Luận Văn The Solution To Enhance Time Management Skill At Expeditors Vietnam.doc

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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

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

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 CÔNG TY TNHH EXPEDITORS VIỆT NAM
Address 8th
Floor, The Flemington Tower, 182 Le Dai Hanh, Ward 15, District
11, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Phone (84-28) 39621868
Fax (84-28) 39621988
Website www.expeditors.com
Type of Company Private Limited Company
Director Michael Joseph Mooney
Capital 500 million VND
Tax code 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: http://www.vietnam-briefing.com/news/overtime-vietnam.html/)
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
5

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
in comparison to other countries in the region. (Figure 4)
Extra
working
time
in
one
month
Figure 4: Maximum overtime of an employee in one month between countries in region
(Source: https://news.zing.vn/tang-so-gio-lam-them-cua-nguoi-lao-dong-len-400-gio-mot-nam-post741456.html)
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%
2015
2
9
%
29%
20%
34%
2016
20%
3
1
%
2017
10%
3
3
%
2
9
%
17%
8%7%
7%4%8%
0%0%0%
3%4%8%
0%0%0%
6%5%5%
0%0%2%
0%0%0%
0%0%0%
0
%
0
%
0
%
1
1
%
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
350 339
300 311
289
250
235 244
2015
200
150
2016
2017
1056
121
100 95
81 93 93 Regulation
50
74 70
42 37
25
- 11 16- -
8 - - 16- - - - 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
9

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
2015 2016 2017
Overtime per staff 42 311 405
# of shipment 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”.
12

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.
15

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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her skills and enjoy the time with her family. She does not have enough time to take
care her four babies.
Respondent 4: Ms. Uyen Nguyen – Customer service supervisor
“As a customer service, my responsibility is to communication with carriers, shippers very
frequently. I spent most of my time to talk to them via phone, sending the email to get the
confirmation for space from carriers and booking from shippers for details of shipment. I was
always distracted by customers even I managed my time very well. I had a to-do list. I will list
details of job need to solve in priority from urgent to not urgent and clear all but sometimes the
disturbtion get me down and I cannot focus on the job well”.
As her sharing, she knows employees are good and doing well, could understand
specific needs of company and try their best. However, employees seem to have so
much workload and pressure, they usually have to work overtime to complete daily
work and don’t want to change their habit to handle the job when enhancing a new
tool because they got familiar with that and it’s take time for them to use new one. In
addition, when an employee leaves the company, the time for transition is too short
to transfer whole process as lots of company’s policies; consequently. With the new
employee, she thinks need more time for training them carefully to catch up.
Respondent 5: Mrs. Hai Pham – Pricing. Mrs. Hai has been working for the company
more than 10 years. Before taking this role in Ocean Export, she used to be an Account
management coordinator. She worked with a lot of people in her role. She said:
“Talks about the term time management, I see almost our employees are not trained well this
skill. We understand that if we are good in managing the time, we can do better job, getting more
productivity and support to others, so peak season is not the main issue with us. However, from the
day one, when I started my job in this company, I have not been trained about this. I see some
people cannot adapt with heavy pressure of the job and they left, some try to “run” with the
deadline to finish the job. Once they come to office, they turn on the computer and first thing
19

they check email. And you know, if you don’t have a specific plan in advance for your day you
will stick with the computer to check and reply email, solving the problem (if any) and you
don’t have enough time for extra job to getting more even time to drink water”.
Respondent 6: Mrs. Tuyet Ha – Booking Agent
She refers a stable job but not a boring one, so far, current job is suitable for her.
However, if there’s any change, she would like to have a voice in other decision which
impact her task. According to her, it takes too much time for transition process. There is
a lot of change in process and customer’s want but employee cannot catch up with it,
they even don’t have time to read SOP and just doing the transition naturally as their
experience. Therefore, time for finish a transaction is long. Employees are too tired for
their work, sometime, she thinks that there are so many steps to do that they do not
know how to arrange their work, everything is like a mess.
From these interviews, we can easily see that the main issue is happening with team
is time management skill. Beside that, some elements are mentioned during the
interviews such as workload (Ms. Sophie), time pressure (Mrs. Mai Tran), out of
control between work and life (Mrs. Loan Le), lack of people to support (Ms. Uyen
Nguyen), lack of training in managing the time (Mrs. Hai Pham) and time
consuming (Mrs. Tuyet Ha) can be the root-causes of problem.
Justify existing problem
Having an appropriate skill in managing the time allows employees to take the
control of the life rather than following the flow of others. When the time is
managed well, they can focus on doing the job, increase effectively.
The natural of an employee’s job is to control their amount of overtime fundamentally.
This is an important issue for job controller to identify what are the priorities of the job,
which jobs need to be put in urgency to make it done first, based on Lucy et al (5)
20

For measuring the reliability of the problem, interview and survey through
questionnaire method are used. The questions are the sharing of employees and
managers for their opinions and emotions about their work. All the answers are kept
secretly and only used for research purpose.
As the result, 16 questionnaires were distributed to 15 employees in ocean export
team including manager, supervisor, lead and general staff. The questionnaire related
to time management or management skill; difference in person’s ability will have
different way to manage their time. It is essentially to aware that how people use the
time with consistency, from Joanne (16).
All of us were exposed to different time management habits while growing up.
Learning to manage the time better is as personal affair and making assumption from
what we see and what we experience.
Here is the result of survey based on the team responded on these assumptions. From
time to time, employees are working under heavy pressure and overloaded.
Workload is often the main root cause of failing to delegate, being unable to say
“no”, failing to establish proper priorities of job, spending too much time on having
sloppy work habits. The job seldom overworks the person, but people often
overwork themselves, according to Joanne (16). For instance, how many calls that
employees have to answer a day and how many problem or questions are resolved on
the initial calls? Unnecessary delay seldom improves the quality of job. It is simply
procrastination. Managing time better will involve spending the appropriate amount
of time on every activity.
21

Most of the results you achieve are produced by… 14 1
It is not necessary to write out your objectives. 14 1
Most people know how they spend their time… 15
A good way to reduce wasted time is to look for… 5 10
Finding the problem is easy; it is finding the… 15
It is not always possible to work on the basis of… 9 6
Most of the ordinary day-to-day activities do not… 15
Most people can solve their time problems by… 1 14
Finding “quiet time” is usually impossible, … 11 4
Delegating will probably free a great deal of your… 15
Your job deals with people, and since all people… 12 3
Managing time better is essentially a matter of… 15
Further delay will probably enable you to… 13 2
Higher level people with more authority usually… 15
Your job is unique and not subject to repetitive… 15
Most people are overworked because of the… 15
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Figure 11: Time Management questionnaires
In these assumptions, the author was quite impressed with the term of working harder.
Yes, more than 90% responses were agreed that “working harder” is not the right way
to improve our productivity. Instead of working hard, we need to find the way to do
our job smarter. Doing the wrong thing harder does not help. The people who
believe that the way to get more done is simply to work harder are the ones who
work extra-long hours, take work home every night, suffer from stress and tension,
punish their bodies needlessly, and still do not obtain the results.
1.3.3. Justify the importance of the problem
Time management has an important influence on the performance of employees as
well as the productivity of the organization. Good in time management will lead to a
clearer understanding of the situational variables that enable good time management
practices. It also hopes that this research may contribute the awareness of the
importance of time management in the achievement of business and personal goals.
22

Christopher et al (17) believed that poor time management has been associated with
high stress and strain. Time management can help employees reduce wasted time
and energy, become more creative and productive, and enable to do the right thing at
the right time.
Shazia (18) mentioned time management is very important and it may actually affect
individual's overall performance and achievements. The high performance required
by competitive conditions forces organizations and directors to use time effectively
and stipulates the search to control time, Alay et al (19) states.
Throughout the process of interviewing employees and literature review, if the
negative time management is continuing existing in employees, the organization will
face with two consequences as the high of overtime and turnover rate which impact
directly to the organization profitability and employee productivity.
Grissom et al (20) stated the connection between time use and performance
motivates including reduced job stress and increased job performances have largely
been ignored. Turnover intention refers to an individual’s subjective consideration of
the probability that they will quit their organization in the near future.
23

25
20
15
10 2014
5
2015
2016
0 2017
Figure 12: Turnover rate in EIVN
Based on the statistic figures of number of employees working at EIVN shows in
figure 12, there was an uptrend in turnover ratio from 11% in 2015. There were
some reasons leading to their decision of leaving and one of the main causes was the
lack of managing of time. In 2016, ratio is reducing remain 4% and 2017 shows an
upstream of hiring more people, also the turn over time is reduce strongly. Trejo SJ
(21) pointed out turnover is extremely expensive compared to investing time and
money into enhancing employees as assets. That is why it is important not only to
identify the positive attributes of all employees but also their shortcomings.
High overtime. per Ortiz C (5) is a balance between work and family. It is quite
tough, and working overtime has become a reality for millions employees. They are
overwhelmed with large workloads, high expectations, and the pressure to work as
much as possible. Employees who have good time management skills and can juggle
multiple projects at one time are more valuable than someone who works in the
building for 12 hours a day.
24

1.4. Potential causes
Based on the review of literature, and the discussion with the employees in this company
includes management team, general staffs level, there are numerous factors that would
cause the problem. At the first observation, there are many factors can be generally
categorized:
Figure 13: Updated cause – effect map
1.5. Causes validation
In order to find out the main cause, the author continues to conduct a survey by sending
time management questionnaire over 15 employees. According to that, the questions
relate to the scale items to test whether the skill of time management exists as well as the
causes of this problem.
The result of site survey can be summarized in this table:
25

Table 2: Possible causes
Item Findings
Planning 47% Sometime agreed that planning is the most of important but
they did not enhance this task more frequently. They realized that
this step can save their time and eliminate back and forth
consequence.
So this item needs to be listed as first of cause impact to negative
time management.
Interruption 48% Frequently distracted during working time. It would be
normal as we usually be interrupted by the phone or from manager.
However, this can be avoided by defining where is important issue
we need to prioritize.
Distraction is confirmed as the second cause.
Time Pressure 62% Always feel time in day is not enough for them to work. Every
job need to be done by the deadline in rush and they are
overwhelmed with a list of shipment in controlled file.
This is third cause defined.
Tools supporting 50% Always used the existing tool developed by IS team (from
CHQ, Regional, and local team) to help to reduce manual work in
keying data. Currently, operation team is receiving a lot support
from management team to improve productivity. In additional,
Expeditors is launching a Management Trainee Program globally,
this program tends to develop the staff to be a leader in future and
26

in the period time of studying, they can help the team to improve
their productivity. So, this cause can be hidden as it will be taken
care at company level.
In-efficient process 55% Always claimed that company’s system is quite complicated
and its take a lot of time to complete one job file. Every company
has their own process and policy need to follow and Expeditors is
no exception. In order to provide consistency process in global,
employees need to read SOP carefully and follow step by step to
avoid mistaking further. This step is to provide the best customer
service to customer. Understand this issue; company is developing
a new process called Ocean Lateral. This tends to simplified current
process and reduce step in practice, all will be controlled by report
and no more data input manually. So, we can take it out of
consequence of root cause.
Planning
According to Macan (12), to help employees enhance time management skill in their jobs,
they need to be trained about the way to manage their time. From his research, he proved
that the evaluation of time management training is popular and widely available. In relation
to planning behavior, employees are expected more frequently in setting goals, knowing and
able to setting priorities, making “to do list”, planning and organizing for the job. It is also
possible that training just made people feel better and received greater amount of self-
efficacy for time management skill. Besides that, staffs who are lacking of management skill
also work “unconsciously”, do not know how to arrange their job with
27

the effective way to succeed. Marriner (10) has indicated planning is the key of time
management. Goal must be set and priorities will be consistent with them.
Another important reason was summed up after the results of the interview are not
scheduled to work. It means that employees are lacking of plans in work. To achieve the
target, the goal must be set and priorities determined, we need to know where we are
going to or how we are going to get there with as schedule in advance – Ms. Diem Chau,
Air Manager advised.
In hospitality, setting time can be saved through the use of care plans and more specifically,
standardized care plans for patients with certain condition. Much time saving techniques can
then be used to get more done in less time by working smarter not harder.
Time pressure
According to Winkens et al (22), working under pressure sometimes makes people
become more powerful, it also makes us wary of all chemicals on the job issue. One of
cause that increasing the pressure in working is the avoidance behavior. As this, it will
lead to increase time pressure and we are easily to miss the deadline, which we call
procrastination habit and many would like to break this behavior because it is perceived
as undesirable in a society that stresses achievement within strict deadlines.
Distraction
Dance JW (23) has indicated interruptions are distractions and can lead to billions of
dollars in lost time, waste, and lost competitive advantage. Understanding the discipline
of getting things done is predominant and definitely can manage the goal. The focus on
time management and execution adds value to any organization, but first managers must
minimize obstacles that deter effective execution in terms of distraction.
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Based on the knowledge after review literature of time management as well as the
results from interview in company, the following final causes and affects has been
updated with three main causes, which are working under time pressure, impact by
distraction and no as showing in figure 14:
Figure 14: Final Cause – Effect map
29

Chapter 2: Alternative Solution analysis
2.1. Alternative Solutions
After studying carefully, and based on the real problems that were listed above, all of
them identified that the most important issue is how to help all the employees to
acknowledge the importance of time and the way they can control their time is to
manage the job with the best results and performance. When the employees know how
to plan their time properly, they will have the best solution to control their life. Once
this pressure is released completely, the author does believe that the problems with
planning, working pressure and distraction can be addressed properly.
Kearns et al (24) indicated that time management can be part of a company’s
profitability if it is enhanced effectively especially in planning skills, one of the way to
bring positive results to group performance. On the other hand, poor time management
can exert negative influence on employees’ health and emotion.
The employees had better estimate how long a given task will take them to complete. It
is possible that the training will make the employees feel better about themselves and
their jobs with greater self-efficiency for time/stress management skills, Macan (12)
2.1.1. Solution 1: Distinguish between Urgent and Important
This solution is mainly focused on resolving the issue of time pressure. The author
concentrates on raising the awareness among employees regarding the urgent and
important nature of what they are dealing with. It helps them decide on which tasks
to be prioritized, sorting out less minor and unimportant tasks which they should
either delegate or not do at all.
In Ocean Export department, it is a norm that the word “urgent” is always used. This
poses a question: how do they know which job needs to be done first? Looking at time
30

pressure from a different perspective, it can be good if we know how to take
advantage of it. Melinte (25) discussed the definition of “urgent” and “important” in
his research in his research through the use of the Eisenhower Matrix. According to
him, urgency is the activity we must focus on because they require serious attention
to the consequences of not taking any actions to deal with the matter immediately.
On the other hand, important activities are those that lead us to achieve the goals,
whether it is individual or organizational objectives.
The Eisenhower Box shows us all tasks which are evaluated using the criteria
important/unimportant and urgent/not urgent and put in according quadrants.
- Quadrant 1: Urgent and important tasks. Tasks in this box require immediate
action. With planning and organizing, these tasks can be done efficiently.
- Quadrant 2: Not urgent but important. We can set a schedule to complete these
tasks as they do not have deadline pressure.
- Quadrant 3: Urgent and not important. You can delegate these tasks to other
people in your team as they are less important to you but still quite urgent.
- Quadrant 4: Not important and not urgent. This is primarily distraction so you
should not waste your time doing these tasks.
31

Figure 15: The Eisenhower Box
Features and benefits:
- Prioritize & Scheduling: employees can select what to be completed first. Those
tasks with a rushing deadline can be prioritized to be finished according to the
determined sequence.
- Proper time allocation: employees can allocate their time in each category
accordingly. It ensures the maximum amount of time is being invested in where it
will bring the highest return.
2.1.2. Solution 2: Planning by setting goal
The purpose of goal setting is to utilize and minimize the time we are spending on each
activities and the allocation the time on each task will help us maximize the time that
spent on investment activities. There are many ways to make an effective plan. In
32

this research, the author would emphasize the important role of setting an
appropriate goal. This will help employees identify their needs and wants. If goals
are well set, they can possibly be a great source of motivation that will push
individuals forward on their career path and promote personal growth as a human
being. Establishing goals well in advance will put the employees in a position where
they can actively set an appropriate timeline to complete their tasks.
Amann (26) stated that setting goal should be the first phase in the road map of
organizations’ success. Goals are the desired achievements or outcomes of
organizations, teams, and individuals. Robusto (27) mentioned that proper goals
should be those that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-
bound. Why are these criteria important in setting goals?
- Specific: ensure your goals are focused and identify a tangible outcome. Without
being specific, your goal runs the risks of being too vague to achieve. Being
more detailed helps you identify what you want to accomplish. You should also
identify what resources you are going to leverage to achieve success.
- Measurable: you should have a clear definition of success. This will help you
evaluate your achievement and progress. This component often tells you what
more is need to complete your goal.
- Achievable: your goal should be challenging, but still reasonable to achieve.
Reflecting on this component can reveal any potential barriers that you may need
to overcome to realize success. You should outline the steps you plan to take to
achieve your goals.
33

- Relevant: this is about getting real with yourself and ensuring what you are
trying to achieve is worth your efforts. Determine if this is aligned with your
values and if it is a prioritized focus for you.
- Time-bound: every goal needs a target date, something that motivates you to
focus and keep the discipline to achieve it. It’s important to set a realistic time
frame to achieve your goal to ensure you do not get discouraged.
Figure 16: S.M.A.R.T goals
(Source: https://www.quora.com/What-are-smart-goals)
2.1.3. Solution 3: Setting expectation and To-do list to follow
This solution aims to solve the problem of distraction.
Setting expectation: There is a decrease in motivation when an employee and a
supervisor are on two different pages regarding their job performance. Employees
with low motivation do not provide exceptional customer service. Instead, they grow
more and more unhappy at work and could eventually leave the company. If an
employee does not understand what is expected of him or her and is not performing
34

to their supervisor’s expectations, it may not be the fault of the employee, but rather
the supervisor for not communicating those expectations.
When employees are clearly told on what they are expected to do, they will be able
to measure themselves based on those expectations. It will increase their motivation
and push them to do better in their job. Clear expectations eliminate confusion and
increase employee satisfaction. This, in turn, increases customer’s satisfaction.
With a new employee, the manager has the advantage of establishing expectations
right from the starting. This eliminates bewilderment and helps prevent bad
behaviors from arising. When they communicate expectations right away, new
employees will be more likely to remember. This will be, after all, their first
impression. It is always easier to teach someone the right way from the start, rather
than having to “unleash” them the wrong way.
After creating expectations and communicating them to the employees, the next
responsibility they have is to provide continuous feedback to employees on how they
are performing.
To-do list: To-do list helps keep the workflow organized. Employees should
implement to-do list to help them keep their work flows in a neat strait. Some people
like to start the day by thinking about what they need to do on that day. Others like
to end the day by planning tomorrow. A to-do list must be taken with a list of tasks
on the day to ensure all jobs are done without missing.
35

2.2. Action Plan
At EIVN, the time management seems to be an urgent problem that needs to be solved
immediately. There will always be an unavoidable number of high overtime, but this
number should be maintained at a minimum level. The final target needs to measure
exactly not a feature, managers need to have plan and implement reasonably to express
the fairness. The author would like to propose the plan to improve as below table:
36

Table 3: Action Plan
Solution Activities Objectives Responsibility Measurement Time
To kick off the
program and
create an list of Month 1: Preparation
Urgent and
- Consult with HR and Management team to discuss about the criteria and questions to ask Month 2: Release
initial assessment employees HR Survey/observation questionnaire and collect
Important
- Inform employees about assessment program Managers/ HR data, analyse data
- Conduct survey data to understand current status of employees To define Managers/ HR Month 3: Kick off
prioritized tasks
- Gather and analyse the results Managers/ HR
- Set up training schedule Branch Trainer
- Meeting with employees to establish specific goal for each employee
include: scope of work, job description Manager/ HR
- Analyze strength and weakness of each employee, promote opportunity of
Job’s
each employee as well as personal expect of each person To set up plan in Managers
Planning quality/Working 6 months
advance
- Identify training demand depends on current personal ability, target need to
time report
get and ability need to hit the target HR/ Branch Trainer
- Rotates opportunities within the team to identify the main root cause for Manager/ District
current status of the team Manager
Setting
To enhance to-do Training record in
Monthly
- Conduct training from Regional team via Skype or PDC list concept - one Branch Trainer PDC
expectation
- Understand and utilize benefits of tools to help (time management via of important task Branch Trainer/ Regional Email organization
And To-Do
outlook, organize email more effectively) of time Trainers check
List
management
- Give an example of to-do list Managers Observation
37

To understand the
reason why
employees have to
- Collect overtime report and analyse the root cause work too late Manager/ Employees Report Monthly
Sharing job with
other team
- Rebalance work-load member Manager/ Employees Volume report Quarterly
Others
- Create more working shifts to balance work within a day:
+ Customer tend to send shipping instruction for making bill in from
10:00AM so Manager can arrange less staff to be duties early in the morning
and another shift from afternoon
Reduce late HR/ Managers/ District
Report overtime/
+ Set up email on mobile phone for all employees: employees often work Report of using 6years employees
working Manager
with overseas peers and due to different time zone, they can stay at the office email on mobile
at night to get the information. By installing email, they can easier to work
over the phone at home which is Wi-Fi is available, even meeting can be
attended over the phone everywhere.
38

Chapter 3. Conclusion
With the limitation of knowledge as well as in a short time, this research cannot cover
all the aspects of the problem. At least we can see the important and the positive
outcomes affect to employees’ and company’s performance.
In this research, the author has introduced some point of view of time management
skill training. Helping staff to find the way to manage the time effectively will help
the employees improve their productivity, how they make schedule for the job more
easily to get it done within the available time. Through time management training,
staffs can prioritize the important tasks to accomplish first, control their jobs and
achieve the organization’s goal has its set.
39

Appendixes
Appendix 1
TIME MANAGEMENT QUESTIONNAIRE
# ASUMPTION TRUE FALSE
1 Most people are overworked because of the nature of their job. 15
2 Your job is unique and not subject to repetitive time patterns. 15
3 Higher level people with more authority usually make better decisions. 15
4 Further delay will probably enable you to improve the quality of your decisions. 13 2
Managing time better is essentially a matter of reducing the time spent on various
15
5 activities.
Your job deals with people, and since all people are important, you cannot
12 3
6 establish priorities.
Delegating will probably free a great deal of your time and relieve you of some
15
7 of your responsibilities.
8 Finding “quiet time” is usually impossible, especially in small offices. 11 4
9 Most people can solve their time problems by working harder. 1 14
Most of the ordinary day-to-day activities do not need to be planned, and most
15
10 people could not plan for them anyway.
11 It is not always possible to work on the basis of priorities. 9 6
12 Finding the problem is easy; it is finding the solution that is difficult. 15
13 A good way to reduce wasted time is to look for short cuts. 5 10
Most people know how they spend their time and can easily identify how they
15
14 procrastinate.
15 It is not necessary to write out your objectives. 14 1
16 Most of the results you achieve are produced by a few critical activities. 14 1
40

Appendix 2
TIME MANAGEMENT QUESTIONNAIRE
Answer the questionnaire as quickly as you can. The first answer that springs to mind is usually the
most accurate so try not to dwell on any single question. You should attempt to finish answering all 20
questions in about three minutes at the most. There are four level of agreement:
Frequently
Always
Rarely
Sometime
Item
Freque
ntly
Always
Rarely
Someti
me
Planning 1 17 14 28
I write out a to-do list every day 2 10 3
I write out a weekly plan, which includes specific goals,
activities, priorities, and time estimates for each activity 1 4 10
At least once a week, I meet with others to coordinate plans,
priorities, and activities 15
I often think I should get better organized 15
Interruption 29 7 21 5
I analyse my interruptions and systematically work on
reducing or eliminating them 7 3 5 2
I usually bunch items together and handle several things in
one visit or call, so I won't interrupt others so much during
the day 13 1 1
Distractions and socializing often keep me from concentrating
on my work 12 3
Interruptions are a big problem in my job 9 3 3
Tools supporting 0 30 6 24
I have a good systematic procedure for sorting and handling
my paperwork 11 1 3
I have a reminder system to remind me of when to do things 8 7
I use script to input data into system 1 14
I have enough tools to support my job 11 4
Time Pressure 7 37 12 4
My worries overwhelm me 3 11 1
I worry all the time 2 1 9 3
41

I have developed effective strategies to help deal with
pressure -such as taking exercise, or going to the cinema 1 11 3
I break difficult tasks down into their components, so that I
can accomplish them one step at a time 1 14
In-efficient process 0 33 13 14
I review my progress towards goals and revise my plans as
appropriate 14
I read SOP carefully before processing the shipment 4 11
I enjoy the system to do my job done 2 13
I need a simplifier process to enhance productivity 13 2 1
42

Appendix 3
WORKING OVERTIME REGULATION IN VIETNAM
Some basic rules about working overtime in Vietnam are:
- Normal working time is limited to 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week.
- The aggregate overtime should not exceed 300 hours per year.
- Night working time is from 22:00 to 6:00.
- Overtime payment is exempt from personal income tax.
The table below provides for the overtime rate that an employer must pay an employee
if the employee is working overtime. The rate is calculated over salary paid during
normal working hour
Overtime hours Overtime rate
Working overtime on weekdays at day time 150%
Working overtime on weekdays at night time 200%
Working overtime on weekend at day time 200%
Working overtime on weekend at night time 270%
Working overtime on Tet or other public 300%
holiday at day time
Working overtime on Tet or other public 390%
holiday at night time
43

In-depth Interviews
Date: June 20, 2017
Responder 1: Vo Dang Quynh Nga (Nga Vo)
Title: Supervisor – Administration & Personnel
Date of joining company: Sep 03, 2009
Interviewer: Nguyen Trong Huu (Huu Nguyen)
Venue: Library Room
Duration: 11:30AM – 11:55AM
This interview is to support for my MBA Research. Your comment will be important advice
and really useful to contribute to my research.
Huu Nguyen: Good morning! First of all, thank so much for your time to join with me on in
the in-depth interview today. To save our time, I will focus on main topic for our
conservation today.
Nga Vo: Ok
Huu Nguyen: How long have you worked for this company?
Nga Vo: I worked for EIVN about 07 years since 2009. I joined this company as an
Administration & Personnel position.
Huu Nguyen: Wow! A really long time for one job at one company! What make you can
stick with this company so long?
Nga Vo: Expeditors is one of biggest company globally in logistic industry. With a professional
environment is launching for all the Branches on over the world, the company is giving to all
their employees a chance to develop whenever. It brings the equal opportunities to employees
and they are able to contribute their ability for the company’s performance with a highest score.
In additional, people here is very friendly and be ready to support for your
44

development plan anytime you need. You will be treated fairly with your contribution. Your
suggestions are recognized and launched to procedure in order to improve teams’
productivity Huu Nguyen: Working in such a good environment probably most employees
here have worked long year’s seniority and long-term commitment?
Nga Vo: This is not totally exactly. In fact, some employees have been worked for the
company for a very long time period – 15years. Some went with this company in the short
time.
Actually, there have still a numerous employee have left the company since last year.
Huu Nguyen: Really? Do you know the reason why they left?
Nga Vo: in the company’s policy, we have to complete “Exit Interview” for all the
employees who leave. Then I recorded these results in database to support for company’s
survey as well as improvement later then. From this information, I learnt that almost they
decided to leave the company due to lacking of controlling in pressure. It’s easily to
understand that high pressure is one of important concern for all employees that they
committed that they can overcome this at the first time of interviews, but still cannot cover
this. Huu Nguyen: Oh, I see this. So, this is the main reason?
Nga Vo: Maybe. Employees, especially is the team of Productions, all the time I heard from
them that they are always busy. I think this is not specific in this company, but while finish
daily job, thy need to spend time to invest more time to learn and find the solution to improve
their productivity and reduce workload. That’s I think they reason why they said they have
no time. You know, it’s really hard to gather them for a meeting or any events in this company.
Huu Nguyen: So, it seems the time is main issue for all employees. They do not have
enough time to handle their jobs.
Nga Vo: I think so.
45

Huu Nguyen: Ok. It’s time for lunch now. Again, many thanks for your help. Nice day!
Nga Vo: You are welcome!
46

Date: June 20, 2017
Responder 2: Dau Thi Mai Linh (Linh Dau)
Title: Assistance Manager – Administration & Personnel
Date of joining company: Oct 15, 2007
Venue: Her room
Duration: 16:00PM – 16:30PM
and really useful to contribute to my research.
Huu Nguyen: Hello Sis! How are you?
Linh Dau: Hello Huu. I’m ok.
Huu Nguyen: Are you free? Can I have a short talk now?
Linh Dau: Sure.
Huu Nguyen: I’m going to prepare first step for my thesis in my university, and my
research is related to the way that employees to control their time to improve productivity. I
do hope receive your support to complete my research by feedback to my questions for our
interview today.
Linh Dau: If I know, I can help
Huu Nguyen: Thank, sis Linh. How long have you worked for this company?
Linh Dau: I start my job at E.I Freight forwarding in 2007, up to now I have experienced
about 9 years with this company. I started with a position in Air Export department, and
then I was rotated to Sale team with a Sale Administration position and now I am a position
of Human Resource.
47

Huu Nguyen: working for a long time in many positions in many departments, perhaps you
know clearly the employees’ status and this company
Linh Dau: Not sure. This is a company that has a lot of employees in long working period,
specific in 15years. There are around 5 employees that have worked for this company with
this timeframe and around 10 employees in 10 years.
Huu Nguyen: So exciting to hear that. They love their jobs. How can we know a best choice
for a candidate?
Linh Dau: When hiring staffs for the company, for each position, we understand that the
candidates have already learnt about some subjects related to management term. However,
easily to recognize that the reals work and theories are total different. The candidates might
come from many majors and there were selected by the way they meet the requirement and
ability to get the job done on time and can be worked under high pressure, communication
skills and qualified candidates… that the factors we consider first.
Huu Nguyen: Almost employees always said that they can overcome the workload, and
totally can work under high pressure. But, they are not performing this commitment. What
do you think?
Linh Dau: Actually, we know that. Normally, we have to re-train for all employees
including old ones to help them to develop their patch. Always, we discuss this topic in the
management team meeting.
Huu Nguyen: Do you think that time management is important for employees to improve
their productivity?
Linh Dau: Time management. This is also the main issue that is happening in this company.
Employees lose control their time and cannot balance their life. During past year, there was 5
employees has entered hospital due to stressing in work, around 10 employees have left the
48

company that they could not cover their jobs anymore. They need more time to stay with
their family.
Huu Nguyen: I think so. I see in my department, Mrs. Hien Do just intend to leave the
company next month that when I ask her for the reason she said that she really does not
have time to take care her babies, either time to handle daily jobs.
Linh Dau: That still be an issue that we are working with Mr. Kelvin - our District Manager
to improve this point.
Huu Nguyen: Ok, I think this is enough for my research and maybe I will need to have met
with other colleagues to understand more about this issue. Anyway, thanks for your help
today.
49

Date: Jun 21, 2017
Responder 3: Nguyen Ngoc Tu Uyen (Uyen Nguyen)
Title: Supervisor – Ocean Export
Date of joining company: Jun 25, 2009
Venue: SGN meeting room
and really useful to contribute to my research
Huu Nguyen: Hi chi Uyen. How are you? Are you free now?
Uyen Nguyen: Hi em. I’m ok within 10 minute only. I have the meeting in next 15 minute
later with Regional Office.
Huu Nguyen: Ok chi. I will focus on my main issue. In order to support for my research in
MBA thesis, I’m looking for the reason to see the importance of time management with our
staff in our company. Have you ever heard about time management?
Uyen Nguyen: Yes. I have been trained by Regional training – Huisan Koh a subject related
to this issue. This is really an exciting topic that giving us the knowledge about the way to
control the time to get the job done well as well as schedule time for family.
Huu Nguyen: So, how do you think this problem in our company? Is this existing in your
department?
Uyen Nguyen: When we enter to the peak season, the number of workload will increase
incredible. While the Regional’s instruction does not allow adding more headcount,
employees must work under highest pressure to complete their job. Hence, the schedule for
the time to complete each job will be more and more importance.
50

When I went around and ask for some staffs in how they manage their job. It’s quite
surprised that no one has the plan for their time to complete the jobs every day. Huu
Nguyen: How can you manage your time?
Uyen Nguyen: Every day, before starting a new day, I often make a paper that list out the
activities need to be solved in within the day first. Then, I stick the important must be done
first, and respective for the rest later.
Also, as a customer service, my responsibility is to communication with carriers, shippers
very frequently. I spent most of my time to talk to them via phone, sending the email to get
the confirmation for space from carriers and booking from shippers for details of shipment. I
was always distracted by customers even I managed my time very well. I had a to-do list. I
will list details of job need to solve in priority from urgent to not urgent and clear all but
sometimes the disturbtion get me down and I cannot focus on the job well.
Until now, everyone seems to manage their job by feeling and experience without specific
timing. Luckily, there is no serious trouble by the way. There are some, but I think they can
solve by themselves without escalation
Huu Nguyen: It’s time of your meeting. Thank you for your help.
51

Date: Jun 21, 2017
Responder 4: Pham Thi Thu Suong (Suong Pham)
Title: Manager – Ocean Export
Date of joining company: Feb 10, 2003
Huu Nguyen: Hi chi Suong. I’m investigating on how the employees to manage their time
to control their job, but I’m also note sure whether this is correct option or not. Would you
able to join my interview now, it’s take you around 30 minutes only. Suong Pham: I’m ok,
Huu.
Huu Nguyen: Do you think that time management is an issue for all our employees?
Suong Pham: Actually, most of employees at EIVN are not fully trained about this skill.
All employees are required to complete 52hrs of training time per year but seem that there
have been no subjects/lessons regarding to management skills fully contributed to staff
level. I don’t know where is the cost will be for this required yearly training.
Huu Nguyen: same as my thought. I have worked for this company around 6 years but I
have not received any emails/courses from training team about this topic.
Suong Pham: I don’t know what the status at other company is, but with EIVN, it has not
been improved so far. We even remind our team many times in the team meeting that “your
performance will be affected by our evaluate and you need to think for yourself the solution
52

to improve with the effective timing manage but all will be back to normal after some trial.
Huu Nguyen: Thank chi
53

Date: Jun 22, 2017
Responder 5: Manh Hoang Tuan (Hoang Tuan)
Title: Order Management - Operation Manager
Date of joining company: Feb 01, 2003
Huu Nguyen: Hello anh Tuan. I’m going to finish my study in ISB in a next few months
and now I’m preparing for my thesis to submit to University. I do hope I can complete this
exercise soonest so I can work with it.
Hoang Tuan: Sure. Is it ok for you to have a short meeting now?
Huu Nguyen: How long have you worked for this company?
Hoang Tuan: I joined this company from 2003; my first position was documentation at
Order Management department. At that time, the company has only some employees. 3
years later, the number of employees is more and more increase. Up to now, company has
more than 100 ones. I then was re-structured to take the position of a customer service.
Huu Nguyen: I know that our Oder Management (OM) team is the department has the
highest overtime working hours in the company while others are low. Do you know why?
Hoang Tuan: Actually. This is not for my dept. only. Some of others are also the same status.
This is due to the feature of the job. Staffs in OM are required to handle the job very carefully,
pay attention to details. We take care the purchase orders of customer and follow to ensure
54

the shipment has been moved with the accuracy quantity in the best options. So, we need a
lot of time spend on each shipment.
Huu Nguyen: From my point of view, I see some staffs do not focus on their daily jobs.
Some time, they gather a group for chatting and via Lync without concerntracing into
completing the jobs. Do you think that this is one problem that make your staffs’ waste time
in the morning and need more time to handle in the evening? For example
Hoang Tuan: I always remind my team must arrange the time to finish their jobs and leave
the company on time. For employees who often have the overtime working time is too high,
I look at their daily job handling and the way they perform their action, then ask them to
focus on job and looking for the solution to improve. They need to manage your job
effectively rather than just only focus on handling the job as the way they did long time ago.
Once employees are trained management skill fully at the time of beginning their jobs at this
company, they will have a general knowledge about the management. Through this training,
they could find for themselves a way to manage their jobs. Keep doing the priorities jobs
and solving the important issues then.
Huu Nguyen: So, based on your comment, I understand that the control of time is main
problem that make staff stay at company too late and even affect to their health. Is that
right? Hoang Tuan: This is not totally correct. But, this is also one problem. I believe that if
you have managed your time, get it in place and take a list for your jobs you will easily to
complete the jobs on time. You can arrange your time to enjoy the life with your friends,
family. Huu Nguyen: I know. But it seems very difficult.
Hoang Tuan: I understand that but we have no choice. It’s not for our company only. I know
that it happens that same status for other companies in the same field with our company. This is
the general trend of market; we cannot cover the market but we can manage our time. At
55

least if you have the time is managed well; you can adapt all the change of market in peak
and low season. Then, you are ready to control everything.
Huu Nguyen: Now I see one of important point with our staffs is lose control on time.
Hoang Tuan: Maybe you are correct. I recently was asked by MP one question about time
management. It’s surely that if we have a to do list to review the jobs, keep prioritizing are
the basic view of this issue.
Huu Nguyen: Oh, I see your point. Thank you so much for joining the interview today. I do
hope with this useful advice, I can find the problem in our department and have some
proposed solution to solve it.
Hoang Tuan: That’s perfect!
56

Date: Jun 22, 2017
Responder 6: Phan Nguyen Diem Chau (Diem Chau)
Title: Air Export Manager
Date of joining company: Jun 01, 2000
Venue: DAD meeting room
Huu Nguyen: Thank chi Chau for joining our “talk show” today. I know you are very busy,
so I will focus on the main point so quickly.
Diem Chau: Ok Huu. Let me do my best to help you
Huu Nguyen: Your department and OM have the same overtime working ratio in last year
when I review the working time report. Working very late at night, how can you and your
team have time with family?
Diem Chau: This is really my pain point. In the past, we could cover our jobs. But the
volume is more and more increasing while customer is more and more adding new
requirement, we had to look at more details to take care the shipment and as this result take
our more time. As you know, the time of moving time for one air shipment is really short so
any step in the process must be done so quickly, 8hrs per day is not enough for us. Huu
Nguyen: Have you had any solution to improve this point?
Diem Chau: I think we can launch the time management term. Actually, we have had trained
but it is only for manager level, and general staffs are subjected to their manager. As you can
see, most of employees seems do not have enough time to join the class. Even when we joined
57

the Branch meeting or outing trip, there are some staffs in document and customer service
team are assigned to have duty to answer the call or promptly reply to customers. Moreover,
we had online training system; we can suggest adding this topic on it so they can learn
anytime they want.
On the other hand, due to company’s policy, we cannot submit to hire more headcount since
employees must change their behaviour to control their time that is not affect to their jobs
but also balance in life.
Huu Nguyen: I had an interview with other staffs and managers; they had the same identify
with your comment.
Diem Chau: Oh really. I think if company can solve this issue soon, we can bring more
benefits to our employees
Huu Nguyen: Thank chi for joining our talk today.
Diem Chau: You are welcome! And good luck
58

Date: Jun 23, 2017
Responder 7: Nguyen Thi Sang Sang (Sophie)
Title: Ocean Export Documentation
Date of joining company: left Company already
Venue: via phone
Huu Nguyen: Hello Sang. How are you?
Sang Sang: Hi anh Huu. I am ok. How are you? Why do you call me?
Huu Nguyen: hmm. It’s long time not talk to you. I hope you are doing a good job
I am calling you to need you help to complete my MBA research regarding to Time
Management term and want to ask you some questions. Are you ok to answer that? Sang
Sang: Ok. I am happy to do that
Huu Nguyen: so to save time. I will go directly to my question: could you please share me
the reason why you decide to leave the company?
Sang Sang: 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. It’s made me become
stressful and lose control. I don’t have time to do other personal project. Then, I endorsed to
other company.
Huu Nguyen: So, how about then in new job?
Sang Sang: However, it happens the same situation 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
59

working in vainly. I then was trained by the company 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, I get my life more organized, 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.
Huu Nguyen: Wow! It’s sound great. Can you share what did your new company train?
Sang Sang: actually, this is not new. It may be because E.I is my first company so I was
overwhelmed when starting the first job. All my time always think about finishing the job
on time with the best result. Unfortunately, I did have any strategy to achieve that.
After leaving your company, I spend around two months for travelling and organized my
life. Then I pointed out some task that I need to overcome and have as clearer plans in my
new job. It’s now better.
Huu Nguyen: Fantastic. I think I need to learn from you. Do you want to find the time to
have a coffee this weekend?
Sang Sang: Sure. I will send you a text later.
Huu Nguyen: Ok Sang. Many thanks for your time today
Sang Sang: no problem. I hope my comment can help you some ideas in the thesis.
60

Date: Jun 23, 2017
Responder 8: Tran Thi Thanh Mai (Mai Tran)
Title: Ocean Export Documentation – Lead Agent
Date of joining company: 2006
Venue: SGN room
Huu Nguyen: Thank chi Mai for your time for our conservation. This interview is to
support for my MBA Research. Your comment will be important advice and really useful to
contribute to my research.
Mai Tran: you are still working on it? I knew you study this program and I supposed you
have already left your university.
Huu Nguyen: This is a long story. I was busy with the transition since I have been selected
in MT program so I could not arrange the time to complete. Now deadline is coming so I
cannot extend anymore.
Mai Tran: Understand. I do hope this time you can finish and focus on your new job
Huu Nguyen: Thanks chi. I know you worked for this company for long time and now you
are a leader in document team. So what is the most of challenging you are facing?
Mai Tran: Being a team leader, I have to try find the way to manage the job timely and
take a responsibly to manage the team (documentation) to ensure no trouble occupied. That
is a really 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 even don’t have enough time to
complete my job so I am unable to control team’s performance especially in peak season.
That why I always be reminded by my manager during EPE (smile).
61

Huu Nguyen: How can you balance your job and manage your team?
Mai Tran: Actually, I had to try too much. I will take responsibility if anyone in the team
failed.
Huu Nguyen: You mentioned about the time so what is the root cause, you think?
Mai Tran: 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 company can
develop some tools can help us to handle more productivity.
Huu Nguyen: so you know the causes, what do you need to overcome that and support your
team?
Mai Tran: We understand that if we control time in the best way then they can have more
time to do their job well. However, the habits cannot be changed in from day to day even
they insist with the current practice. I know my manager wants to change this bahaviour but
cannot do immediately as this will be impacted to service quality.
Huu Nguyen: Oh. I see the problem. It’s very hard to change people’s habit as it was taking
for a long time.
Mai Tran: Sure.
Huu Nguyen: Thanks chi Mai for a great time today. I am getting clearer the picture of our
company and hope this issue can be settled very soon.
Mai Tran: ok Huu
62

Date: Jun 26, 2017
Responder 9: Pham Thi Minh Hai (Hai Pham)
Title: Ocean Export Customer Service – Pricing
Date of joining company: 2007
Venue: SGN room
Huu Nguyen: Thank chi Hai for your time for our conservation. This interview is to
support for my MBA Research. Your comment will be important advice and really useful to
contribute to my research.
Hai Pham: Ok Huu. I will try what I can help you
Huu Nguyen: Could you please tell me more about your nature job?
Hai Pham: My role is pricing analysis. I will take responsibility for filing the rate with
carrier, taking from my supervisor – Ms. Thuy Do. Besides that, I also take the role of
booking so you can see why I need to communicate between shipper and carrier daily. Huu
Nguyen: What do you expect in your job?
Hai Pham: I want to do the job smoothly without any trouble. I think others are same
Huu Nguyen: Do you plan for your daily job?
Hai Pham: Actually not. Some time I tried to get the plan by creating an excel file and keep
it in my computer. I did it sometimes but forget it.
Huu Nguyen: Do you have you have enough time to handle your job?
Hai Pham: time will be never enough if you don’t manage it well. Talks about the term time
management, I see almost our employees are not trained well this skill. We understand that if
we are good in managing the time, we can do better job, getting more productivity and support
63

to others, so peak season is not the main issue with us. However, from the day one, when I
started my job in this company, I have not been trained about this. I see some people cannot
adapt with heavy pressure of the job and they left, some try to “run” with the deadline to
finish the job. Once they come to office, they turn on the computer and first thing they
check email. And you know, if you don’t have a specific plan in advance for your day you
will stick with the computer to check and reply email, solving the problem (if any) and you
don’t have enough time for extra job to getting more even time to drink.
Huu Nguyen: I know our employees understand the importance of time but they don’t
know how to enhance it in their job/life. Some people think that they manage well per
experience so they don’t need to have any plan on it.
Hai Pham: Agreed. That is because the trouble has not yet come.
Huu Nguyen: Thanks your time in a great talk today chi Hai. I hope you can manage your
time well in future so you can save more time with your babies. Hai Pham: Thanks Huu
64

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