Inappropriate job assignment in planning department of thaco group

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


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


CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................ 4
1. COMPANY BACKGROUND ............................................................................ 5
2. SYMPTOMS ....................................................................................................... 6
3. CAUSE EFFECT MAP..................................................................................... 11
4. PROBLEM JUSTIFICATION ......................................................................... 15
5. CAUSE VALIDATION .................................................................................... 20
6. SOLUTION ....................................................................................................... 25
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................ 37
APPENDIX 1: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT ........................................................ 40
APPENDIX 2: SURVEY ......................................................................................... 48

3


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 brandspecific 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


1. 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., Ltd. 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


2. SYMPTOMS:

Turnover rate 2016-2018
35.0%

31.6%
27.8%

30.0%
25.0%
25.0%
20.0%
15.0%

11.0%

11.4%

10.7%

10.0%
5.0%
0.0%
2016

2017
Thaco (Headquarter)

2018
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%

31.6%

30.0%
25.0%
20.0%
15.0%

11.8%

10.0%

6.2%

7.7%

6.7%

Human resources

Accounting

5.0%
0.0%
Sales

Planning

Marketing

Figure 2.2: Comparing of number of current employees & employee left among departments

6


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

Number of staff changing department
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0

4
3

1

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 longterm career stability, they decide I have to stand up to find a new development direction
at this company.

8


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%
28%

30%

24%

25%

18%

20%
15%

11%

12%

10%

8%

10%
5%

1%

0%
Strongly disagree

Disagree

Neutral
Planning dept

Agree

Strongly agree

Thaco

Figure 2.4: Result for content “Overall, I feel very pleased to work here”
60%

55%

53%
50%
40%
28%

30%

23%

18%

20%
10%

8%

8%
4%

3%

0%

0%
Strongly disagree

Disagree

Neutral
Planning dept

Agree

Strongly agree

Thaco

Figure 2.5: Result for content “I want to stick with the company for a long time”
9

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

3. 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. After interviewing three
informants, when I mentioned the question about any problem that you felt dissatisfied
with your current job, the answers of the three people mentioned the thread that there is
uncertainty about the orientation and assignment of the Strategic Planning Department.
They even expressed a lot of frustration when discussing this issue (Strictly speaking,
this room should be renamed to "Reporting Planning Room"). And when these

discontent is repressed over a long period of time without a thorough solution, it will
gradually lead to discouragement, thereby motivating employees to make a decision to
quit their jobs (Therefore, I feel that my expectation of joining this department almost
disappears, and the longer I feel I don't have a development orientation, everything
seems to stand still, so I decided to quit). When I asked the question listed the reasons
11


why their thoughts caused dissatisfaction in work, there are three reasons given: pressure
working environment, low income level and inappropriate job assignment in the above
three reasons, according to the content of the interview, the cause of "inappropriate job
assignment" has the greatest impact on the morale and productivity of employees in the
planning department, so I temporarily defined this the main problem.

 Final cause-effect map:

Main causes
Overlapped
organizational structure

Symptom

Main problem
Employee dissatisfaction
Inappropriate
job assignment

Autocratic
Management style

Possible causes

High voluntary turnover

Low salary

High pressure
working
environment
Performance
Appraisal Bias

Consequences
Expensiveness
Loss of experienced employees

Possible problems

As I went deeper into the reason why the interviewees thought that the current job
assignment in the planning department was inappropriate, I realized that their field of
work was shrinking again. All of their daily work revolves around analyzing "data", and
trying to follow a busy schedule and schedule from senior managers, but with each
meeting they must prepare a lot of different reporting content (“Our daily work revolves
around "reporting", in addition to no other content. We must always be prepared for all
types of reports, in order to be able to deal with any planned or unexpected meetings
from leaders”). Having to run the business always has to focus too much on reports and
meetings, the main reason is the autocratic management style of senior leaders. Because
the size of the company is so large, the management system is also very cumbersome
12

with a lot of managers following different ranks, but most people in that system have
autocratic management style. Every leader wants to be the most important decision
maker, so they are only satisfied when all employees listen to their words, resulting in a
lot of different meetings and orientations. The Economic Times (14) defined that
autocratic leadership is a style of management in which a person controls all decisions
and takes very little input from other members of the group. Specialized leaders have
the right to make choices or decisions based on their own beliefs and not related to others
for their suggestions or advice. However, the main reason for the unreasonable job
assignment is the overlap in the structure of the company. Linda Ray (12) indicated
when roles are not clearly defined, confusion is almost inevitable and can create
redundancies and waste. The role confusion can paralyze a company or, at the very least,
waste resources and cut profits. As concluded by NSW Government (13), the definition
of poor roles stems from a lack of clarity in the workers' goals, their main
responsibilities, their peers, their expectations and the general scope or responsibility of
the job. In particular, the sales department of the independent brand teams is responsible
for the tasks related to business plan analysis, brand strategy, market forecasting ... but
these tasks should be by the planning department in charge (“Our company built the
planning room, but the main work of the Planning department was due to the Sales
department of the brands responsible”).

13


4. PROBLEM JUSTIFICATION:
The interviewers have raised 3 main problems for the discontent, which is the
inappropriate work allocation, low wages and unfriendly working environment.
However, I tried to exploit more in depth to clarify one of the 3 issues mentioned above,
which is the main reason why employees feel depressed. In terms of salaries, of the three
interviewees, two said that income in Thaco Group was not really competitive with rival

companies ("Not only in the Planning Department, but generally in other departments,
Thaco is not high in income, compared to rival companies”), and that makes them feel
unsatisfied to be able to focus and work hard ("income is an issue that I feel is not really
satisfied when working here"). Laura Woods (2) stated that highly-paid employee feels
valued by his organization. He knows that just paying him to complete the job, he also
respects his expertise. This employee is more likely to be satisfied with his job and does
not feel the need to seek a similar position with a better salary. However, an employee
does not feel like his organization is paying him a high enough salary that is more likely
to seek and accept a position equivalent to higher income at another company. Tomas
Chamorro-Premuzic (3) emphasized that the more people focus on their salaries, the less
they will focus on satisfying intellectual curiosities, learning new skills or playing, and
these are the things that make people best perform.
On the other hand, when referring to the working environment factor, there are also a
few unbearable ideas from the informants. They think that the working environment
here is professional, organized scientifically, but sometimes causes some difficulties
because the size of the company is too large, so remembering the correct information of
the contact is also a challenge ("The downside is that sometimes you feel very confused,
because you have memorize the information of many people for you to work at work”,"
There is so much information you need to grasp"). Chris Joseph (4) provided that some
organizations use the reporting structure in which an employee must respond to some
managers. Employees can easily be confused by receiving multiple messages and
conflicting instructions. Employees may play one boss against the other, which can
eventually lead to friction between bosses.

14


Besides, in order to maintain a large-scale personnel system that works effectively, it
will require pressure from managers for their employees, to be alert and always put
yourself in a position to face the challenge, and sometimes these employees will feel

overwhelmed ("Working pressure requires employees to be at the highest
concentration", "you will practice giving yourself professional, scientific working style,
as well as training your stamina to the highest level", "I have to change myself a lot,
become quick, more flexible, reflex quickly and withstand good pressure"). According
to Aruosa Osemwegie (5), the high pressure work environment is where there is more
pressure from workload than you think; pressure from an unreasonable deadline in
which deliveries are expected in unbelievable short periods of time, or such timelines
are changed unexpectedly; work seems to exceed your knowledge or skills; difficult to
please boss, who have high standards and requirements; the target is increasing; work
long hours, work on weekends; disregard life-work balance, etc. As cited by Pipedrive
(6), high pressure can make people feel agitated, anxious and stressful. Dave Peterson
(7) stated that working in a stressful environment increases the risk of both physical or
psychological symptoms, and work-related accidents and injuries.
Evaluate the overall target
60%
Description of target
Scale
The proposed plan has in-depth exploration
20%
The plan is highly practical
20%
The plan is tied to the core and value of the brand
25%
Implementation costs are optimized
10%
The effect is to increase sales, market share, and the
25%
level of customer identification for the brand
Evaluate overall behavior
20%

Description
Scale
There are goals to strive for
20%
Promote all possibilities
20%
Share information
20%
Contribute to common culture
20%
Always uphold the quality and respect
20%
Rate the overall
20%

Table 4.1: Evaluating KPI for Planning Department

15

Completed

Completed


For the Planning Department staff, their KPI evaluation set will be quite different from
other departments. In view of the senior leadership system, the evaluation criteria for
work efficiency will account for an overwhelming proportion. More specifically, for the
system of performance criteria, it will account for 60% of the total score. Meanwhile,
the criteria for assessing behavior and personal quality accounted for only 20% of the
total score, and the remaining 20% belonged to the overall assessment. The criteria for

evaluating work efficiency can be listed as a highly practical plan, the plan is tied to the
core and value of the brand, the effect is to increase sales, market share, and the level of
customer identification for the brand... This is also the problem that the Planning
department received the most complaints from the managers. These complainants are
not arising because the capacity of the staff in this department is not met, but the problem
occurred during the assignment process is currently unreasonable. Therefore, when the
leaders create pressure on the proportion of KPI assessment points of the content on
unusually high work efficiency, the staff of the Planning department will feel
uncomfortable and inhibited because of the contributions. I am not recognized, because
they are thinking that leaders are trying to put pressure on this department, and there is
a bias in evaluating performance, which will easily lead to dissatisfaction in work.
When I asked the question "what is the biggest problem you have at work?", The
informants give quite a lot of information, as well as have quite harsh reactions, but can
be understood simply. The matter they listed are all related to the problem of inequality
in job allocation. They were invited to apply for work at the planning department, and
they had their own career expectations and development paths according to the ideal job
description of this job position (“When I was transferred through this position, I also
took a brief look at the job description, which showed that I would learn and practice
many knowledge and management skills, strategy - business plan of the business,
analysis of markets and competitors...”). However, the reality of what happened is very
different from the theory, which is that they feel they are being wasted their capacity for
this work ("I feel that the expectation when joining this department was almost
disappeared”). According to the informants’ point of view, the name of the department
is "planning room", but most of the work is not related to the word "planning", but
related to "report" is mainly ("Strictly speaking, this room should be renamed" to
16


"Report Planning Room"). There is a disruption of job distribution at some positions at
the company, which is specifically between the Sales Department of the Brands and the

Planning department, when the main tasks of the planning department are transferred to
sales staff. Meanwhile, Planning department employees are only responsible for drafting
the report format as required by the leaders, and synthesizing the complete information
from the departments to complete the report materials, getting ready for meetings
(planned or unexpected) (“planning issues, business strategies, market analysis ... that
should be our mission, but it is assigned to the sales department of the brand teams”, “
these tasks were transferred completely to the sales department of each brand in
charge”). Based on the direct responses of the interviewees, as well as the sharing of
their thoughts when problems arise in the job assignment (“But that would be boring,
and I couldn't sit around reporting and meeting all day?”), that expressed their
dissatisfaction, leading to psychological discouragement, no motivation to work, and
therefore a thought to change jobs. Concluded by Totara Academy (8), assigning work
allows employees to capture different responsibilities in their organization. Workers can
hold any number of jobs, with each job optionally linked to a position, organization,
manager, and assessor. According to Washington State Department of Enterprise
Services (9), development work assignments are a formal opportunity for employees to
develop their knowledge, skills and expertise that are not available through their normal
work activities. Companies can use job assignments strategically to influence employee
performance. This can lead to distortions that will be effective from a pure production
perspective: a sense of competence that doesn't always need to be consistent with real
capacity.
When an employee quit, the company will have to spend time and cost to fill that gap.
Neil Kokemuller (10) indicated that losing an employee can bring costs such as
severance allowances and administrative tasks such as exit interviews. More
importantly, you have to go through the recruitment process again. Once you find a new
employee, you have to train them, which also takes time and money. In addition, you
often have an opportunity cost because a new employee cannot provide the same sales
or production results as before. Because the specificity of the planning department's task
is related to project activities, strategies, visions, etc. It requires the staff of this
17

department not only to have good professional knowledge, but also to have experience
in this position or similar position in other companies (priority is given to the automotive
industry). For a skilled and experienced person in the industry, the competition between
employers is increasingly fierce, and employers often offer good compensation policies
to attract candidates. Therefore, to successfully convince a suitable candidate, the cost
of recruiting a position of the planning department is usually much higher than other
departments. If calculated roughly, the average cost of recruiting and training a staff at
the planning department's professional level will fluctuate in the range of 1.5-2 months
of that employee's salary (including amounts such as paying the costs for
communication channels to post recruitment information, interviewing candidates,
training for candidates to integrate with the new company environment ...) For higher
positions (vice-manager or above) then this cost will increase even more. It is only an
initial cost, because we have not yet considered the effectiveness and value of the work
that new employees bring to the company. After a period of training (an average of 1-2
months), new employees were able to basically grasp the work in this department.
However, in order for new employees to achieve effective levels of working as former
employees in that position, the company will take another time (depending on their own
capabilities and environmental factors impact). Therefore, the values that the company
lacks in the time it takes for new employees to bring about the same value as the old
ones, is also a cost (usually called opportunity cost). If we multiply this cost by the
annual average number of employees leaving this department is about 4-5 people, the
company has to spend a significant amount of money on this work.
Another consequence of high retrenchment rates is the loss of experienced employees.
James Davis (11) stated that knowledge is lost forever when people leave an
organization, bringing their institutional knowledge. If that expertise is not preserved
and shared with the rest of the company for reference, rebuilding will most likely be a
slow, inefficient and frustrating process for all people involved. In the last 3 years, all
employees who have retired from the planning department are senior citizens with longterm work in the company (4 years or more), including an important position as deputy

manager planning. "Experience" here is understood as the combination of knowledge
and self-ability, plus the information accumulated in the process of working at the
18


company, creating the value of employees, as well as effective for the position they are
in charge of. Therefore, the experience of each person is different, no one is like anyone.
However, when an employee leaves his or her current job position, he or she also brings
his or her experience to another station, but cannot leave it at the old company. This
creates a disadvantage for the company because they have to spend a lot of effort, time
and cost to train a new employee so that they can achieve the same level as the employee
who has retired. In addition, nothing can ensure that the training process goes smoothly,
and the results that the company receives are not always better than the old. An employee
may have very good knowledge and skills, but it is important that they can get along
well with the work environment and management style at our company, which is still a
mystery. For high management positions such as deputy managers, the experience factor
plays an important role, as it also relates to the department's management style and
leadership. Moreover, if our former employees moved to work for a rival company in
the same industry, and they use their experience to serve the position of a new company,
it makes more and more difficulties for our business.

19


5. CAUSE VALIDATION:
From the above information, I can make the initial conclusion that this is the main reason
why many of the staff of the planning department feel dissatisfied, leading to a higher
rate of leave of this department. And also from this point, I also discovered the cause of
this problem, mainly derived from Overlapped organizational structure ("the task and
work requirements of some parts are currently overlapping quite a lot, leading to a

process difficult work"). Linda Ray (12) indicated when roles are not clearly defined,
confusion is almost inevitable and can create redundancies and waste. The role
confusion can paralyze a company or, at the very least, waste resources and cut profits.
As concluded by NSW Government (13), the definition of poor roles stems from a lack
of clarity in the workers' goals, their main responsibilities, their peers, their expectations
and the general scope or responsibility of the job.
In addition, it is partly influenced by autocratic management trends from leaders
("sometimes they have quite emotional feelings and actions that are personal and
authoritarian, leading to disturbing plan work many departments and employees”). The
Economic Times (14) defined that autocratic leadership is a style of management in
which a person controls all decisions and takes very little input from other members of
the group. Specialized leaders have the right to make choices or decisions based on their
own beliefs and not related to others for their suggestions or advice. Recent report (15)
shown that autocratic leaders tend to chase talented people out of the organization.
Leonard D. Shaeffer (16) indicated that this makes people with marginal capacity to live
for life rather than change. At the worst, autocratic leadership can be strangled,
overbearing and demoralizing.
When I conducted a survey with the staff working at the Thaco headquarter, I also
noticed the questions regarding the relationship between managers and employees. The
results of these questions, especially for planning departments, also reflect relatively
accurately the current working status as well as the influence of management style to
the thinking of employees.

20


Good communication from managers to employees in the
company
90%
78%

80%

70%
60%

52%

50%
40%

30%

30%
20%
10%

12%
0%

5%

10%

10%

2%

1%

0%
Strongly disagree

Disagree

Neutral
Thaco

Agree

Strongly agree

Planning Dept

Figure 5.1: Result for content “Good communication from managers to employees in the company”

I always have a chance to express my ideas to managers/ My
ideas are recognized
80%
67%

70%
60%
50%
42%

36%

40%
30%

25%
18%

20%
10%

4%
0%

5%

3%

0%

0%
Strongly disagree

Disagree

Neutral
Thaco

Agree

Strongly agree

Planning Dept

Figure 5.2: Result for content “I always have a chance to express my ideas to managers/ My ideas are
recognized”

21


Managers/supervisors always listens problem of employee
60%
50%
50%
38%

40%

40%
30%

30%
20%
20%

10%
10%

8%

2%

2%

0%

0%
Strongly disagree

Disagree

Neutral
Thaco

Agree

Strongly agree

Planning Dept

Figure 5.3: Result for content “Managers/supervisors always listens problem of employee”

Considering generally for all departments, the communication process between
management and staff takes place relatively smoothly and effectively, when the number
of employees agrees to reach a high rate (78%). However, if only in planning
department, there are still some employees who think that they cannot communicate
well with leaders (5% strongly disagree, 12% disagree). When analyzing more
specifically on issues like "having a chance to express ideas to managers", the staff's
approval rate of planning departments is also quite low (4% strongly disagree, 18%
disagree), while disagree rate calculated at Thaco only reached 3% (no strongly
disagree). Similarly, when analyzing the "Managers / supervisors always listens problem
of employee" question, there are still some employees who think their managers are not
interested in the problems they are having trouble with (10 % strongly disagree, 20%
disagree). Through these indicators, it can be concluded that between leaders and

employees of the planning department are having a big conflict, the main reason is that
management style of managers is autocratic, so these leaders often very limited
interaction with their employees. Therefore, planning department employees will feel
uncomfortable, restrained and inhibited because they are not free to contribute their
opinions, but must always follow all requests from managers. From those arbitrary
decisions, there may be unreasonable job assignments (because they depend entirely on
the subjective thoughts of the leaders).
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As I have analyzed above, the main cause of the problem of inappropriate assignment is
due to overlapping organizational structure. In the interview with the candidates, when
asked about the shortcomings in the work process, all 3 people shared their views on the
organizational chart of the company. The most obvious thing is that the job description
of the department is not identical to the name of the department (“Strictly speaking, this
room should be renamed to "Report Planning Room"). This may be just a statement
based on the subjective point of view of the interviewee, but that also represents a part
of the source of the problem. Because, all the work of the planning department
employees, only revolves around a single center - that is "report" (“Our daily work
revolves, "in addition" to no other content”). I do not think that this is a wrong direction,
because the reports also play an important role in updating, transmitting and analyzing
information between departments and leaders. However, it should not act as a center,
because the staff of the planning department not only do the job of an administrative
admin in the office, but at the core they use the knowledge and skills of I analyze the
information, data collected from internal and external sources, thereby giving
suggestions, solutions and strategies to increase sales, achieve sales goals that the
company suggest. In addition, each brand's business department will act as adviser,
make adjustments to those plans, to make it more suitable for the market situation.
However, the reality occurs at the company, the role of these two parts seems to be
reversed, even the planning department has no "voice" in the process of building and

developing strategy business for companies (“Besides, planning issues, business
strategies, market analysis ... that should be our mission, but it's assigned to department
sales”). Because of these inadequate decisions of leaders, they unintentionally created
pressure on the business division of brands, because in addition to their daily sales, now
we have to shoulder a large amount of work to build business plans and strategies for
our brand in the future from the board of directors. This is not a simple task, it requires
a lot of things, because you have to spend a lot of time to observe, market research, rival
analysis, business planning, forecasting feasibility of the plan, presented to the
leadership.... Therefore, sometimes this job takes more time than their daily work. On
the other hand, when planning department employees are "robbed" of losing their core
jobs, it will greatly affect their working spirit. These employees will have more free time
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(because the report must not be done every day, but will usually focus on a certain
number of times such as the beginning of the month, the middle of the month, the end
of the year, the end of the year ... ), they cannot control the work they will have to do,
orient their work in the future (because most depend on the guidelines of the
management as well as the progress of the business department of their businesses),
therefore will lead to boredom, and move to non-positive thoughts (“The staff in the
planning department always feel passive at work, because the tasks (supposedly) are
our responsibility, but the business department of the brands is in charge”). In addition,
the inadequacy comes not only from the overlap in the division of tasks of the
departments, but also related to the lack of clarity and rationality in job requirements.
Although the results from the plans of the planning department are always required to
achieve practicality and good applicability in the market, but the actual interaction
between the planning department and the parts available related almost very little.
Because the results from the periodic reports are almost all proposed by the business
divisions of the brands, while the appraisal and preliminary assessment of these
strategies from the successor department is very little. Because they have no connection

with the necessary parts, they must not create an opportunity to experience from the real
business environment, so if only sitting in the office to write down and evaluate the
information by others, it is practically impossible to require such evaluations to be
practically an impossible task (“However, the difficulty here is that we are forced to act
as an independent unit, unable to have a connection and actual experience of the
business situation in each brand, how can we offer accurate assessments and
judgments?”).

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6. SOLUTION:
Based on the causes of the problems in the Planning department, it is an overlap of job
descriptions between the Planning department of the company and the Business
department at individual brands, I would like to propose 2 feasible solutions to solve
this problem. The first solution is to disintegrate all personnel of the Planning
Department and establish a specialized planning department of each child brand. The
second solution is to maintain the current structure of the Planning department, but will
re-plan the work description of this department, to handle the current overlap of work,
as well as to match new direction of the company. Specific content as follows:
-

Solution 1: Dissolve all personnel of the Planning Department and establish a
specialized planning department of each child brand

This is a major reform solution, as it will change the structure of the departments of the
company, as well as affect the personnel situation in the Planning Department as well
as the relevant departments. The company's decision is to completely remove the
company's Planning-Strategy department, which means that the department will no
longer exist. All personnel working in this department, whether voluntary or forced,

must choose for themselves a new job position in the future. They can choose to continue
working at the company, with a new job position. For those who choose to stay, the
company will have a program to assess the capacity of those employees during their
time working in the Planning department. Based on the results of these competency
assessments, the company will prioritize the placement of new employees according to
the aspirations of those employees, as well as in accordance with their own capabilities
and current operating situation company. In addition, the company will also ensure that
policies on wages and benefits ... will be kept stable, in order to create good psychology
so that employees can continue to contribute to the company. On the other hand, if those
employees wish to try a different environment, the company will accept and create
favorable conditions for employees to complete the resignation procedures quickly, as
well as assist employees in the process of finding new jobs.

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