High turnover rate and job stress of salesman in orient commercial bank

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
----------------------------------

Nguyen Ho Thanh An

HIGH TURNOVER RATE AND JOB
STRESS OF SALESMAN IN
ORIENT COMMERCIAL BANK

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City, Year 2018

1


UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
----------------------------------

Nguyen Ho Thanh An

HIGH TURNOVER RATE AND JOB
STRESS OF SALESMAN IN
ORIENT COMMERCIAL BANK
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: PROF. NGUYEN THI MAI TRANG

Ho Chi Minh City, Year 2018

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Executive Summary
Banking industry has been witnessing a lot of growth, improving on its technological and
global competition within banks. With the strategy to expand the market, OCB has a plan
to establish more than 20 branches and agencies throughout Vietnam from 2017-2020, it
create the need of a huge human resource to run this business plan. However, the turnover
rate of OCB has been continuously growing by recent years.
The objective of this research is to find out what problems are affecting OCB employee
retention and making high turnover rate over recent years.
Using secondary data from the HR department and primary data from in-depth interviews
with two groups of interviewees who are the current employees and ex-employees who quit
job at OCB, the research found out that the job stress is the central business problem that
leads to the high turnover rate.
Next, in deeper analysis about potential causes of the problem, it is found that work
overload, and work-life imbalance or work-family conflict are root causes leading to job
stress .
Forwards, the paper suggests that the alternatives which is mixed combination of the
redesign and apply the new model to put the right person into right function in sales team
are proposed to reduce the job stress of OCB salesman.
Finally, the action plan with detailed steps was presented to implement this solution.

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Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge all people who supported me during my studies.
First, I would like to thank my supervisor – Professor Nguyen Thi Mai Trang for all her
advice and guidance, without her help this could not have been possible.

Then, I also would like to show my gratitude to my manager, my colleagues at OCB who
gave me chance to conduct the research and spent time on interviews with me to come up
the result of this thesis.
I also send my sincere thankfulness to my parents and friends for their support and
encouragement.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION ............................................................................................................8
1.1

1.1.1

Company history ....................................................................................................................8

1.1.2

Company Vision, Mission and Core Value ............................................................................8

1.1.3

Company structure .................................................................................................................9

1.2

Problem symptoms – Turnover rate status in OCB ................................................................9

1.2.2

Justify the consequences of the selected symptoms that lead to further investigation .........10

Potential problems and justify the main problem .........................................................................11

1.3.1

Income dissatisfaction and high turnover rate ......................................................................11

1.3.2

Lack of career development opportunity and high turnover rate .........................................12

1.3.3

Job stress and high turnover rate ..........................................................................................13

1.3.4

Initial Cause and Effect map: ...............................................................................................15

1.3.5

Problem justification ............................................................................................................15

CAUSE VALIDATION: ......................................................................................................................16
2.1

3

Problem context: ............................................................................................................................9

1.2.1
1.3

2

Company background ....................................................................................................................8

Potential causes of problem and justification – The factors cause job stress ...............................16

2.1.1

Work overload: .....................................................................................................................17

2.1.2

Work family conflict/ work-life imbalance ..........................................................................19

2.2

Cause and Effect Map: .................................................................................................................20

2.3

Cause justification: .......................................................................................................................21

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS: ..........................................................................................................22

3.1
The first alternative solution: Redesign job to enhance specializations and place the employees
in appropriate job .....................................................................................................................................22

4

3.2

The second alternative solution: increase training, coaching and sharing in workplace. .............25

3.3

Justification and select the solution:.............................................................................................28

IMPLEMENTATION ..........................................................................................................................29
Detailed action plan..................................................................................................................................30

5

CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................................32

6

SUPPORTING INFORMATIONS .....................................................................................................33
6.1

INTERVIEW GUIDE ..................................................................................................................35

6.1.1

Group 1: Manager/ staff/ saleman who are currently working at Company OCB ...............35

6.1.2

Group 2: Salemans who already left OCB Company...........................................................37
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6.2

SUMMARY OF TRANSCRIPTS ...............................................................................................38

6.2.1

Group 1: Manager/ staff/ saleman who are currently working at Company OCB ...............38

First session: To find the problem in OCB...........................................................................................38
Second session: To find the solution ....................................................................................................51
6.2.2
6.3

Group 2: Salemans who already left OCB Company...........................................................59

APPENDIX ..................................................................................................................................66

REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................................68

6

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: OCB structure - From OCB Annual Report 2016 ....................................................................9
Figure 2:Cause and Effect Map ................................................................................................................21

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Yearly turnover rate in OCB .......................................................................................................9
Table 3: Yearly turnover rate in OCB, break down in each group .......................................................10
Table 4: Change in recruitment cost and training cost ..........................................................................11
Table 6: Budget to conduct the first solution ...........................................................................................24
Table 7: Budget to conduct the second solution ......................................................................................27

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1

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

1.1 Company background
1.1.1 Company history
Established on June 10, 1996 in Ho Chi Minh City, Orient commercial joint stock
bank (OCB) is providing the financial services for corporation and retail, there are three
main segments: Big Enterprises, SMEs and Individual customers.
Nowadays, OCB has nearly 200 business units in 120 transaction points nationwide
with around 5000 employees, and presented in all major cities and economic zones in the
Vietnam. Over the years, OCB has experienced double the average growth rate of the
industry, The bad debt rate has always been controlled at the low level, ensuring the high
and stable operating ratios (1). In 2017, total assets of OCB reached 84,353 billion, up
32.2% compared to 2016. Notably, pre-tax profit reached 1.018 billion; NPLs was
controlled at 1.48% (2). At the same year, OCB accomplished the Basel II – risk

management project and OCB got ranking B2 by Moody’s (one of the three most
prestigious credit rating agencies in the world) – the highest level of commercial banks in
Vietnam. (1)
1.1.2 Company Vision, Mission and Core Value
Vision: Become a top commercial bank in financial service for retail and small - medium
enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam.
Mission: Create the effective financial solutions to bring the highest value to customers
and investors, contribute positively to the development of community and society by
building enthusiastic and customer-oriented workforce. (1)
Five core values (1)
1.

Customer-centered

2.

Professionalism

3.

Speed

4.

Creativity

5.

Friendliness
8

1.1.3 Company structure

Figure 1: OCB structure - From OCB Annual Report 2016

Notes: *: there are some sub – internal complex departments inside.
1.2 Problem context:
1.2.1 Problem symptoms – Turnover rate status in OCB
In the period of 2017-2020, OCB targets to increase the average scale from 30 to
40% per year. With the strategy to expand the market, OCB has a plan to establish more
than 20 branches and agencies throughout Vietnam from 2017-2020, it create the need of
a huge human resource to run this business plan.
However, the turnover rate of OCB, is higher than the industry average which is
16.8% in 2014 (Compared with industry average turnover rate is around 13.6% for Banking
and finance sector - Tower Watson (3) ) and it has been increasing in next three years from
2015 – 2017 as the table below.
Table 1: Yearly turnover rate in OCB
Year

2014

2015

2016

Turnover rate

16,8%

17,2%

18.9 %

2017
21.1%

Source: Statistic of HR Department OCB from 2014-2017

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1.2.2 Justify the consequences of the selected symptoms that lead to further
investigation
Although the turnover rate of all departments are quite high, turnover rate of salesman is
chosen as the objective of the problem identification due to some reasons: First, in
branches, the turnover rate of salesman is the highest with 20% . Second, the percentage of
salesman among OCB employee is about 65% with over 3000 salesman in 2016 and it
takes the highest portion. Last but not least, if the turnover rate of salesman continue to
increase, it increases recruitment and training cost for new salesman, it takes time for new
employees are recruited and overcome the probation, so there might be not enough
employees for the expanding strategy. Therefore, it is harmful for the company to achieve
the sale goal in following years and the expanding strategy of OCB if the turnover rate of
salesman is till high.
As can be seen from the statistics of HR department, the turnover rate of OCB is so high
in both head office and branches, especially in sales department.
Table 2: Yearly turnover rate in OCB, break down in each group
Average

number

of Number of Leave- job

Ratio

employee

employee

Head Office

812

136

16.7%

BOD

21

3

14.3%

Head of department

59

10

16.9%

Executive

732

123

16.8%

Branches

4221

817

19.4%

Director

300

52

17.3%

Team leader

900

162

18.0%

Salemans

3021

603

20.0%

Total

5033

953

18.9%

Source: Statistic of HR Department OCB in 2016

Talking about the seriousness of this issue, Mrs. A – Deputy of HR manager stated that:
“OCB has faced the problems related to high turnover rate of staffs. The turnover
rate is very high compare to industry average rate is 15.9%. Company could not
recruit more staff quickly to be in charge of new jobs.”
10

The recruitment cost and training cost for new salesman are estimated to rise a lot in 2017.
Table 3: Change in recruitment cost and training cost
Year

15 employees

Increasing
percentage of
cost *
300%

12 employees

172%

2016

Employee
number
of 5 employees
Recruitment team for sale
Employee
number
of 7 employees
Training center
Number of Training course 154 basic courses
for new salesman

2017

306 basis courses 198%
for new salesman

Source: HR fluctuation report and training report

In the next part, the problem identification will be discussed and investigated.
1.3 Potential problems and justify the main problem
It is important to figure out the reasons for high turnover rate of salesman in OCB and its
consequences.
In addition, to investigate the causes lead to high turnover rate in salesman, 3 in-depth
interview sessions are conducted with two main objective interviewee groups (first group:
managers/supervisors/workers who are currently working in OCB, second group: workers
who already left OCB). From results of in-depth interview, it can be seen there are a variety
of view about some groups of factors lead to high turnover rate. However, there are three
potential problems are suggested are income dissatisfaction, lack of career development
opportunity and job stress.
1.3.1 Income dissatisfaction and high turnover rate
Regarding to income, Carraher SM (4) showed that there is a relationship between pay
satisfaction and turnover. To retain employees, the company needs to make better salary
policy than what competitor’s offers.
From in-depth interviews, it is found that the income dissatisfaction exists in OCB,
however manager of OCB and staffs (included still working and leaving OCB) have some
different views about the C&B policy and income of salesman in OCB.
While employees said that people who have low performance or who are young with less
customer relationship cannot stand with this salary policy.
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Mr. D – Employee who left and change the job, also gave some opinions:
“The salary does not increase but the target increases quickly. Wages based on the level of

completion of business targets, so if anyone cannot meet the sale target, the salary is low, even not
enough for living cost.”

Whereas most of high and middle manager point out that the C&B policy and income are
reasonable because the performance-based salary for salesman will be the motivation factor
to push the sale and revenue of OCB. In addition, they have also claimed the efficiency of
this policy in increasing the productivity in business.
Mrs. A- Deputy of HR manager of OCB stated that:
“It is clear that the C&B policy in which income increase parallel with KPI increase is the key
success of business organization.”

Mr. C – Sale manager of South area of OCB said that:
“I think the C&B policy for salemans is acceptable because it increases along with the KPI
employee achieve. Now OCB has been changing the incentive policy in which employee get over
KPI will get the attractive bonus, so I think it is acceptable.”

Because the range of salary is confidential, I could not ask more information to compare
with other bank range outside. Additionally, the conflict in view between two sides who
are managers and who are employees in OCB and the salary issue need more time to
investigate. Therefore, it will be discussed more but not in this report.
1.3.2 Lack of career development opportunity and high turnover rate
Relating to development opportunity, Biswakarma G (5) pointed out that career growth
dimensions negatively related to employees’ turnover intentions.
From two sections of interviews, there are some different points of view from manager of
OCB and staffs (included still working and leaving OCB).
Salesman said that because of development program always provide for the group of
employees who performs well, in which employees who perform in medium (not low),
they cannot find the opportunity to promote or time to be promoted is very slow.
Mr. H – Sale staff just have job at other organization said that:
“I could not find the opportunity to promotion. If I apply for new organization, my position will

be higher and my income will higher too.”

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Managers shared that OCB has already had the career path for salesman and they also
provide some development program for salesman every year. However, the high position
is always limited and they could only provide for the best one and see other people left.
Mr. C – Sale manager of South area of OCB said that:
“About the development in OCB, salesman will start with the position assistant, then they will
promote to relation executive and then relation manager, super relation manager and final one is
branch manager. The time to promote is based on their performance, but at least 6 months to 1
years of every level”

Mrs. A- Deputy of HR manager of OCB stated that:
“The career path for salesman is clear. We have the development program for salesman in branches.
However the ability of internal employees is not meet the requirement of the position to promote
is not enough. Those are the reasons why we can’t offer more salary and development opportunity
for them.”

After discussing more about the career path of salesman with Mrs A, the career path of
salesman in OCB is reasonable and the speed to be promoted is fast if they have good sale
performance and good leadership skill. Because everyone have chance to join the
development program if they could get well performance in continuous two term in OCB
and their leadership is adequate. For those who doesn’t have the excellent performance it
takes a long time to join the development program because of limitation of high position.
Those are the reasons why some employees claims about the career opportunities as above.
Since lack of career development opportunity issue need more time to investigate, it will
be discussed more but not in this report.
1.3.3 Job stress and high turnover rate

Many following researchers pointed out that stressful work is one of causes to
turnover. Oginni et al (6) clarified a significant relationship between job stress and high
turnover rate. Job stress significantly influenced to labour turnover with a strong positive
correlation. Leontaridi et al (7) also gave some conclusions in their research. They found
that the individuals who have reported experiencing at least some stress in their current
position, have the tendency of quitting or being absent increasing with successively higher
work related stress levels.
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Addressing the issue of work pressure and work-life imbalance, OCB managers,
employees and others who left the bank also have same view. They all know the nature of
banking sector. The salesman, especially the salesman in banking industry face a lot of
stress and pressure. Not only the working time and workload make them unable to have a
work life balance, but also sale target and time pressure every month appear as a nightmare
for the employees if they don’t have enough customer relationship or lack the of ability to
attract customer. The legal risk is always high for the salesman in banking sectors. If they
lose the control and go against ethics to get more customers who don’t have a good credit
history or have bad finance, they may face disciplinary action which may lead to
imprisonment.
The OCB managers pointed out one of main reasons leading to high turnover rate is
job stress with pressure and workload.
Mrs. X – A Branch manager said that:
“One of the main reasons for high turnover rate high in the front-line staff is that they usually work
overtime, from 8 am-10pm, 3-4 days a week. It is difficult to balance their work and family life,
especially saleswoman who is female, they cannot continue do their work with this salesman
position, many of them looking for another job.”

Ms. Th –Team leader shared that:
“The workload is the root of the problems. Beside the sale task, meeting people, making financial

analysis for customer , they always need to fulfil the procurement , paperwork and work on the
online system. In addition, they need to care for the loan of customer from the beginning to
disbursement.We go home late and don’t have the balance in work and life.”

The employees also confirm about these issues which make they quit the job relate to
working overtime and work-family conflict which present for job stress.
Ms. L – quit the job shared that:
“Normal working hours is 8-10 hours a day, every morning must be in the bank before 8 am, 8 pm
home to come back so every day 9pm to sit at the dinner table. I think that is very harmful for my
health and I have no time for shopping and going coffee with friends, even lack of time for the
family, boyfriends.”

Mrs Tr – also shared the reason that made her left OCB:

14


“There are many pressure that make this profession stressful- the workload, the time pressure and
especially, the work-family conflict has been my case.”

Both managers and employees confirmed about the existence of job stress problem that the
salesman faces in banking sector and especially in OCB, which lead resignation of many
OCB salesman. It is essential to find more relevant causes leading to this, in order to resolve
this.
1.3.4 Initial Cause and Effect map:
Some key point what employees (not manager) who attended the interview mentioned.

1.3.5 Problem justification
To sum up, through literature review and the interview, there are three main reasons
lead to the high turnover rate: low income, lack of development opportunity and job stress.

It is found that there are conflicting views between manager and staff about the income and
development opportunities. In salesman view, their salary is low compared with industry
average level. While the board of management argue salary should be depend on
performance that create the motivation for employee and achieve the business goal.
Moreover, C&B policy also required many considerations before changing because the
policy to increase of salary and benefit for all employees is applied, it will spend a huge
amount of money every month and risk for finance balance. In term of career development
15


opportunity, the current company structure is fully filled with competence managers thus
it’s given the view that there is little room for all salesman to be promoted but only the best
performance may get the chance. Regarding to C&B policy and career path opportunity,
these issues can not be solved immediately. It’s required a wise and comprehensive longterm strategic planning to change the C&B policy and career path opportunity for all
employees. Those are the reasons why I do not choose to continously investigate more
about these two potential problem in this research. In term of job stress, there are same
view between salesman and manager, because everyone all know about the nature of job
of bankers and especially the job stress situation in OCB. It’s quite stress to be a salesman,
thus many staffs have left the organization because they could not stand for it. Additionally,
many potential cause of job stress is able to see and investigate to find main causes and
solutions. Therefore, job stress is chosen as a main factor to draw cause and effect map to
further investigate.
2

CAUSE VALIDATION:

2.1 Potential causes of problem and justification – The factors cause job stress
From the results of interview, the job stress in salesman are mentioned a lot. Beside the
sale task, meeting people, make financial analysis for customer, they always need to fulfil
the procurement, paper work and work on the online system also to care for the loan of

customer from the beginning to disbursement. The reasons can lead to the having job stress
might be the lack of skill and knowledge, they don’t have enough ability to do all tasks in
process and accomplish the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Salemans go home late,
don’t have the balance in work and life. Monthly target make them always running with
time and have the nightmare with number of sale target and time to achieve.
There are a lot of factors lead to job stress such as work overload, pressure, work-family
conflict, job security etc. According to Rizwan et al. (8), role conflict, work overload and
work family conflict are the factor impact and lead to job stress in Banking Sector. Work
overload, pressure, confliction etc. are responsible for stress, as result research of Dhankar
(9). In the research of Oginni et al. (6), It was also found that work pressure, job security
were some of the main sources of job stress to bankers and show intention to quit the job.
16


Through the respondents and literature review, there are two main causes lead to job stress
in OCB, which are discussed as bellow.
2.1.1 Work overload:
The work overload is defined as inappropriateness between the role also required the time
and demand, stated by Rizzo et al. (10)
Through the in - depth interview result in OCB, interviewees has shared many things
relating to work overload, that make salesman get stress.
Ms. Th –Team leader shared that:
“ The saleman, especially the saleman in banking industry face a lot of stress and pressure. The
workload is the root …”

From opinions of interviewees, the workload is over come from the role conflict because
of a lot of multitasking, not appropriate assignment or lack of salesman ability.
In OCB, salesman have a lot of duties at the same time because they must do almost the
process. In corporate sector, salesman has to go out to find the customer then making
financial analysis and risk analysis. In retail sector, salesman not only need to find the

customer who need the loan and make personal finance analysis and they need cross-sale,
they need to persuade customer give their money to saving at bank or buy the insurance.
Therefore, they have many roles to be in charge in their job and have many Key
Performance Indicators (KPIs) to pursue. Whenever employees are expected to perform
two or more roles that are not feasible or complicated, this creates role expectations, that
leads to role conflict, which ultimately results in job stress.
Sharing about the multitask of salesman, Ms Th said:
“Beside the sale task, meeting people, make financial analysis for customer, they always should
fulfil the procurement, paper work and work on the online system also to care for the loan of
customer from the beginning to disbursement. …

Additionally, salesman, especially, fresh graduate salesman who are not have enough skill
and knowledge will be hard in accomplishing all tasks at the same time, then it makes them
get stress. It is expected that branch manager and senior employees in every branch could
provide the on-board training at their own branch. However, most of branch manager said
17


that they are busy with sale and they are lack of coaching skill, and then it is unknown that
they provide the knowledge and skill enough for their new employee or not. New employee
especially fresh graduate and non-experience in banking sector could not imagine enough
about their roles. They could not know where to direct his or her efforts and do not have
enough knowledge and skill to accomplish all the targets of their job. Then it lead to job
stress for the junior salesman and then they quit job easily.
Mrs A said that:
“The number of saleman fluctuate because they are fresh graduates, lack of experience and lack of
relationship, so some of them did not accomplish the KPIs of sale and did not get the expected
salary. Therefore, they are easy to give up in first and second years.”

Ms. Th –Team leader shared that:

“In my opinion, some reasons can lead to the work overload might be the lack of skills and
knowledge, they don’t have enough ability to get the KPI… And It is difficult to find new

customer in competitive market now, it is the challenge that make a lot of junior employee
to give up the job”

Finally, the assignment is not appropriate with which salesman are good at, that also is root
lead to work overload and make salesman get stress. Some people are good at networking
and get the customer relationship, but they are not good in analysis. Whereas, someone
who is really good at financial and risk analysis to make proposal, they are not good at
communication to get the customer relationship. Those brings them face a struggle in
accomplish the KPIs and always feel overload.
Mr T – Branch manager said that:
“My branch have 3 sale teams, although everyone are recruited to work as sale. After long time,
everyone work independently and do all the stuff things in JDs said, they said they are overload
because of doing what they are not good at, make them spend more time”

The workload leading job stress is also confirmed in many researches. Through survey
employees working in India banking sector, Lopes et al. (11) find out more than 50% of
employees across various banks feel stress because of work overload and time pressures.
The same results in the research of Priya et al. (12). In the other research, Abbasi TF (13)
stated that work overload that is a dilemma in almost every organizational sector to perform
18


more activities at one time, consequence of this are in the form of increase in stress,
turnover intentions, and lower job satisfaction and his research confirmed that work
overload has negative effect on stress, turnover, and job satisfaction.
Through theory informed and interviews conducted in OCB, workload of salesman in OCB
is heavy and it could lead to the job stress with relation to high turnover rate.

2.1.2 Work family conflict/ work-life imbalance
Work occupies a huge space in our life. People devote more and more in their work
to achieve a position in society. In case of OCB, through the interview results, some of
respondents said that they lose the balance time spending for work and family, this lead
them choose to leave or change the job in bank sector.
Ms. Th –Team leader also shared that
“We go home late, don’t have the balance in work and life. Monthly sale target make us always
running with time and have the nightmare with number of KPIs and time to achieve them."

It means work- family conflict or work-life imbalance also the factor makes OCB
salesman feels stress.
A lot of work to achieve the sale target every month and keep the accurate procedure
in the limited time, which lead to the time pressure on salesman and may impact the job
performance and decision making by its influences. Continuously low job performance and
unwise decisions for a long time might lead to job stress. In addition, most respondents of
OCB in interview feel stress when in some day they had to work until 9-10 pm when the
work hour ended at 5 pm. They felt not easy to keep the balance between work life and
family life. Time pressure and monthly sale target make salesman need to work overtime
and spend more time at work even at night which should be for family and their own
personal life.
Mrs X said:
“One of main reasons for turnover rate high in the front-line staff is that they work under time
pressure, from 8 am-10pm, 3-4 days a week. It is difficult to balance their work and family”

Ms. L – quit the job shared that:
“Normal working hours is 8-10 hours a day, every morning must be in the bank before 8 am, 8 pm
go home, I must have dinner about 9 pm and it replays every day.”
19

Especially, for those who are married, they are stress because pressure to balance the role
at family and at work. Family pressure also the root lead to stress of them. According to
Dubrin (14), work-family conflict was considered as individual’s role conflict occurs when
an individual has dual roles as a working father or a working mother.
Mrs Tr shared her case:
“Because the work is include both meeting customer, financial analysis and paper work. I start
working at 8 am but the end could be 8 pm with no overtime allowance. Sometime I need to go out
for drink with customer after 5 pm. My husband do not like it and advise me to leave. Even, some
of my female colleagues had the same situation. One day, I realized that I need to change my job
to protect my health and care for my family.”

The work-family confict or work-life imbalance leading job stress is also confirmed in
many researches. Regarding to the effect of work family conflict in job stress, general
findings of Nart et al.. (15) showed negative effect of work-family conflict on job stress
and partial effect on organizational commitment. They also found out that job stress causes
a negative effect on organizational commitment. Additionally, Surienty et al. (16) also
found out that work-life balance, supervisory behavior and job characteristics have the
negative regative impact to turnover intention. Therefore, Work-life imbalance or workfamily conflict also present as a factor make job stress at OCB and as the predictor of
turnover intention.
2.2 Cause and Effect Map:
From above analysis based on theory informed and interview conducted in OCB, it could
be summarized as cause and effect map below:

20


Figure 2:Cause and Effect Map

2.3 Cause justification:
To sum up, based on the interviews and theory informed, there are two main causes lead

to job stress at OCB which are work overload and work-family conflict or work-life
imbalance.
Through the analysis of causes, it is obvious to see the connection of two main causes.
When salesman are overburdened with work it leads the salesman working overtime and
it causes the work – life imbalance, then the work-life imbalance continuously stresses
employees . Therefore, work overload needs to be prioritized to discover the solution.
When the workload will be more reasonable, it will help salesman to reduce the overtime
in work and make work-life balance. The following section will discuss about the
alternative measures to solve the reasons causing work overload in OCB.

21


3

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS:

3.1 The first alternative solution: Redesign job to enhance specializations and
place the employees in appropriate job
Through the analysis of cause relating work overload, multitasking and multi-role in the
salesman job is the one of root leading work overload and make employee get stress. To
solve this cause, job need to be redesign, then allowing employees have more control over
their jobs and works in their areas of specialization are the method to reduce the work
stress, stated by Nweke (17). Kaur et al. (18) also agreed and pointed out that jobs which
are hampering employees’ abilities and capacities should either be eliminated or redesigned
according to employees potential.
Discuss about this solutions, there are some agreement from manager and also employees:
Mr C – The area manager emphasized that:
“ In fact, the BOD are considering to separate the sale team in Branches into 2 group, one is
customer relationship which specialize in attracting customer for branches and one is credit service

which specialize in assisting the customer relationship finish the credit proposal include finance
analysis, risk management and paper work before and after the deal done.”

Ms. Linh who have the new job as salesman at other financial company also agree about
the specializations could help her more fulfil in job.
“In the new place, there are the specializations in our work distribution. My team had enough the
people for every position, so the task work smoothly, I don’t need to cover a lot of work and work
overtime anymore. Moreover, I am assigned what I am really good at, instead of a lot of
unnecessary work as before. I feel I grow up in career everyday”

Steps to conduct this solution:
According to Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (19), there are five steps
to conduct the job redesign:
 Do an assessment of current work practices.
 Do a task analysis.
 Design the job.
 Implement the new job design gradually.
 Re-evaluate job design on a continual basis.
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Based on discussion with some consulting expert, I recommend this project should be
conducted by internal employees, not outsource it to external employees to conduct the
project because the budget is limited and the internal employees can understand the
situation of OCB more than the other.
To deal with situation that assignment are not appropriate with ability lead to work
overload and job stress in salesman, we must consider to the recruitment as the first stage
in progress put wrong people in wrong place.
From literature, Khattak et al. (20) also stated that it is important to place employee in
appropriate division of labor to reduce workload.

When asking the opinion from OCB managers about this solution, I got some confirmation
as belows
Mr C – The area manager also confirmed that:
“With this consideration, the HR department must add the method to identify the ability of
candidate which advise the branch manager in the recruitment processs and to give candidate the
suitable position into 2 group.”

Then, for the current staffs, it is not reasonable if force them to quit, then the better step is
rearrange current employee into suitable group of work and give them a opportunity to
work on field they good at. This is the key successful point, one of branch manager who
rearrange successfully sharing.
Mr T – branch manager emphasized about his solution for this situation:
“To keep the team work effective, I have already divided every team into some smaller groups and
rearrange the work for each people. The “Shark” group is include people who are excellent in
finding customer and bring customer to OCB, “Bear” group is include people who are excellent in
analysis and evaluation customer, newbies group is include the junior people who are ordered to
rotate and help both team to enhance the skills and knowledge.”

Through the literature and opinion from branch manager who dealt with this problem
successfully in his branches, placing the employees in appropriate job position could be
the first solution to solve the existing job stress. To place the employees in appropriate job
position, HR department should consider adding the aptitude test to recommend branch
manager to arrange employee into right place.
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Pros:
From opinions which collected from interviews and many researches mentioned above,
this solutions can bring these below benefits to company
 Allowing employees have more control over their jobs and works in their areas of

specialization are the method to reduce the work stress.
 Place employee in appropriate division of labor to reduce workload.
 Assign tasks based on the particular strengths and abilities of individuals, ensuring
equity throughout the process is one of action to decrease workload for employees.
 Utilize the advantage and ability of employees to create the mutual goal of team and
branches. Employees accomplish the work in the working time and no need to work
overtime more like before.
 Quality of work might be increase because the right people do the right work could
lead to the effectiveness.
Cons:
 The cost to conduct this solution is estimated as below:
Table 4: Budget to conduct the first solution
Description

Estimate cost

In-depth interview between HR and Division/Branch managers in OCB
about the structure in sale team to redesign the JD which is more effective.

15,000,000

Allowance for expert who design the JD and KPIs for sale team. (25 million/
month)

75,000,000

Allowance for 2 HR employees who joined in project team in 3 month. (5
million/month)

30,000,000

Cost of training the new structure in sale team and new JDs to all branches in
OCB within 3 areas in Vietnam, which conducted by internal trainer from the
design team (11,000,000 million/class)

33,000,000

Purchase the aptitude test bank from outside

154,000,000

Total

307,000,000

Notes: The full estimated budget is presented in Appendix 1. Based on the average salary and allowance,
the rule of business trip cost and training cost in OCB, market price.

 For OCB, there are some challenges. It might be take more time to employee
familiar with new job design and it is unsure whether the employee are assigned
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into the appropriate part in sale team in the first period.
 For employees, they could be potential for boredom, obsolescence and limited skill
set. Because employees might feel boring if they keep doing the same job from year
to year, and then mastering in only one part of process might lead they limit their
skills, could become out of date in the daily changing world today.
3.2 The second alternative solution: increase training, coaching and sharing in
workplace.

When employees don’t know exactly what they’re supposed to do, how to do their jobs or
why they need to work a certain way, they could spend time more on useless task and it
lead to work overload. It is essential to find the solution to help salesman, especially junior
salesman enhance the knowledge and skill related to job, then save the time spending on
correcting mistakes and the problem solving necessary to correct bad performances, then
employees will not suffer from job stress more and more.
Many researches pointed that training and coaching is also the method to help employee
handle with workload and job stress.
According to Nweke (17), training is also viewed as essential. It is helpful in building
confidence on workers and makes them deliver their jobs with speed through their
acquisition of new techniques in dealing with their job demands, then they could manage
their time to handle work and have less stress.
To reduce the stress for employee, David L (21) also emphasized the organization should
make sure employees have the resources and training to do their jobs well.
Enekwe et al. (22) also showed in their research that the most helpful method of dealing
with stress is learning how to manage it. These acquired skills when learned work best
when they are used regularly and not just when the work pressure is on. The management
of banks should arrange, from time to time on their own, training their employees on some
stress management mechanisms.
Managers from OCB also confirm that training is really essential and need to do as early
as possible for new employees.
Mr C said that:
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