The solution to enhance time management skill at expeditors vietnam co , ltd case of ocean export department

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

Nguyen Trong Huu

THE SOLUTION TO ENHANCE
TIME MANAGEMENT SKILL AT
EXPEDITORS VIETNAM CO., LTD
CASE OF OCEAN EXPORT
DEPARTMENT

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018


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

Nguyen Trong Huu

THE SOLUTION TO ENHANCE
TIME MANAGEMENT SKILL AT
EXPEDITORS VIETNAM CO., LTD
CASE OF OCEAN EXPORT
DEPARTMENT

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
SUPERVISOR: Dr. LE NHAT HANH

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018


Tab of content
Acknowledgments
Executive Summary
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
Chapter 1. Problem identification ............................................................................................ 1
1.1.

Company background ............................................................................................... 1

1.1.1.

Company overview ............................................................................................ 1

1.1.2.

Company’s structure .......................................................................................... 3

1.2.

Background of problems ........................................................................................... 4

1.2.1.

An overview to working time in Vietnam ......................................................... 4

1.2.2.

An overview to working time at Expeditors Vietnam ....................................... 6

1.2.3.

An overview to working time symptom in Ocean Export department .............. 8

1.3.

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

1.3.1.

Problem definition ........................................................................................... 15

1.3.2.

Justify existing problem .................................................................................. 17

1.3.3.

Justify the importance of the problem ............................................................. 22

1.4.

Potential causes ....................................................................................................... 25

1.5.

Causes validation .................................................................................................... 25

Chapter 2: Alternative Solution analysis ............................................................................... 30
2.1.

Alternative Solutions .............................................................................................. 30

2.1.1.

Solution 1: Distinguish between Urgent and Important .................................. 30

2.1.2.

Solution 2: Planning by setting goal ................................................................ 32

2.1.3.

Solution 3: Setting expectation and To-do list to follow ................................. 34

2.2.

Action Plan ............................................................................................................. 36

Chapter 3. Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 39
In-depth Interviews ................................................................................................................ 44
References ............................................................................................................................. 69


Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to sincere gratitude to all who have made this thesis possible and an
unforgettable experience of mind, especially, my gracious research supervisor – Dr. Le Nhat
Hanh. Her professionalism and patience provided me the power to overcome any challenges
to finish this thesis.

Besides that, I would like to thank all my friends, family and colleagues at Expeditors Vietnam
Co., Ltd. – Ho Chi Minh Branch for their great support for me. Also, I would take this
opportunity to say thank to Mr. Manh Hoang Tuan – my manager at the company. Everyone
was so generous that they provided endless help to make this thesis project a dream come
true.

Once again, thank you and wish you all the best!
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Nguyen Trong Huu


Executive Summary
Each organization has its own problems and it is very important to determine the right
problem. Once the real problem is defined, the organization then is able to propose the right
solutions with the right time investment. Mistakes in determining the real problem may lead
to wastes of resources.
This research study was designed to accesses the real cause of high working time of the
company and ineffective time management skill was defined is one of main problem while
time management is significant problem for many organizations. After finding various
symptoms such as excessive working hours, low health of employee, and turnover rate, the
author managed to identify the central problem by applying root cause analysis method. Then,
based on literature reviews, surveys and face to face interview, it was recognized that high
working time is the central problem in this organization.
The question is “Can people be productive after 10, 11, 12 or even 16 hours of working a
day?”

The 40 hours workweek has run off into the sunset, and overtime working has become a
reality for millions of employees. It is the time to get a change of value corporate should place
on encouraging better balance between work and family with thoughtful leadership, good skill
assessment and learn tools to support people in the way of management.
Therefore, this study focused on a specific of a department to have a deep looks of the problem
and propose appropriate solutions. The findings revealed that the time management skill tends
to play a significant role in working time management of employees. Hence, “The solution
to enhance time management skill at Expeditors Vietnam Co., Ltd. – Case of Ocean
Export Department” aims to identify the root cause and improve this skill.


List of Figures
Figure 1: Expeditors’ Location Worldwide
Figure 2: EIVN’s structure
Figure 3: Vietnamese Overtime Compensation
Figure 4: Maximum overtime of an employee in one month between countries in region
Figure 5: Percentage of overtime working claimed per year
Figure 6: Overtime hours per staff from 2015 – 2017
Figure 7: Revenue contribution of products in 2017
Figure 8: Local Ocean Export structure
Figure 9: Overtime per staff in Ocean Export
Figure 10: Initial cause – effect map
Figure 11: Time management questionnaires
Figure 12: Turnover rate in EIVN
Figure 13: Updated Cause – Effect map
Figure 14: Final Cause – Effect map
Figure 15: The Eisenhower Box
Figure 16: S.M.A.R.T goals
List of Tables
Table 1: Company’s information

Table 2: Possible causes
Table 3: Action Plan


List of Abbreviations
EIVN: Expeditors Vietnam
EPE: Employee Personal Evaluation
PDC: Personal Development Center
HR: Human Resource
CHQ: Corporate Headquarter
SOP: Standard Operational Procedure
Hrs/hr: Hours


Chapter 1. Problem identification
1.1. Company background
1.1.1. Company overview
Expeditors was established 38 years ago from the initial idea of integrated services
with the combination of transportation services and customs brokerage. It is one of the
world’s largest logistics corporations at the present. Starting with just the Seattle office
in 1979, the corporation now has 331 locations in 109 countries.

Figure 1: Expeditors’ Location Worldwide
(Source: Internal)

Expeditors Vietnam Company Limited is a branch of Expeditors and it belongs to
Expeditors community in Asia where the company spends serious efforts in expanding
their business for more success. In 1993, the company started their first business
through co-operated with Saigon Freight Forwarding Company Limited.
After 7 years of operating in the Vietnam market, Expeditors saw a big potential there

and they did not waste the good chance. The first branch was established in Ho Chi

1


Minh in the year 2000. Their first location was located at E. Town Buildings, 364
Cong Hoa, Ward 13, Tan Binh District, Ho Chi Minh City. Currently, it is located on
the 8th floor of Flemington Buildings, 182 Le Dai Hanh Street, which is more
convenient for business transactions.
Furthermore, Expeditors went on to establish their settle office in Da Nang and one
office in Ha Noi in 2005. This decision helped the company complete their network
in the three most important areas in Vietnam: North, Centre and South. Fifteen years
after their establishment, Expeditors Vietnam is classified as one of the top logistics
companies in Vietnam.
For years, the development of international trade and new model of transports lead to
the expansion of forwarding service. Nowadays, forwarders are not only performing
customs clearance, but also providing all-in transportation services. Expeditors’ core
services are consolidating and forwarding of air or ocean freight, custom brokerage,
vendor

management,

cargo

consolidation,

cargo

insurance,

time-definite

transportation, order management, warehousing, distribution and customized logistics
solutions.
Table 1: Company’s information

INFORMATION OF EXPEDITORS COMPANY LIMITED - SGN
English name
Expeditors Vietnam Company Limited
Vietnamese name
Address
Phone
Fax
Website
Type of Company
Director
Capital
Tax code

CÔNG TY TNHH EXPEDITORS VIỆT NAM
8th Floor, The Flemington Tower, 182 Le Dai Hanh, Ward 15, District
11, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
(84-28) 39621868
(84-28) 39621988
www.expeditors.com
Private Limited Company
Michael Joseph Mooney
500 million VND
0312545104

2


1.1.2. Company’s structure

Figure 2: EIVN’s structure

-

At Expeditors Vietnam, we can separate into two big teams: Product team and
Service team.
o The product team is the team who makes the profit for the company
directly by handling shipments, such as: Order Management, Ocean
(Export and Import), Air (Export and Import), Transcon, Distribution, and
Customs Brokerage.

3


o The service team includes Accounting, Human Resource, Sales, Account
Management, Project Cargo and Information Systems.
1.2. Background of problems
1.2.1. An overview to working time in Vietnam
It is important for all companies to follow the law and regulations of Vietnam,
especially the Labor Law, which governs the regulations regarding minimum wages
and working time. One of the great benefits of Vietnam is that wages are low in
comparison to the rest of the regions. The Vietnamese’s government enumerates all
of these regulations under the Labor Law of 2012 (Law No. 10/2012/QH13), Decree
No. 05/2015/ND-CP, and Circular No. 23/2015/TT-BLDTBXH. Understanding how
these laws and guidance shape costs is of utmost importance for investors seeking to

maximize Vietnam’s potential as a low cost destination when doing business.
Overtime triggering: this is first consideration that the employer must ensure a
thorough understanding of when overtime is applied. This threshold will allow
organization for the optimization of production targets to optimize cost and time
constraints.
Pursuant to the regulations mentioned above, regular working hours cannot exceed 8
hours a day, or 48 hours a week. For employees who are working in heavy or
hazardous conditions, the maximum regular working time is 6 hours a day. If an
employee is required to work beyond these limits, overtime compensation will be
applied. Overtime compensation may be triggered and influenced by the time and date
that employees are engaged. Key triggers of overtime beyond hours worked include:
weekends, public holidays, and night hours – defined as between 22:00hr and 6:00hr

4


Overtime compensation: In the event that a company triggers overtime, organization
will be obligated to compensate employees beyond the wages that are outlined in their
contract. This is applicable to all employees regardless of the wages that are offered.
The following are the percentages in excess of standard that are to be applied in the
event that certain work-related thresholds are crossed.

Figure 3: Vietnamese Overtime Compensation
(Source: />
There are limitations on the number of overtime hours an employee is allowed to work.
Overtime hours cannot exceed 30 hours per month and 200 hours per year. In special
cases regulated by the government, yearly maximum can be increased to 300 hours
per year.
In addition, firms have proposed to remove the monthly overtime limit (currently no
more than 30 hours a month) because this regulation is rigid, not flexible, and not

suitable with the actual production cycle business of the business. Especially,
enterprises depend on export orders, depending on the season of business such as:
processing goods for export, processing seafood for exporting. The proposal to ensure
that the standard working hours of employees is no more than 12 hours a day and the

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total overtime hours do not exceed 400 hours a year is still under consideration. This
is because the maximum number of working hours per month of Viet Nam is lowest

Extra working time in one month

in comparison to other countries in the region. (Figure 4)

Figure 4: Maximum overtime of an employee in one month between countries in region
(Source: />
1.2.2. An overview to working time at Expeditors Vietnam
Based on the overtime working report from Human Resource, we can see that product team
is the group that has the biggest overtime ratio in the company in which the biggest ratio
belongs to Ocean Export team, its showing the number increases from 33% in 2015, 34% in
2016 and up to 50% in 2017.

6


PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL HOURS OF OVERTIME PER YEAR
60%

50%

50%
40%
30%

29%

29%

2016

29%
31%

20%

34%
33%

20%

2015

2017

0%
0%
0%

0%

0%
0%

0%
0%
0%

2%
0%
0%

5%
5%
6%

0%
0%
0%

8%
4%
3%

0%
0%
0%

8%
4%
7%

7%
8%

17%
11%

10%
0%

Figure 5: Percentage of overtime working claimed per year
(Source: HR)

From figure 6, in term of overtime hours for each staff per year, Ocean Export holds
the first position with 311 hours in 2016 and increased up to 406 hours in 2017.
Accounting reached out 339 hours in 2017, this is due to the change from E.I Freight
Forwarding to Expeditors Vietnam Co., Ltd. It was reasonable as the process took a
lot of time to work on document transition.

7


TOTAL OVERTIME HOURS PER STAFFF YEAR OVER YEAR
450
400

406

350
300

339
311

289

250

235

244
2015

200

2016

150
100
50
-

106
105

2017

121

95

70

81
74

42
11

37

16

- -

93
8 - -

25

93
16

- -

Regulation
- -

3 -

- -

Figure 6: Overtime hours per staff from 2015 – 2017
(Source: HR)

Starting from 2016, EIVN also changed the way to manage working time by systems
(called HRMS system), employees can log in the system and submit overtime before
every 18:00 (before they did by excel file) so the total hours has a big amount changed,
this will record in real number and real time while the regulation is not exceeding 300
hours per year.
1.2.3. An overview to working time symptom in Ocean Export department
In Expeditors’ network, Air product accounts for almost 50% of the company profit
contribution; EIVN is not an exception from this trend. For instance, in 2017, Air
product contributed 42% to the overall profit. Ocean came second with 30%; the rest
28% belonged to other products’, as shown in figure 7. The process of the Air product
is fairly simple; thus, working time is not a significant issue. The same scenario applies

8


for those departments other than Ocean product. Therefore, these departments can
temporarily be put aside.

Figure 7: Revenue contribution of products in 2017
(Source: internal)

Within the scope of this thesis, the main focus will be on the Ocean Export department.
Different aspects will be discussed to identify the root causes which lead to high
overtime.
Below is the structure of the local Ocean Export department:

Figure 8: Local Ocean Export’s structure

From figure 9, it is obvious that the trend of working hours for each person grows
continuously over the years. In 2015, the department was operated with 14 employees.
During this period, the average working hours was not significantly high. This was
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because employees were not willing to submit the paper to their manager for approval
and they were afraid of impacting their performance for a lot of overtime. There was
a breakthrough of number of shipment increment at the 250% of growth until 2017
and the staff number it’s up to 15 people in this year as well. If people consistently
work long hours, they would be exhausted and inevitably start falling behind in their
duties. Hence, the company should care about the amount of time its employees are
spending at work.
When making comparison between 2016 and 2017, with 311hrs of overtime we had
4,570 shipments handled over the year; and come to 2017, with appropriate 405hrs
overtime, the number of shipment expected around 5,710 shipments but actually was
5,406 shipments only. So it proved that the total shipment may not effect on the
working hours. There must be another factor which could affect the working hours.
As per interview with Ms. Suong Pham – Ocean Export manager, people are out of
control of their time. They are getting overwhelmed with job and seem to be difficult
to maintain a healthy social life when working up to 50hrs or more hours a week. Free
time to spend with family and close friends is not adequate with this work schedule.
Extended working hours can also reduce the quality of life by conflicting with quality
time for family and time for responsibilities and needs outside works. Repetitive work
when sustained in awkward postures increases the risk of developing musculoskeletal
disorders that damage the body’s muscles, joints, ligaments, tendons and nerves.
Employees continue suffering extended work hours and do not give their body
sufficient time to recover and repair its each day; otherwise their muscles might just

buckle under work pressure. Then they are unable to manage their time by daily job
overlapping.

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OVERTIME HOURS OF OCEAN EXPORT TEAM
6000
5000

4000
3000
2000
1000

0
Overtime per staff
# of shipment

2015

2016

2017

42

311

405

2350

4570

5406

Figure 9: Overtime per staff in Ocean Export

On the other hand, Lott Y (1) mentioned in his findings that working time also regimes
shape time arrangements. The author has spent the time in ocean department for
observation and realized that employees are still using a lot of time for keying data
manually to system. For instance, when measuring the time of customer service team,
its took nearly 1hr to finish the process of receiving booking from shipper then verify
the bookings; check appropriate vessel schedule to match with the cargo ready date;
check the rate to ensure they move the shipment with profitability and later send email
to customer to obtain approval to ship from consignee. If the customer in different
time zone, they have to wait one more day to process the booking to next step. After
these steps, they input data that received from shipper to system. During this process,
they have to receive and answer the calls from customers or just response the emails,
caused of distraction.
Mr. Cuong Tran – a customer service suggested an important aspect of a concept
called effective hours, which is the amount of time operates spend working on product.
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Many supervisors and managers gauge the daily activities around an 8-hour workday,
but operation team does not work 8 hours a day.
Let’s break it down into minutes:
 Time at work site: 480 minutes

 Breakfast: 30 minutes
 Coffee talks: 10 minutes
 Lunch: 60 minutes
 Afternoon break: 30 minutes
 Clean up: 15 minutes
Effective hours: 335 minutes (~5.6 hours)
In this example, the amount of time the team spends is 335 minutes – 5.6 hours. So in
total 8-hour of workday, employee actually works in 5.6hrs only and they need extra
hours to complete the job a day, then overtime is needed.
In additional, Ms. Thuy Do – Pricing Supervisor in Ocean Export stated that “The
working behavior of employees is quite weak, they tend to complete the job as quickly
as possible, and treat the job as an “assignment”. They try to finish without
understanding what they are doing or wondering why they have to do this step, just
work like a “robot”. Because of this, it makes them become more passive than ever,
lazy thinking and need to complete their job that was entrusted by their managers.
They are even comparing with higher level staffs when they think that: staffs at higher
level have to do more jobs and more responsively than lower ones. In fact, they just
want less job and more benefit from company. I believe in hiring people who have
passions outside of work”.

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Marianne et el (2) admitted that critical reflective working behavior will be
operationalized and this seems to be important influenced factors to be self-efficacy
and participation. Van et al (3) and Maneenet T (4) added “effective communication
plays an important role in managing working behavior and managing change”, the
aspect of behavior in working will be determining for the aspired results of the
workplace concept and the aim is to emphasis how employees to productivity.
The author later addressed the issue of high overtime to Mrs. Linh Dau –

Administration Assistant manager. She has been working for this company more than
10 years. She said: “In order to control overtime, the role of leader and manager are
significant. Leader will most fully understand their team and propose to manager to
allocate the workload how to efficiency; encourage people trying to improve their
skills in order to get higher pay, which is the major way to motivate people”. The
difference between leaders and managers is that leaders recognize the importance of
people, drive people how to do while managers are business-driven and generally
perceive people to be machines. Leaders are followed. According to Ortiz C (5), “Poor
leaders create a variety of problems in a company. A lot of the time their actions result
in overtime in an already unpleasant work environment. If leaders do not identify skill
sets in their people, those employees will be assigned work that does not relate to their
job abilities. Too often, employees are given workloads that are unbearable or do not
match their skill sets”.
Variously, Mr. Manh Hoang Tuan – Operation Manager indicated that in order to
finish one shipment, employee must go through 35 steps in the whole process. It is so
complicated and even they do not have enough recourses or effective tools to support
them for data entry so staffs seem not interest much in their job, they usually distracted

13


when working and have less involved in their job which lead to low performance.
Moreover, many employees said that more tasks were added than they did, they feel
no enthusiasm for working and low absorbed in the performance of work.
It is not come from only one level; these are based on the information getting from
various positions in the company and connect to the literature, the author explored that
the possible problems of high overtime symptom can be come from four of main
causes such as: un-qualified employees, ineffective time management skill, poor
working condition and poor leader. An initial cause - effective map can be firstly built
as following:

Figure 10: Initial cause – effect map

To remedy the symptom, it is crucial to find out a key problem that is the reason of
those bad states. Hence, organizations must be more proficient at problem solving,
which means – being able to distinguish between a problem and a symptom of a
problem, applying the rigor of a root cause analysis, and articulate the solution clearly,
concisely.

14


During the interview and observation in the company, the author recognized that the
ineffective time management skill can be main problem and need to solve immediately
so that the ration of overtime can be reduced accordingly. Poor working condition can
be a part of this issue due to lack to effective tool to help employees to manage time
consuming. Meanwhile employee is in good skill can arrange their time to improve
productivity significantly. With leader skill, company is enhancing the program to
develop the people that call “Leadership flat form”, this program tends to commit with
the company’s vision “Employee is the best assessment” so this problem will be
solved very soon by the company.

1.3. Problem justification
1.3.1. Problem definition
Time per Lucy et al (6) equals to productivity, and productivity equals money. When
it comes to the corporate world, time is regarded as money, and therefore, we see that
the organizations which inculcate the habit of time management in their employees
are high in productivity. This makes time management become one of the most
important aspects of a successful business.
The fact that the concept of time management is outstanding in all areas of life is well

known, but recently, a complement to this concept, known as time management of
staff which emphasis on time management skill enhance at work, are making the
rounds of the business circuit. This is lead to distractions and loss of productivity. The
company also spent a lot of idle talk. Also put the same elements on a period of time,
it has been proven that parastatals performing poorly compared with their counterparts
in the private sector.

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Ziapour et al (7) indicated that time management is an extensive concept on promoting
the performance of employees. Also, the right of investigation on the time
management is along with its related factors among managers’ success and
consequently to enhance organization efficiency. According to Christopher (8),
organizations are concerning more about time management as this is a part of
impacting to performance and effectiveness of the organization through dependent
upon the effective usage of time; fundamental to job performance is the issue of not
using time effectively or un-managing it.
According to Häfner et al (9), time management skill can be described as a
combination of time assessment, goal setting, planning, and monitoring activities.
Time management is the ability to plan and control how you spend the hours in your
day to effectively accomplish your goals where the planning is the key of time
management, Marriner (10). Poor time management can be related to procrastination
as well as problems with self-control. Skills involved in managing the time includes
planning for the future, setting goals, prioritizing tasks, and monitoring where time
actually goes. While Brigitte et al (11) have proved via their research that the time
management training to employees was able to enhance the use of time management
effect to the outcome.
Per Macan (12), employees can control their overtime, job satisfaction, stress reaction
and job performance by control time effectively. Working under pressure can be a

good chance to adapt with the target of manager and through that, employees can
prove their ability. However, when the pressure is exceeding ability, the productivity
will go down and more suffers; excessive stress can cause health problems.

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Wendelien (13), time management need to be followed by two steps: first is setting
personally goal and looking for the way to use time to attain those goals; second is
prioritizing the goals and have a plan to self-monitor time using how to hit the goal.
Job performance refers to a task completion in a specific time line; job performance
is evaluated bases on the available time for the job, starting and when they finishing
of job, Ahmed et al (14). Before that, Fitsimmons (15) gave a suggestion of using
simple work plans or checklists to help employees to control their performance by
using an effective time management tool.
1.3.2. Justify existing problem
In-depth interview with selected respondents
In order to make the study more effective, clearer and convinced, together with the
above supporting theories, 6 in-depth interviews were conducted with three main
groups as below:
-

The first group includes the people who is currently taking a roles of customer
service (booking) – 2 people

-

The second group will be documentation – 3 people (one has left, one is currently
working, one intended to leave but decide to stay)

-

The third group is pricing team – 1 people

Below is summary conversation from In-depth interviews:
Respondent 1: Ms. Nguyen Thi Sang Sang (Sophie) – She used to be in
documentation team; she has left the company and now is working for CH Robinson
Company:
“When I decided to leave this company, I used to think that there were a lot of jobs/tasks must
finish everyday but the company also does not want to hire more headcount to share our
workload. It makes me stress and lose my control in life. However, it happens the same situation

17


in new company; I still have a lot of things to do every day. I realized that the trend of market is
same for almost the companies in this industry. I gradually discovered that my main problem is
that I have wasted my time working in vainly. I then was trained by the company (new one) the
way to control my time. I had more some desk side training about this topic. From that, I feel
more confident when receive more tasks, leave the office on time and I save my time to learn
English skills and I had some classes out of working time with my new students.”

According to her sharing, the situation at CH Robinson is not as severe as it is at
Expeditors in terms of overtime. Employees at CH Robinson have to work after hours
to get their job done; however, the amount of overtime is insignificant in comparison
with Expeditors (it is normally 150hrs/year/staff). This is mainly because their
employees are trained to have better time management skills than ours.
Respondent 2: Ms. Mai Tran – Leader of documentation team. She has been working
for the company around 11 years:
“Being a team leader, I have to put efforts into find the way to manage the job timely and take

responsibility in managing the team (documentation) to ensure no trouble occurred. That is a
huge pressure while I still need to balance the time between job and family. I have two babies;
I cannot let them go alone without my supervision. I don’t even have enough time to complete
my job so I am unable to control team’s performance especially in peak season. That is why I
always be caught after by my manager during EPE (smile). I see the main root cause is that I
cannot arrange the time effectively for my daily job, and I think others are the same to me. Our
company does not work on Saturday but you see most of document team is presented here, even
very late. I do hope the company can develop some tools that promote productivity.”

Respondent 3: Ms. Loan Le – Documentation
She has been working for the company more than 5 years. She expresses her
expectation is a stable job with good pays and rewards. Currently she is accepted with
her position; however, she hopes to find some better places which will help to improve

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