Dealing with revenue reduction at intertek company

Owing to the hard-working of all employees and good management skills of high-level staff, Intertek is known as one of the most trusted leaders in Total Assurance Quality Industry.. Acco

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

Nguyen Son Tung

DEALING WITH REVENUE

REDUCTION

AT INTERTEK COMPANY

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: ASSOC PROF TRAN HA MINH QUAN

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018

Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 4

1 Introduction about The Company 4

2 Research objectives 5

3 Research Methods 5

4 Questionnaire design 6

5 Limitation 6

CHAPTER 2: PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION 7

1 Market Demand 7

1.1 Domestic market 7

1.2 Export Market 7

1.3 Competitors 9

2 Problem identification 10

2.1 Symtoms of the company 10

2.2 Unskilled employees 12

2.3 Poor support among company employees 15

2.4 Not enough support from Intertek 17

CHAPTER 3: DESIGN SOLUTION AND SUGGESTION 20

1 Improves recruitment process 20

2 Life balance 21

3 Culture set 22

4 Training Program 23

5 Performance Management 24

CHAPTER 4: ACTION PLAN 26

1 Recruitment process 26

2 Motivation Program 27

3 Training Program 28

CONCLUSION 30

REFERENCE 31

APPENDIX 35

SWOT 35

Market Assessment 36

Market Share 38

Customer expectations 39

Significant relationships 41

Vietnamese Free Trade Agreements 43

Intertek – Market Growth Driver 44

Vietnamese Competitive Footprint across Market 45

Priority Areas for Growth 46

Major Competitor Updates 47

Intertek Differentiators 48

Customer Learning 49

Important Regulation during 2014-2016 50

IT Strategy 52

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The increase of human’s living standard leads to the requirement on using the quality products Based on Choon7, over 78% of supermarket or shops or malls tend to require their supplier to provide the certificate of quality from trusted Quality Assurance Company This directly supports the article’s claim that some assurance company has many development opportunities because of reaching the demand of customers One of the leading quality assurance companies in the world and even in Vietnam is Intertek that found in 1880 by Thomas Edison and had developed in Vietnam in 1998 According to Intertek Group Plc - Annual Report11, the company runs their business into using their techniques to test, inspect and measure the product’s quality and evaluate the factory’s environment However, Intertek is faced with complicated issues

in attracting consumers because of the limited in marketing planning and high competition in the quality assurance providers This specific organization was chosen because the researcher would to apply their knowledge and skills that are learned in Economic University in Ho Chi Minh City This paper will firstly provide the background of quality assurance companies in Vietnam before analyzing the Intertek’s problem that company is suffering Some recommendation on the company’s issue will definitely be mentioned

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Introduction about The Company

Intertek is a total assurance quality company that conducts business in checking product quality, reorganizing the factory’s risk and evaluating the employee’s working condition According to Nguyen-Viet, Tran, Unger, Dang-Xuan & Grace31, the business had established by Thomas Edison from combination between most modern assurance quality labs in London, Hong Kong and US in 1880 During 140 developing years, Intertek has identified as an international enterprise where 45,000 employees work over 140 countries Owing to the hard-working of all employees and good management skills of high-level staff, Intertek is known as one of the most trusted leaders in Total Assurance Quality Industry

In Vietnam, Intertek was built in 1998 from Intertek France’s investment and currently has 9 official offices throughout 6 Vietnamese cities and provinces: Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Ha Noi City, Nha Trang, Can Tho and Hai Phong According to Intertek Group Plc - Annual Report11, the main business portfolios of Intertek Vietnam are Cargo, Softlines, Certification Service, Hardlines, Business Assurance,

Governmental Trade Service, Electric and Agriculture According to Pham32, Vietnam

is the leader of rice and garment exports, Intertek Vietnam focuses on building the innovative labs to conduct test that relates to agricultures and softlines services It is worth pointing out that these departments currently become the profitable ones that contribute 46% monthly revenue of Intertek Vietnam

at reliable resources in order to collect the market demand of Assurance Quality

industry in Vietnam and business opportunity of Intertek Vietnam in Vietnamese market From material collected, the business’ problem will be obviously recognized and supported to project’s recommendation

4 Questionnaire design

The question in interview is created to attempt collecting information of account department that supports the research to solve the business’s problem These questions will relate to the working task and department’s duties and difficulties in working process The answer of these survey questions will be analyzed in following step as a main resource of recommendation

CHAPTER 2: PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

1 Market Demand

1.1 Domestic market

The living standard in Vietnam still is low due to low monthly earnings, so most of Vietnamese citizens are willing to purchase low quality goods with cheap prices According to Tran & Jeppesen40, around 81% of food in Vietnamese market was at low quality while the people have to eat dirty food daily The author also mentioned that many customers do not have basic knowledge that presents the unsafe good directly brings bad influences to people’s health In particular, dirty food is purchased in Vietnamese market and it includes poisonous chemicals insight goods According to Asia News Monitor1, 63% of the Vietnamese customer answered that public quality assurance companies do not support much in finding out unsafe goods and low quality products because these companies are not invested much into labs, machines and employees From this element mentioned, customers do not know how

to evaluate what the quality product is and keep buying the goods in market while Ministries of Health noticed that 92% clothes or toys in Vietnamese market has ingredient that directly causes serious illnesses, as cancers to the customers

Exports (US$bn) Imports (US$bn)

According to Pham32, people in developed countries has high living standard while the government of these nations also register strict rule on the quality of exported products that plans to export into their markets According to Tran & Jeppesen40, the main possible exported markets of Vietnam are Japan, EU and United State (find chart 1) that requires the quality product certification when products are delivered into their market To demonstrate, some main products are textile & garments, accessories of electrical and computer equipment, agricultural products and foods are checked strictly

in US market while China has begun adapting more stringent rules on reviewing the quality of rice that makes from Vietnam As a result, it requires the growth of trusted Quality Assurance Company in Vietnamese market that can give trusted certification

to these partners accept Vietnamese products enter into their market (Pham 2010) It follows that partner of Vietnamese exported company requires their vendor to conduct good’s quality test in international assurance company that already has brand name in international market and satisfy their market’s requirements on quality of products

1.3 Competitors

According to Fairclough13, existing players adapt the intense prices and increase their

investment in Vietnamese Branch labs while many entrants have start setting up their

offices in Vietnamese market To demonstrate, the competitors of BV and SGS has

lower price compared to Intertek Vietnam at 40% while these competitors has

expanded their organization in North of Vietnam quickly In additional, these two key

competitors have some potential customers at exported market as US and EU It

follows that Intertek’s market share might be decrease at Vietnamese market

Estimated Addressable Market Share

(2016)

2 Problem identification

2.1 Symtoms of the company

According to Ms Lena – Country Finance Manager of Intertek Vietnam, the revenue

of the company has been declining continously in the past 5 years which is a very disappointed performance as the demand in both domestic and export market has grown well during that time due to the increasing awareness of food safety and quality control Revenue decreases means that Intertek not only have difficulty in finding new customers but also struggle to retain the current customers

Revenue 85 million

USD

83 million USD

45 million USD

32 million USD

25 million USD

One reason of that is certainly the highly competive industry According to Intertek Group Plc - Annual Report11, the key risk from Intertek’s competitors includes entry of new players, expansion of existing players, price wars, clients and staff poaching In particular, some tests, which require from vendor, cannot be done by Intertek but provided by their competitors as Flame retardants TB117 and Formaldehyde ASTM D6007 under US regulation (SGS), Testing for Polymer material (SGS), Services for FSC, ASC, ISO 15378 (BV), BAP & ASC certification and testing (BV & SGS) and Full range of Food Contact Testing and Certification (SGS and TUV-R) Moreover, these competitors have lower price on test compared to Intertek For instance, the price

in testing HP in footwear in Intertek is 30 USD compared to 15 USD at SGS and 25 USD at BV In addition, some new entrants invest heavily in technology, so their result in testing fee, which will be released more quickly, meet the timeline of exporters Therefore, the rate of new customer revenue in total revenue in 2013 was about 13% and decreased steadily until 2017 only about 4%

Beside the harsh competition of big players in the industry, there must be a number of reasons that cause the company’s declining revenue internally It is because of the nature of the industry, customers are not likely to switch to other companies if they are satisfied with the current provider as long-term corporation will decrease costs3 It

means customers are not satisfied with Intertek and it can be explained by: firstly, the cost is not effective; secondly, they are not satisfied with the services and solutions of Intertek; and finally, they are not happy with Intertek’s experts According to Goetsch

& Davis16, The company has been working in the quality assurance for a long time, it has resources, knowledge and experience to offer most of services and solutions customers need with a reasonable cost Mr Khoi also pointed out that Intertek's prices and services are not the cause of this problem because when compared with other companies, the price and service of Intertek is very competitive Therefore, the problem can come from the company’s experts who work directly with the customers The primary requirement of an expert who work in the quality assurance industry is his/her skills and knowledge Fully skilled experts can offer exactly what solutions customers need and it will save time and cost Customers also require the experts to have a certain level of knowledge about the products that need to control the quality However, Intertek’s service cannot rely only on the experts because they are just one part of the working system The experts need to be supported by the company, from other departments and from other experts in order to provide a good service If the connection among Intertek’s employees is poor or there is not enough support from the company, it will lead to a low-quality service that makes customer unhappy

Companies may perform poorly for a variety of specific reasons involving unclear goals, poor strategy and execution and poor marketing and communication Firstly, company’s goals provide the necessary framework to drive strategic planning, budgeting, talent management and organizational structure38 Without defined and communicated goals, it is hard for the departments and employees to carry out consistent and quality work that attracts clients and customers and generates earnings Secondly, leaders may have an elaborate plan to reorganize the business for optimal efficiency and production, but they don't communicate thoroughly and effectively enough to get buy-in20 If front line leaders don't understand their roles in strategy and execution, it is difficult to get employees to break out of traditional roles and habits Finally, lack of investment in market research limits development of desired products and services Lack of investment in promotion negates company ability to attract customers and build a successful brand reputation10 However, common causes of low

revenue or profit include lack of talent or resources Clearly defined business goals and strategies to enact them are often the starting point for improving poor performance

2.2 Unskilled employees

Some various reasons are defined to enact them are often the starting point for having poor performance However, clearly defined business goals and strategies are stated clearly in Intertek’s statement or public reports For example, short-term goals

of Intertek Vietnam include building a customer base or generating cash flow whit their According to Tompos & Ablonczy-Mihályka39, long-term goals often include building a brand, market share growth and profits Such goals provide direction for decisions and activities and aid in measuring performance progress It is not reason of low performance at this company Moreover, Intertek spent a lot of money in conducting some researches on marketing and communication to attract customers and build a successful brand reputation As a result, we can make conclusion that the poor performance in Intertek Vietnam happens because of talent and resource deficiency

According to Hsieh, Nguyen, Ho & Doan21, Ineffective staff utilization results from the inappropriate or misguided hiring, placement, training and oversight of a business’s employee pool Left unchecked, ineffective use of employees can slow productivity, decrease morale and financially damage a company In a small-business environment, every position can impact the company’s health, making effective staff utilization a necessity In Intertek’s case, the main reason of unskilled- staff is low quality of training According to Sullivan37, the reason of un-skill employee the rate of production is low when employees do not know enough to perform their jobs confidently To save time, employers often delegate the task of training to employees who have been on the job longer But many times, these employees are not given extra time to do so; they still need to complete their own work So, they rush through the training, or leave it up to the new employee to ask questions Unskilled employees could spend considerable time seeking help to perform their jobs or they could perform tasks to their understanding, to the detriment of the work process This could lead to errors and work needing to be repeated or corrected When more experienced employees spend time monitoring unskilled workers, it detracts from their work and

affects their production as well During the interviews, Mr Khoi Nguyen always emphasized the main factors influencing the decrease of customer’s reputation are because of unprofessional working ways of unskilled employees at Intertek Vietnam The demand of total assurance quality industry has risen in recent years while customers gain some information and knowledge on the goods quality that they use It follows that customers tend to be need good consultation while some employees in sale department do not how to give advice efficiently and others still work in passive ways As a result, some discussion or negotiation processes between sales and customers have been broken because these customers believe that the low-skilled consultation cannot improve their life from irrelevant advices According to Hsieh, Nguyen, Ho & Doan21, customers of an organization would not agree to enter business contract if sale department cannot provide all information that satisfy the demand of these customers

Firstly, unskilled employees have been recruited because of high demand of human resource in Intertek Vietnam It is worth pointing out that sale employee need to learn some basic knowledge on business areas what company conducts business is For example, sale staff of textile department needs to have some knowledge that relates garment, shoes, and clothes and tend of clothes in current times It brings the fact that technique parameters of textile need to be understood clearly by sale staff and the requirement of transferring the information needed to customer in right ways has been increased rapidly In order to convince customers to buy Intertek’s service, the staff employees should be high skilled ones Under interview of Mr Khoi, Intertek cannot recruit enough employees who have good knowledge on assurance quality areas, as textile and agriculture This is because many Vietnamese people think the technique assurance jobs have low salary and they do not want their children to choose this career as a future work Moreover, the Vietnamese universities do not have enough equipment or skills to tech their students about this field Thus, the students in these technique universities has graduated from their program and applied into these international assurance quality companies Although the international companies evaluate these students as unskilled employees, the demand of human resources in organization makes recruiters recruit them as potential employees26 On discussion

between Mr Khoi Nguyen and his staff, these staff mentioned that they cannot work efficiently because they do not confident on their skills while some customers and colleagues have given the bad feedbacks on their job performance Although these employees planned to enjoy some extra classes to improve their knowledge, the plan has been broken because of high cost fee Therefore, the company needs to consider creating training program for these employees that might directly improve the company’s sale

Secondly, poor quality of training course can lead to increase of unskilled employees According to the interview with Ms Lena, each department managers has responsibilities in conducting training program for their staff and these programs happen quarterly However, the performance of these training programs are not evaluated by employees or top level management, so some employees studying into the training program mentioned that they cannot understand clearly what their managers teach on programs because the language used is too academic It follows that training programs do not improve the performance of unskilled employees in some departments When being asked the main reasons of the failure of training programs in Intertek Vietnam, Mr Khoi Nguyen explained that managers are quite busy to fulfill their duties in their department and have less time to find the materials of training program or make a good preparation Therefore, these managers will use technique language or their high theory that they learned to apply into the training In addition, employee joining training class do not give any feedbacks on the manager’s teaching ways because they are worried their jobs that might be influenced by bad comments on training programs In fact, some employees said that some training courses have been repeated many times with same materials that make them feel bored In particular, training courses do not have a lesson that relates to their working duties, such as how

to convince customer, or how to provide the information in right way or how to create

a good contract with customers It is worth pointing out that each employee has different experiences and knowledge and different level employees joining the same study courses might be efficient37 Moreover, training courses always are mostly registered by experienced employees while new ones feel shy to join because they are afraid to be given commented as an unskilled employee in trail periods

Finally, employees do not have same collective objectives with their departments According to interview with Ms Lena, Vietnamese employees focus on the monthly salary received more than their performance on their working tasks It follows that these employees do not put all their knowledge or enthusiasm into their work that is the key reason why the sales of Intertek Vietnam has been decreased In fact, Intertek does not have any meetings or discussion on the business’s goal or the benefits of working-hard on company’s tasks As a result, most of employees cannot understand why they need to work hard or why they need to improve their skills on training courses According to Melkonian, Soenen & Ambrose27, discussion between managers and their staff can make improvement on internal relationship in company To demonstrate, employees might have some difficulties when conducting theirs staff and they also need the supports from their colleagues or managers in order to overcome bad situation or share experiences with them However, the power distance between Vietnamese employees and managers is high and it creates big barriers on sharing information and building relationship in origination It follows that the employees cannot get what managers need from them and lose their try into the collective objectives of company

2.3 Poor support among company employees

According to Mr Thanh Tam Nguyen – Sale Staff of Textile Department, disconnection between employees has built up by high competitive level between staffs and unfair treatment with employees In fact, most employees want to be evaluated at good KPI at the end of years that helps them to improve their salaries and position It follows that they need to be differentiated compared to others Some employees have tried hard to improve their working quality while others treat selfish

to their colleagues In particular, some new employees cannot support from old ones while mistake has been established that is because their team members let them conduct work alone In some cases, conflict on interests between departments also creates the disconnected between employees To elaborate, account receivable accountant tends to collect the money from customers quickly while sale wants to make good relationship with customers It brings that different interest on working makes a disconnection between these employees and they cannot support each other to

achieve collective goals in improving company’s performance Veenhoven42

states that cheat, intense and selfish desired for power and extreme influence created from relationship lead to the breach of connections ‘cooperation It brings that the employers try to express their displeasure and affect their powers of thinking, reasoning and making decision in organization Own to the fact that these staff put their self-interest into work, they would provide the wrong arguments that directly makes a difference to the planning of achieving the cooperation’s objective30

According to the survey conducted by Intertek Vietnam, the older workers have to be forced to leave the jobs that they love doing while others received a bullying or bad treatment from managers The unjust or prejudicial treatment can be demonstrated regularly in many different ways at workplace Discrimination means employees can

be harmed and injured that result from some judgments or preconceived opinions on the differentiated among ages, sex or class in society41 In the workplace, discrimination is represented by bias or unfair decision from managers while other staff may harass or bully the staff who has different on sex or race or age compared with them Mr Nguyen Thanh Tam also said that discrimination presents into three unfair treatments of managers to their old staff that has long-term experience at Intertek Vietnam

Firstly, Lab Technique Managers or Team leaders always change the technique employee’s shift at work According to Skinner, Oliver, Megan & Blake36, the employer is not right to change the working time or move shift without permission from the related employee for this action In some agreements or labor contracts, the company can create the change on shift pattern but the manager or team leaders has to provide fair and sensible notice It means the employers only can change the working hour due to reasonable reason at works with fair notice if being not considered as unfair treatment at work According to Ms Nguyen Thanh Tam, some managers did not give any notices or fair explanations for changing their staff’s working condition while the movement on this old worker can bring negative influences on his working performance as well as these staff’s health

Secondly, some employee’s task is higher compared to other workers because their manager does not assign enough workers at his shift It is worth pointing out that

some shift will have staff with low working level while these employees are overload due to lack of supporting partners According to Mahapatra25, unequal work between employees is considered as discrimination and excessive workload directly brings negative influence to related employees To demonstrate, excessive workload staff easily accesses stress at high level that can create the problems on mental and physical health Due to stress on work, this staff can suffer the decrease of productivity at work and the increase of doing mistakes There is no denying that job satisfaction will be reduced while employee tends to leave the organization Moreover, according to Liszka24, employee must receive the supporting activities or allowances for the extra works from manager assigned According to some Intertek employees, they do not receive any supports from their managers while overload work can direct affect their health

Finally, some managers designed to dismissal some old workers due to their perception on management prioritized youth It follows that these managers create a stressful environment and unfair opportunities on the development’s old workers According to Guest & Woodrow17, stressful environment can make a company to lose

a talent or skilled staff while unfair chances at work decreases the hardworking or try

of a group of employees at cooperation According to Mr Khoi, some employees work hard physical tasks without any supporting actions from companies while he is a skilled employee with long-term practices at Intertek Vietnam Due to the bad treatment from these managers, Intertek Vietnam can lose its performance if losing a skilled staff According to Hyun22, some old employees who are in the unfair dismissal case tend to retire rather than find the new jobs This is because they lose their trust or benefit on their ability and the fair treatment at workplace

2.4 Not enough support from Intertek

As discussed before, Intertek cannot rely on their experts as they are just a part of a working system In reverse, the company should be the one that their experts can rely

on Firstly, the experts should be assigned the work that is suitable with their abilities

As skills and knowledge of one person is limited, an expert cannot work as efficiently with an industry or product that he/she do not know very well in comparison with the

one they do know According to Ms Khoi, due to the limited number of experts the company has combine with the unplanned assigning work process (the company simply send any available expert to do the work without the appropriate planned schedule), there are a lot of cases that the experts need to work with the unfamiliar products and customers

Secondly, the experts should be provided enough information in order to work efficiently Before and during the work with customers, the company needs to provide its experts with the information about the customers, about their needs and requirements, information about their products, information about the person who works directly with the company’s expert and many more Information can be a vital element of a successful service

Lastly, if customer is not happy with Intertek experts, for example, because of their short in skills and knowledge, the company needs to help its experts to overcome the problem, maybe by sending other expert to help or change the expert who in charge If

it still does not work, the company should be able to change the approaching way to completely the work and make customer happy In other words, Intertek’s experts should not be leave to solve the problem alone Customers will also be happy to know that they are working with the experts who are fully supported by Intertek and the company will solve the problem when it happens

In summary, the symptom that Intertek’s revenue has been declined over the last several years leads to the necessity of solving three problems: unskilled experts, disconnection between employees and inadequate support from the company In this context, the thesis will only focus on one problem which is unskilled employees to discuss further about the potential causes and solutions

CAUSE AND EFFECT TREE DIAGRAM

CHAPTER 3: DESIGN SOLUTION AND SUGGESTION

Dowling, Festing & Engle10 have suggested several remedy measures in order

to improve the efficiency and sustainability of Intertek Vietnam They are several ways to solve the labor shortage problem Each of that has different degree of effectiveness

1 Improves recruitment process

According to Brülde6, having the right person, in the right place, at the right time, is crucial to organizational performance The procedures undertaken when filling the vacancies in Intertek Vietnam regarded as Recruitment process In simple words, it can say that recruitment process is the process of selecting appropriate candidates So, the recruitment process is the critical activity to the managers who are involved in the process of selection According to Garver14, recruitment is the initial attraction of a pool of key talent to the organization It is the process of attracting individuals on a timely basis, in sufficient numbers and with appropriate qualifications and encouraging them to apply for jobs with Intertek Vietnam The main aim of the recruitment in Intertek Vietnam is to get required number of people in terms quantity and quality and to attain human resource contribution to the overall organizational objectives 'Recruitment provides the candidates for the selector to judge'

According to Brock5, management always think to retain their employee with proper hard and soft skills inside the organization So far, the case of in Intertek Vietnam is concerned, management is not found to consider recruitment process in proper way It seems that there is lack of team work among employee lack of awareness of their skills Management is trying to adopt new competitive strategy but

it is not able to make the employee cope with the situation Intertek Vietnam is focusing on e-marketing through attractive company's web-design, advertising for major business event, training and other business activities But it is ignoring the crucial fact that it needs to equip its staff with every changes it is going to make It seems there is lack of cultural fit to the employees Hence, it can be concluded from the above study that, if management wants to attract and retain its employee for organizational success in Intertek Vietnam, it should conduct recruitment process in

effective and efficient way Along with it, it must be able to know well about hard and soft skill of employee to cope them better with organizational culture, changing business environment and technological advancement etc

2 Life balance

According to Choon7, Work Life balance has been regarded as the proper balance between careers on the one hand and pleasure, leisure, family and spiritual development on the other In other words, it is the equilibrium between the time and the amount of effort a person devotes at workplace and the other aspect of life i.e the family life and personal life It is the way of achieving a satisfactory level between work and personal life to have an ability of having choices of different time and energy and its value

According to Garver14, Work life balance has been getting an increasing attention in the today’s competitive market place and is believed to be the quality of life that brings efficiency and satisfaction at work The growing importance of work life balance is highlighted by the Department of Trade and Industry, the U.K, in its study in these words:

Employers worldwide are recognizing of their own accord that it makes good business to provide opportunities for their workforce to achieve a better work life balance with a pay of increased morale, better effectiveness and productivity, and the ability to embrace change

According to Brülde6, Work Life balance is said to be best practiced with flexible working hours which include flexi-time, home working, part-time working and job sharing It benefits both the employer and employee It increases productivity and the effectiveness, raising morale of the employee, motivating them making them committed and deeply engaged in the work It reduced absenteeism as it helps to reduce the work stress upon the employees If the proper work life balance cannot be maintained or the long working hours are imposed upon the employee, it has negative impact on health, relationship and job performance of him

It is very important to retain employees within the organization According to Brock5, many organizations as BT, Vodafone, etc have practiced it in their organizations in effective manner BT first introduced homeworking in early 80s which developed an approach of anytime; anywhere working that allows employees to control hours and location of the working days

As the work life balance approach at work place of Intertek Vietnam to reduce employees work stress is concerned, it is not found to be in practice Employees have pressure towards the completion of high standard cleanliness within deadline that lead

to the frustration, absenteeism and turnover One of the staff’s dissatisfaction over inconsiderate supervisor shows the amount of pressure he has to undergo in the working place He does not get rest even in the break The employees are dissatisfied with the supervisor’s behaviors and working schedule Porters argued that they have given unexpected tasks and asked to carry out the same unexpected time

Intertek Vietnam can practice different approaches as part time work, job sharing, job rotation etc to create work life balance of its employees.it should listened

to the employee and try to resolve the suffering they are passing through Employees should be provided with sufficient break so that they can begin their work with renewed energy If these approaches are taken in practice, it will reduce- negative impact on employee's health, negative impact on relationship and negative impact on job performance It will help the company to retain the employees which will increase productivity, raise morale, motivate the employees, reduce absenteeism

3 Culture set

According to Tompos & Ablonczy-Mihályka39, culture is made up of the values, beliefs, behaviors, goals, attitudes, underlying assumptions and practices that characterizes an organization or group Organizational culture defines the way an organization works together and the beliefs and attitudes it represents as it works in a particular environment Organizational culture is defined in different ways by different people

Organization culture is "the collection of traditions, values, policies, beliefs and attitudes that constitute a pervasive context for everything we do and think in an organization"

According to Tran & Jeppesen40, organizational culture forms the basis for the collective effort to achieve the organizational goal It boosts the culture of team work Mullins mentions that organizational culture assists the organization in three ways where employees accept the rules identifying themselves with the organization when 'it is right thing to do', internalize the organization’s values when they believe they are right, and are motivated to achieve the organizations objectives

Intertek Vietnam should approach the skill development program where all supervisors and chamber maids are encouraged in NVQ training program has planned

to provide meal on duty It seemed to have recognized the employees as the valuable asset of the organization However, Intertek Vietnam has more weaknesses than its few strengths There is lack of job design, job analysis, which obviously lacks job description and job specification Intertek Vietnam does not seem to be practicing work life balance There is pressure on employee at work It lacks team working job sharing etc

Some reasonable approaches of the management towards employees to fit in organizational cultural set up may be prioritizing organizational culture at the time of recruitment of employee, well job design, maintaining work life balance which ultimately leads to better performance, quality of work, competence, better customer services, competitiveness, teamwork and innovation etc20

Hence organizational culture is very important to employees to fit in any organization which if not taken in consideration may lack mutual cooperation among employees, team working among staff that in turn leads the organization away from achieving its objectives, same is the case for Intertek Vietnam

4 Training Program

Generally, organizations need to focus more on human capital, especially training and development for employees to enhance their capabilities and abilities

because of the numerous challenges they facing in working environment39 The motive behind training and development is to improve and update employees’ skills, knowledge and experiences while each of them also has separated function

Training is considered as an essential function of HRM that affects organizational performance It aims to expand employees' skills, capabilities and knowledge to enhance their working performance for the long-term improvement According to Tompos & Ablonczy-Mihályka39, primary aim of developing staffs is to increase potential employee's capacities and gain essential experience to work effectively in new future positions There are two main approaches to apply developing staffs in HRM that is managerial staff and international assignment While the managerial staff focuses on internal managing that cope with the change in organization, the international assignment approach aims to enable the firm to expand international operations Through applying international assignment, employees equip the necessary skills and knowledge to enhance productivity and competitiveness of the firm Therefore, the organization also needs to focus on how expatriates and Intertek Vietnam’s ability to control international subsidiaries when sending employees abroad

To explain cites an idea of many companies that the practice of sending employees has been recognized as 'an important control mechanism' in effectively monitoring and evaluating subsidiary behaviors and activities In other words, Thomas et al38 have found that, 'the higher the percentage of employees in the workforce of a subsidiary, the lower the levels of output control used for that subsidiary' Thus, to prepare for expatriates and local employees, international standard training is in need to help employees understanding how to follow Intertek standard before working at subsidiaries

5 Performance Management

Performance Management is the process that allows the business to evaluate and keep improving individuals, subsidiary and corporate performance, so they can achieve the pre-set goals and targets10

For the evaluation of an employee (expatriate), there are 5 variables that should

be taken in account The first one is the compensation package According to Dowling,

Festing & Engle10, compensation package is important since the financial benefits and career progression motivates the employees Second will be the task given to the expatriate because it will differ among technical, development, strategic, and functional assignments so it is important to clarify what are the expectation for the job Furthermore, Intertek support is another important variable because the level of support the employee is receiving determines how challenging the assignment is To continue, host environment matters when determining the performance of an expat because there are differences in societal, legal, economic, technical, and physical demands20 Also, the type of operation the company is using might affect the performance The last variable is cultural adjustment; this is a critical determinant of the performance The performance will be affected when the expat him/herself and the family cannot adjust in the new place

For the performance appraisal of the employees, criteria will be used and the criteria will vary if the goal is hard, soft, or contextual18 Hence, multiple criteria can

be used when needed To do the performance appraisal the company will design a job, after the manager and the employee to set the goals10 Then performance appraisal will

be conducted by their immediate supervisors or multiple evaluators such as 360-degree valuation 360-degree feedback is feedback that will be provided from sources apart from the line manager Additionally, regular feedback is important because with annual feedbacks it is hard to maintain or improve performance After the feedback if the expat failed, opportunity to improve will be provided by using training and development performance At the end, reward and punishment will be given performance