff changing department In addition to the statistics on job vacancies in the planning department, I also have statistics on the number of employees who applied to work at another department. If 2016 only had 1 employee asked to transfer, then in 2017 this number had increased 3 times, and even in 2018 continued to increase to 4 people (this phenomenon is proportional to the rate of leave of the planning department, but this shows an abnormality because the number of planning department employees has almost no increase in the period 2016-2018).
The main reason these employees asked to move their departments was mostly focused on two main sections: "feeling the work in the planning room was inappropriate" or "wanting to change the work environment." For the most part, they will ask to transfer to the former department they previously worked, or the departments are in need of recruiting more personnel. This is quite unreasonable, because if these employees find the job inappropriate, they did not apply to this department at the beginning. And if they feel like "changing the work environment", why not switch to a new company and continue to stick with Thaco? In normal logic, these employees always give high appreciation for the environment and working conditions in Thaco, but when the specific assessment is reserved for the planning department, then there must be something that makes them feel uncomfortable, lose the motivation to contribute, but because of the esteem for the company and also the long- term career stability, they decide I have to stand up to find a new development direction at this company. 8 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com To find out the reason, I conducted a survey for 100 employees working at Thaco, in order to assess the satisfaction of the position they are in charge of.
From there, I can know which departments (especially planning department) have many employees who are dissatisfied with their work, which leads them to voluntarily quit their jobs. In the survey, I asked many questions to find out what causes employees to dissatisfaction when working at Thaco. I will analyze these causes in more detail in the problem section. However, in the conclusion and assessment of satisfaction level when working at the company, I obtained the following results: 50% 47% 45% 41% 40% 35% 30% 28% 24% 25% 20% 18% 15% 11% 12% 10% 10% 8% 5% 1% 0% Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree Planning dept Thaco Figure 2.4: Result for content “Overall, I feel very pleased to work here” 60% 55% 53% 50% 40% 30% 28% 23% 20% 18% 10% 8% 8% 4% 3% 0% 0% Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree Planning dept Thaco Figure 2.5: Result for content “I want to stick with the company for a long time” 9 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com When I refer to the "Overall, I feel very pleased to work here" content, the percentage of people who agreed with this idea at Thaco is highest (the level of agree is 47%, the neutral level is 24%).
However, if only employees in planning department are counted, the rate of disagree is very high (41%), while the agree rate is very low (12%). Similar to the content "I want to stick with the company for a long time", I also obtained similar results. Therefore, I came up with a preliminary conclusion that employees who are working in the planning department are not happy with their current job, which leads to them being easily off work. In this view, I continue to analyze the remaining contents of the survey to find out what the real cause of this problem is.
The reason why I think the rate of leave at the planning department is a serious problem, because of two reasons as follows. First, this is a department that plays an important role of the governance apparatus, because the staff in this department will be the advisers to the board of chairman with strategy for short-term and long-term operations for a large corporation like Thaco, thus changing personnel continuously will create instability, directly affecting the progress and quality of the work. Secondly, recruiting staff for this department always sets a more special standard than other departments. Because personnel work in the planning strategy department in addition to professional knowledge and skills, they must also have long-term experience in the automotive industry (companies will usually prefer experienced candidates with long time experienced through many positions such as sales, marketing.
This requirement is very important, decisive to acumen and good strategic vision, from which to consult and draw action plans for the company. Therefore, suitable human resources for this position are quite scarce, so it is always a great challenge for HR department to recruit new people for this department. 10 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. CAUSE EFFECT MAP: Initial cause-effect map: Symptom Main problem Employee dissatisfaction Inappropriate job assignment High voluntary turnover Low salary High pressure working environment Performance Appraisal Bias Possible problems In order to find out the reasons for explaining the high rate of employee retrenchment in the planning department, I have conducted in-depth interviews with 3 informants: Former deputy manager, Planning specialist and current Manager of Planning department.
Through the content of the interview with these three subjects, I found the reason why many of the planning department employees felt dissatisfied with their current work, thereby making many people decide to quit job.