Ineffective task allocation of mortgage business service team at bank h

Figure 7: Percentage of SLA failure in CLMBS separated by team from June to Dec 2019 Source: Internal data From figure 7, task capture and document issuance account for the highest rate

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-LE THI Y NHI

INEFFECTIVE TASK ALLOCATION

OF MORTGAGE BUSINESS SERVICE

TEAM AT BANK H

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2020

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-LE THI Y NHI

INEFFECTIVE TASK ALLOCATION

OF MORTGAGE BUSINESS SERVICE

TEAM AT BANK H

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: DR DOAN ANH TUAN

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2020

INEFFECTIVE TASK ALLOCATION OF MORTGAGE BUSINESS SERVICE TEAM

AT BANK H

Executive summary 7

1 Company introduction 8

1.1 Background 8

1.2 Organization Chart 8

1.3 Objective and Scope 10

1.4 Process map of Mortgage Business Service 11

2 Company context 12

2.1 Symptom 1: High overtime in MBS 12

2.1.1 Definition of overtime and impact of overtime 12

2.1.2 Diagnosis and analysis 14

2.2 Symptom 2: High time-consuming process in MBS 16

2.2.1 Definition of time-consuming process and impact of time-consuming process 16

2.2.2 Diagnosis and analysis 16

2.3 Symptom 3: High number of document errors in MBS 18

2.3.1 Definition of document error and impact 18

2.3.2 Diagnosis and analysis 19

3 Problem identification 20

3.1 Preliminary cause and effect tree 20

3.2 Potential problem 23

3.2.1 High job demand and job control in team MBS 24

3.2.2 Ineffective task allocation in team MBS 26

3.2.3 Low staff capability of team MBS 29

3.2.4 Poor quality of applications in team MBS 30

3.3 Problem Validation 30

3.3.1 Management perspective 36

3.3.2 Employees’ perspective 37

3.4 Real problem 38

4 Cause analysis 39

4.1 Causes exploration 39

4.1.1 Lack of clear objective for task completion 39

4.1.2 No base on staff competency, personality, and motivation 41

4.1.3 Low flexibility and robustness 42

4.2 Causes validation 43

5 Alternative solutions 48

5.1 Alternative solution 1: Build Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of Balanced Scorecard (BSC) by analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and Simple Multi-Attribute Rating Technique (SMART) 49

5.1.1 Solution exploration 49

5.1.2 Methodology 53

5.1.3 Design a KPIs of BSC using AHP and SMART for MBS 55

5.1.4 Benefit and cost 58

5.2 Alternative solution 2: Create competency dictionary for team members using Knowledge, Skill and Attribute (KSA) model 61

5.2.1 Solution exploration 61

5.2.2 Methodology 64

5.2.3 Design a competency dictionary for MBS 65

5.2.4 Benefit and cost 69

5.3 Solution justification: 71

6 Action plan for implementation 72

7 Supporting information 73

7.1 Interviewees’ Demographic 73

7.2 Interview guides 73

References 80

Appendices 84

List of abbreviations and definition

Retail customers

CLMBS Cards, Loans and Mortgage Business Service – target department

SLA Service Letter Agreement – a commitment to complete service within

a specific time SUT Standard Unit time – standard processing time for a specific task

TAT Turnaround Time – actual total time from receiving a request until

completion

ID card Identity card – personal information card

QAS Quality at Source – the quality of application provided by Sales

CIC Credit Information Center - government department to provide credit

information of customer

KPIs Key Person Indicators – is an evaluation criterion that demonstrates how

effectively a company/team/person is achieving the objectives

List of diagrams

Diagram 1: Preliminary cause and effect tree (Source: Consolidated by author) 21

Diagram 2: Cause and effect tree (Source: Consolidated by author) 24

Diagram 3: Behavior mechanism 31

Diagram 4: Official cause and effect tree (Source: Consolidated by author) 38

Diagram 5: Updated official cause and effect tree (Source: Consolidated by author) 39

Diagram 6: Final cause and effect tree (Source: Consolidated by author) 48

Diagram 7: The Balanced Scorecard Links Performance Measures (Adapted from research) 51

List of figures Figure 1: Organization Chart of Bank H (Sources: Internal data) 9

Figure 2: Organization Chart of CLMBS (Sources: Internal data as at 01Dec2019) 10

Figure 3: Organization Chart of MBS (Sources: Internal data as at 01Dec2019) 11

Figure 4: End to end process of home loan (Source: Internal procedure) 11

Figure 5: The dynamic interactions between the model sectors 13

Figure 6: Total average OT and total volume of CLMBS separated by team from June to November 2014) Figure 7: Percentage of SLA failure in CLMBS separated by team from June to Dec 2019 17

Figure 8: Percentage of application with errors in CLMBS separated by team from June to November 2019 (Source: Internal data) 20

Figure 9: Job description of MBS team members (Source: Internal data) 25

Figure 10: Job requirements of MBS team members (Source: Internal data) 30

List of tables Table 1: Total average OT and total volume of MBS from June to November 2019 15

Table 2: Maximum capacity, SLA and actual time of MBS in 2019 (Source: Internal data) 17

Table 3: Total volume of MBS divided by tasks from June to November 2019 (Source: Internal data) 18

Table 4: Average volume of MBS per day divided by tasks from June to November 2019 18

Table 5: Constructs of Capacity, Capability, and Performance in Relation to the Role of Contextual Factors Construct 28

Table 6: Average SUT of team in CLMBS separated by teams from June to November 2019 33

Table 7: Current tasks allocation of MBS separated by person in charge (Source: Internal data) 34

Table 8: Time conflict of tasks MBS separated by person in charge (Source: Internal data) 35

Table 9: Percentage of application with errors: return to sale in MBS from June to Nov 2019 36

Table 10: Performance objectives of team MBS (Source: Internal data –appendix 8) 45

Table 11: Scale of relative importance (Adapted from research) 53

Table 12: Preference matrix 56

Table 13: Normalized matrix 57

Table 14: Estimated spending time for solution KPI of BSC (Prepared by author) 60

Table 15: Example of competency item rating (given by author) 68

Table 16:Training proficient ranking (Source: Internal data) 69

Table 17: Proficient level of using business systems and processes (Source: Internal data) 69

Table 18:Estimated spending time for competency dictionary (Prepared by author) 71

Table 19: Action plan for KPIs of BSC and competency dictionary (Prepared by author) 72

Executive summary

From the beginning of 2019, customer centricity and healthiest human system are some of the emerging focus of all levels in the H group and H Vietnam in specific From 2020, adding two more strategies which are operational efficiency and cost management To promote such strategies, everyone in bank H has to take actions to review, improve, and simplify processes, procedures, systems, etc.…in order to upgrade customer services and experience, and encourage better work-life balance for the workforces to have the healthier working conditions Currently, in Mortgage Business Service (MBS) – a team in the department Cards, Loans, and Mortgage Business Service (CLMBS), the ineffective task allocation is a long-lasting problem that leading to high overtime (OT) and high time-consuming processes Therefore, this ineffectiveness is a big obstacle for implementing customer centricity, the healthiest human system, operational efficiency, and cost management in the short term and developing team in the long run

The mentioned above finding is located by several qualitative in-depth interviews with VP, manager, and employees of the CLMBS department Combining with analysis from secondary data and related literature, this paper is to step by step diagnose the most concerning symptoms with its consequences, identify the real problems, then explore the potential causes and main causes

Applying theory-informed problem-solving in the organization to study and analyze the current task allocations, the nature of tasks, the competency, and motivation of each employee of MBS, the author aims to support the management of the CLMBS department to understand about the real problem clearly and objectively Subsequently, this paper can suggest the CLMBS department the alternative solutions and action plans to generate an effective task allocation to resolve the real causes, symptoms, and negative impacts on the department, team members, and customers Then, they can evaluate and choose the best and most applicable solutions not only to serve customers in the best way by committing the services, improving processing time but also

to equip the team members with methodologies and tools to arrange the workload more scientifically, maximize the capacity and minimize overtime

1 Company introduction

1.1 Background

H Banking group is one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organizations Group serves more than 40 million customers in 65 countries and territories with 238,000 employees around the world Exceptional access to high-growth markets and a strong balance sheet are the advantage of the group Based on that, the group builds the strategy to capitalize on long-term trends affecting the financial services industry From June 2018, after a long period of transformation, the group is now to refocus on growth to increase customer numbers, take market share, and grow revenue and profits To do that, the group’s strategies are customers with customer-centricity and people development to fulfill the potential of online University, and care for staff with the Healthiest Human System program, increase the efficiency of operation, and cost management

H Viet Nam Bank (Bank H) is opened its first office in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) in

1870 In August 1995, Bank H opened a full-service branch in Ho Chi Minh City Now, Bank H has 14 branches in Ho Chi Minh City, Ha Noi, Da Nang, and Binh Duong and serves both retail and wholesale customers with all available financial services in the market Adhering with the group, bank H is focusing on customer centricity, healthiest human system, operational efficiency, and cost management to continuously improve and develop the bank Bank H offers a lot of solutions for wholesale customers for import, export, and guarantees including working capital, growth, payment, investment, and managing risk In term of retail banking, Bank H have offered several products including Visa and MasterCard credit card, debit card, accounts and deposits and lending products, insurance, and investing With continuous effort, Bank H has achieved a lot of awards: best foreign bank in Viet Nam from 2006 to 2012, 2014 to 2019 by Finance Asia, a best retail bank in Viet Nam in 2016, 2017, and 2019 as per Banking and Finance Asia…

1.2 Organization Chart

Bank H follows the group structure to divide departments by Global Business and Global Functions All global business and function units have to report to entity manager in country level and functional manager at regional, and global levels In this paper, it is mentioned the entity manager reporting line in Viet Nam only Figure 1 shows the organization chart by businesses and functions

Figure 1: Organization Chart of Bank H (Sources: Internal data)

Each department has allocated in job scope to different positions Below is specification in each department of organization:

Retail Banking and Wealth Management (RBWM): serve retail customers including sale, and service via branches, transaction offices, tele sale, mobile sales, contact centers, marketing, products, underwriting service and collection

Wholesale Banking (WSB): serve wholesale customers including sale and service

Global Market (GM): perform liability trading transaction

Global Trade and Receivable Finance (GTRF): provide import and export payment transactions for wholesale customers

Legal Consulting (LGA): provide legal consultation for all banking activities

Regulatory Compliance (RC): provide regulatory compliance consultation for all banking activities, working directly with government

Corporate Real Estate (CRE): provide real estate management like offices, and securities Securities Services (SS): provide securities transaction for WSB customers

Finance Crime Risk (FCR): manage finance crime monitoring including anti money laundering, fraud, anti-bribery and corruption, sanction…

Technology (IT): provide hardware, software, network, and project management

Operations (OPS): delivery operation services for RBWM and WSB related to documentations, system handling,

RBWM Credit Risk (CR): manage RBWM portfolio and policy

Communication (COM): manage internal and external communication on behalf of bank Internal Audit (IA): perform internal audit for the bank

Corporate Sustainability (CS): perform staff and social activities

Wholesale Risk Management (RM): manage WSB portfolio and policy

Finance (FCD): perform financial reporting, accounting, planning and tax compliance

Human Resources (HR): perform human resource activities like recruiting, onboarding, training, staff benefit and advise

1.3 Objective and Scope

This paper primarily targets CLMBS, which is a department in Operations function, is fully

in charge of the operation process for retail banking customers CLMBS supports RBWM with credit card onboarding, maintenance, payments, card dispute, fraud investigation, settlement, loan

onboarding, documents issuance, loan disbursement, and servicing

After doing research, the scope of this the paper is to focus on MBS team only who takes responsibility for mortgage home loan including capturing, credit and mortgage documents

Figure 2: Organization Chart of CLMBS (Sources: Internal data as at 01Dec2019)

issuance post approval, disbursement, and servicing Figure 3 displays the current structure of team MBS

Figure 3: Organization Chart of MBS (Sources: Internal data as at 01Dec2019)

During observation, secondary data analysis, and in-depth interviews, this team shows the most abnormal figures and trends in comparison with other teams in the same department By making comparisons with peers and standards, some symptoms are happening too seriously that draw the attention of the team head and researcher to find out the problems, causes and solutions

to resolve as soon as possible

1.4 Process map of Mortgage Business Service

Figure 4: End to end process of home loan (Source: Internal procedure)

In end to end process of home loan, MBS is in charge of capturing, document issuance and disbursement In all processes, staff use some core systems:

GWIS: Core data storage of scanned version of documents including applications, supporting documents including ID, family record book, marriage certificate, land use right….and record all processing steps Team members get information from GWIS and add remark their actions in every step for storing purpose

HUB: Core banking system stores all banking information Team members use HUB to check, verify and make dump screen of customers’ information to GWIS

AAPS: Core lending systems which is linked with HUB All customer information and lending information is captured to AAPS Then the loan is approved and disbursed by separate functions in AAPS After disbursement, the fund is available and can be checked in HUB At the time, customer can withdraw the fund

SFE: Staff front end system which is linked to HUB Team members use SFE to view lending information and book manual loan in case of AAPS cannot be used

As per figure 4, the application firstly comes from the face to face meeting between RBWM sale and customers to MBS Sale scans soft copy to MBS by GWIS MBS staff checks information and captures information to AAPS system and route that form to Underwriting service function to verify and approve a credit limit to customer After getting final approve which is in AAPS and GWIS, MBS perform step 4 to issue credit and mortgage documents manually After the documents are registered successfully in local authority, sale instructs customer to fill in some necessary forms and submit to disbursement Finally, MBS processes disbursement in AAPS or SFE depending on types of home loan

2 Company context

Through the initial observation, MBS team members are the busiest employees among employees in the department during the day Six people are always rushing with the processes, listening to phone calls, meetings, printing, etc They often start from 9AM and leave the office at around 7PM or later, often spend half an hour for lunch They don’t interact or discuss with other members much, all 6 members have their all tasks and work independently This team does seem

to be quieter and more stressful in comparison with the surrounding Team members in other teams are more relaxed, they often discuss with each other, and having fewer phone calls Only team card maintenance and payment share a similar situation that they leave the office late

After first meeting with VP and study the secondary data from internal reports from June

to November 2019, it is found that there are three main potential symptoms: (1) high overtime, (2) high time-consuming process, and (3) high number of document errors The symptoms are diagnosed and analyzed in detail as below

2.1 Symptom 1: High overtime in MBS

2.1.1 Definition of overtime and impact of overtime

Overtime (OT) is counted when employees extend their scheduled working hours Currently, in bank H, the labor contract defines a working day is from 8h30AM to 5h30PM which

is 9 hours inclusive of 1-hour lunch and 30 minutes of break Working more than 9 hours is treated

as OT According to labor law1, workers cannot work OT more than 40 hours a month and 200 hours a year If employees work more than that, the company and employees break the law So, firstly, there is a legal risk if the company and employees do not control the number of OT This essay defines high OT in MBS as the comparison with the average OT of other teams in the same department

Secondly, as per research2, working OT has a harmful impact on well-being, productivity, the motivation of workers and is a stressor when workers are more like to work OT for performance and high workload Taris et al.3 conclude a link between OT and ill health, major health sickness

is a result of increasing OT over the moderate amount

Figure 5 display clearly the interaction of OT and others indicators When OT increases, fatigue, burnout, work remaining, attrition rate, hiring, cost and schedule press increase, while

motivation, quality decreases4 below

The negative impact of OT is also mentioned by company representative in the in-depth interview with VP:

“In our MANCO meeting in May 2019, our COO forced us to decrease the overtime each month to one third

of previous month not only to decrease cost but also promote work-life balance for employees to avoid burn out and keep good productivity And comply with labor law

The negative of OT has been recognized by management team already Along with some general effects to employees, the organization increase staff cost and may breach labor law as well

As share by employees:

Figure 5: The dynamic interactions between the model sectors 4

“I have to spend longer time to complete tasks and learn so I have to extend to work until 7 or after that I have a baby so I am worried if I don’t improve.” (Mrs Thu)

“I am suffering from unsleeping symptom I cannot sleep deeply at night So next day, I am not energetic and have fresh mind I forget things … My doctor advised me to work less and relax more, do exercises But I cannot leave office earlier to do such things I am depressed indeed” (Ms Ngoc)

Team members do not want to work OT because one has to take care of family Because

of stressful work, another one has some medical symptoms, she should come home early for relaxing as medical treatment but she cannot, thus her health can be getting worse

Thirdly, OT causes higher staff cost In fact, OT costs 150% of hourly salary as per labor law1

Consequently, OT should be decreased to minimal number which is not only to protect employees but also help company to align with law and avoid OT compensation cost

2.1.2 Diagnosis and analysis

Unit: Request, hour

Figure 6: Total average OT and total volume of CLMBS separated by team from June to

November 2019 (Source: Internal data)

According to figure 6, in comparison with the other teams of the same background, MBS has the highest total overtime and increasing reversely with total volume from August to November 2019 Specifically, OT is 20.4 hours in June, peak in July when the team has 1 less staff, then have uptrend to 28.2 hours in November, while the volume dropped constantly from

365 requests to 222 requests Meanwhile in Card Fraud and Dispute, when the volume is up, the average OT is up in July, September, and October Likewise, card maintenance and payment, card and personal loan onboarding have the same trend that volume and OT have the same trend In contrast, volume and OT can have different movements The first scenario, the volume is up, but

OT is down This can be found in the card and personal loan onboarding; the volume is increasing

from 12,145 requests in September to 15,098 requests in November while OT is decreasing from 6.3 hours to 3.6 hours

As in-depth interview with VP:

“When volume is up and OT is decreasing, it means that the team may launch new automation or robot that can help people with working, so the OT is replaced by robot In October, we launched successfully Rocket for credit card, and robot for personal loan in November.”

It can be explained that the manual jobs are replaced by automation and robot, so people

do not need to spend OT when volume is up This can explain for the OT trend of card and personal onboarding While the second scenario, the volume is down, but OT is up The detail can be seen

in table 1

Table 1: Total average OT and total volume of MBS from June to November 2019

(Source: Internal data)

As table 1, volume has dropped constantly from August to November 2019 from 365 to

222 requests, but average OT has increased from 21.6 hours to 28.2 hours This can be seen as abnormal trend Researcher explores the reason by interviews

As in-depth interview with VP:

“All teams are good but mortgage home loan no I discussed with that team manager and all employees several times, but it does not work The OT is always high, employees often leave office at 7PM or later Volume is decreasing significantly in second half of year and next year because RBWM does not focus on this anymore I expect no OT but the actual number is so disappointing.” And, “Credit card and PIL faced with such situation, but mortgage, the volume is quite stable and decrease I don’t agree high OT because of overload.”

The volume is much less in the second half of the year, so OT should decrease in parallel The target should be zero instead Therefore, according to VP this scenario is confirmed to be nonsense In the scope of this thesis, OT of MBS is compared limitedly within department CLMBS only because this team serves retail banking customers without any same department having the

Month

(2019) Total OT Total processing staff

Average OT (hour)

Total volume (request)

Jun 102 5 20.4 365

Jul 120 4 30.0 332

Aug 108 5 21.6 251

Sep 129 5 25.8 232

Oct 132 5 26.4 234

Nov 141 5 28.2 222

same background It is also hard to compare with industry benchmark because this thesis explored the small team in bank H, while the structure of bank H is different totally with other banks located

in Vietnam market, so that the benchmark is unavailable

In brief, high OT in MBS is identified as a symptom providing that OT is too high in comparison with it should be, the trend of OT does not match with common principle, and VP does not agree with existing OT and want to resolve as soon as possible to align with the high-level management’s message

2.2 Symptom 2: High time-consuming process in MBS

2.2.1 Definition of time-consuming process and impact of time-consuming process

Time-consuming is defined as taking a lot of or too much time In this paper, high consuming means it takes staff much more time for processing a specific request than the standard time

time-The negative impact of time-consuming process is shared by VP:

“…long process and too many error causes bad customer experience No customer wants to wait too long or don’t get the service like promise.” And, “If any request fails SLA, it can have long process time If this happens during the day, staff cannot complete their tasks within 8 hours, but usually take longer, then OT happens.”

From the sharing, it is clear that time-consuming firstly badly affect to customer experience and services, secondly indirectly lead to OT

2.2.2 Diagnosis and analysis

This project collects secondary data from the team to get the SLA failure of processes separated by team, then make a comparison across teams to have more insight about the current situation of team MBS

Figure 7: Percentage of SLA failure in CLMBS separated by team from June to Dec 2019

(Source: Internal data)

From figure 7, task capture and document issuance account for the highest rate of service time agreement failure in CLMBS The SLA failure is over 80% and over 30% respectively In principle, SLA failure happens when the volume exceeds the total maximum capacity of the team which is already agreed between RBWM and Operations

As VP shared in an in-depth interview: “The most concerning team is always mortgage I don’t accept such a high rate What we accept is only 5% breach SLA These numbers can prove long processing.” This means that there is a big concern with the high percentage of SLA failure

of MBS After checking with VP and internal rule, 5% is the maximum acceptable percentage for MBS in Asia Pacific regions To check if this high percentage is due to exceed the maximum capacity or not, more data are collected and calculated

Table 2: Maximum capacity, SLA and actual time of MBS in 2019 (Source: Internal data)

Table 3: Total volume of MBS divided by tasks from June to November 2019 (Source: Internal

data)

Total volume (Request) (2019) Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov

Mortgage business service: Disbursement

The table 2 shows the maximum capacity of each task which is the maximum number of the cases that team MBS can process daily, the SLA and SUT are provided to compare with the actual processing time to see the long processing time of team MBS Specifically, capturing one home loan takes about 80 minutes and team MBS should complete it within 3 hours the form is scanned to GWIS, but the actual time is 6 hours which is much higher than standard time Similarly, document and disbursement processes have the similar long processing time It can be seen from table 3, 4, the average volume daily cannot exceed maximum capacity Therefore, from high level analysis, the SLA failure of many tasks of CLMBS are very high without any reason, especially for capturing and documents issuance of MBS In addition, the actual TAT is much higher than SLA

Share the same idea by VP:

“The TAT is said to be too long; breach SLA ratio and flow back ratio is too high Those things need to be improved immediately because if operation is slow, business and sale cannot develop to keep up with market.”

Both SLA failure percentage and long TAT can prove the long- or high-time consuming processes Consequently, high time-consuming is highlighted to be a symptom

2.3 Symptom 3: High number of document errors in MBS

2.3.1 Definition of document error and impact

This paper defines document error is when RBWM sales fail to provide the qualified documents for normal processing In this paper, the high number of document errors means the actual errors are higher than that number of other teams in the department

According to discussion with VP:

“…flow back ratio is too high Those things need to be improved immediately because if operation is slow, business and sale cannot develop to keep up with market” and “too many error causes bad customer experience No customer wants to wait too long or don’t get the service like promise.” And, “When they submit wrongly or lacking anything, we need to check all and return the request to them, after that RBWM staff call us to ask why bla This indirectly increase TAT and lead to high QAS.”

When having error in documents, it calls flow back Too much flow back can cause bad impact to customer experience and service Documents error also indirectly link with time-consuming

2.3.2 Diagnosis and analysis

From management view, the QAS rate is very high which means the unqualified documents percentage that MBS receive is very high Some QAS reasons are also mentioned by Mrs Thu:

“Sale often provides me insufficient documents or unclear picture of ID, land use right, marriage certificate,

I have to zoom in 1000% to see the content Sometime, the handwriting in documents is bad, I input wrongly into the contract, when customer check again and find it is wrong, they return to me for correct I struggle a lot.”

After collecting data, the percentage of application with errors of all teams are displayed

in figure 8 The total percentage of unqualified application or QAS in MBS is much higher than other teams within the same department displayed in figure 8 Errors percentage of applications in the disbursement of MBS always higher than 85% and reach 96% in September The second is team capture with 22-30%

Shared by VP: “The flow back or QAS is high mean the request we receive is too unqualified” … “This indirectly increase TAT and lead to high QAS”

Figure 8: Percentage of application with errors in CLMBS separated by team from June to

November 2019 (Source: Internal data)

In general, MBS has a much higher error percentage than all team in same department Therefore, this is also a symptom need to be focused on this paper

3 Problem identification

3.1 Preliminary cause and effect tree

From 1st in-depth interviews with VP, Manager, and five employees, the preliminary

cause and effect tree is displayed

Diagram 1: Preliminary cause and effect tree (Source: Consolidated by author)

From in-depth interviews with company representatives, the symptoms are clearly identified with more specific direct reasons

Staff have to work more/overloaded

as the bank’s commitment A similar view is shared by Mrs Phung: “At the beginning of 2019,

the volume is double than 2018, the current staff cannot serve People have limited time We have

to work overtime to clear as many as possible within the day."

It implies that there is no adjustment in the human resource of MBS when the volume is

up Therefore, it is hard to avoid OT

Employees share more ideas:

“I think Premier customer is more and more demanding, they want to complete everything much faster than SUT… when Premier applications scan late in the afternoon, they still force me to capture immediately, and then I have to complete it right away, so I come home late.” (Ms Bao)

“A reason I leave office late is when I back up for Kim We have 20 days off a year, everyone often takes off day in some day with weekend to enjoy more off days But in these days, volume is higher so I myself have

to complete more tasks for me and more tasks of back up.” (Ms Ngoc)

From employees’ sides, they really have more tasks and requests to do like supporting for premier customer or back up for another team member The volume is really high for each employee in this scenario Subsequently, they have to more OT to complete all the tasks

Staff need more time to request

According to Manager:

“I know high OT may be because staff have not enough competency for the tasks When staff are not yet capable of doing task, they need supervision, they need to look at procedure and personal note… This can consume more time for a specific request.”

Another reason can lead to OT is staff are not capable of performing the tasks at standard time Management sets the maximum capacity based on SUT, if staff have lower performance, they need more time to process a request, they will need more time to complete their assigned tasks

at the end of the day Besides, if tasks do not match with staff capability, the performance can be low because staff do not have enough knowledge, skill, and ability to do the assigned task They have to put more effort to learn, and build up capacity while working

Staff do many tasks at the same time

It is understood from the discussion that when staff are assigned to do the same tasks at one time, they hardly complete both with SLA And, leading to longer processing time which

causes OT at the end of the day, and the process becomes more time-consuming in general because staff cannot do two things simultaneously

As shared by employees:

“But sometimes some requests come to me at the same time, I don’t know what to do first because both have

2 hours SLA and customer is in urgent need.” (Ms Kim)

“I think the most difficult thing is I have to work to complete my task, train to new members and cross training with other senior team members And backup for my manager All non-production things consume

me a lot of time.” (Ms Ngoc)

In these cases, team member cannot decide what to do if some requests come at the same time

Unqualified documents/application, lack of documents

Discussed with VP and Manager about the unqualified documents:

“The flow back or QAS is high mean the request we receive is too unqualified When they submit wrongly

or lacking anything, we need to check all and return the request to them, after that RBWM staff call us to ask why bla This indirectly increase TAT and lead to high QAS.” (VP)

“ The QAS rate is very high, it seems we need to return 9/10 new applications because it lacks of information

in form or submit expired ID… many reasons big or small, we have many reasons to return new applications After that, the application come back to us quite late and we have to stay to process Same with disbursement,

I think customer often wait for half a day to receive fund when our SLA is 2 hours.” (Manager)

Team member – Mrs Phung also shared the similar view that she receives documents with bad quality that make her difficult to complete her task earlier “I check documents before disbursement, the quality of documents is bad, I have to return to sale almost all and wait for them

to return, sometimes, it is quite late after 5 and I have to work late to complete that” If back-office receives too many unqualified documents, it is a high number of documents error, and indirectly lengthen the processing time of a specific request Subsequently, this can lead to more OT, longer processing time and increase document errors

3.2 Potential problem

After the second meeting to focus on the problem in detail with VP, combining with interviews with the manager and employees, all the mentioned above concerns are re-categorized

into three potential problems: ineffective task allocation, low staff capability, and poor quality of applications Besides, one more potential problem is suggested by theory: high job demand and job control

Diagram 2: Cause and effect tree (Source: Consolidated by author)

3.2.1 High job demand and job control in team MBS

According to research4, there is a positive correlation between high demand, high control job, and the number of OT of employee because an employees may extend the working day to complete the tasks that they are unable to complete in working hours; they are also active workers and have a motivation to complete the tasks as best they can Therefore, if team members are assigned a job with a high level of complexity, they need more time to finish tasks Besides, employees who enjoy working, want to learn, and improve performance to meet a higher standard

of job can choose to work OT Another research5 shared the same idea that basing on Job Control model, higher demand would lead to higher control and overtime when employees are

Demand-required to perform more complicated work and put more control into the job quality like quality check by multi-level Consequently, staff have more complex tasks, and have to do more quality check and control in every step of processes have a longer working day or working OT to complete their tasks in comparison with simple and easy control tasks In this essay, high job demand and job control are defined as having higher job requirements and job descriptions than average in the departments with the same nature of work The job description is explored to understand the nature

of tasks which is in figure 9

Figure 9: Job description of MBS team members (Source: Internal data)

Specifically, in this case, MBS team having high OT may be due to the nature of job according to figure 9 Regarding the tasks allocation, as discussed with the manager, the processes include capture new application from paper form to system which has hundreds of fillable fields, staff in charge does not only have to capture correct information, check qualified forms, and supporting documents, but also know to capture the correct types of home loan, purpose and different scenarios following customer demand Next, documents issuance task need the expert knowledge and skills to prepare correct templates for notarizing in Notary department and register

in National Registration Agency Security Transaction (NRAST) and Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DONRE), all local authorities have a high standard of documents quality and accuracy, so employees have to focus on their tasks to perform quickly and accurately

to make sure smooth process Subsequent, document verification and disbursement are the final stages of a home loan when customers will submit drawdown requests and loan purposes according

to the matrix for disbursement All documents must be correct and align with loan approval, policy, and product design In brief, tasks in MBS is considered as high risk and complicated

In addition to main tasks, staff are required to perform other tasks and follow many rules

as per global standard and operational manuals, anti-money laundering, sanctions, having a personal development plan, and improve the process to increase productivity as per figure 9

3.2.2 Ineffective task allocation in team MBS

In the preliminary cause and effect tree, ineffective task allocation is frequently mentioned

as a problem This is leading to high OT and high time-consuming processes because staff has to

do many things at the same time and they have to spend more time performing a request Research6discussed that in a production team, the work can be divided into several tasks with one member performing one task, even two members do the same job spontaneously, each member has specific tasks to complete, it is the task allocation In this essay, ineffective task allocation is defined as not having a proper task distribution to complete all incoming tasks within SUT and SLA daily

After discussing in detail in the second meeting, the ineffective task allocation problem has more disadvantages which finally causes high OT and high time-consuming

Firstly, being different from the preliminary view, staff that has to do more requests is not

due to more volume from business, but due to ineffective task allocation that cannot arrange the work source to complete the incoming volume within SUT and SLA when the volume is still within team capacity As said by VP: “I think our employees, they do not have a good task allocation at all My calculation from the MI report (Management Information Report) and SUT, they have 1 or 2 surplus hours every day instead of OT” So, from management view, the volume

is too low to perform by OT

In symptom 2, it is clearly analyzed that total volume and total OT in a month are not related The volume is decreasing while OT is still increasing In fact, the current task allocation cannot serve the fluctuation of volume every day as shared by the MBS team The volume differs from Monday to Friday, the team does not manage the volume, but the task allocation is the same The manager talked about this point: “But new applications do not come regularly, some days, no application and some days, some applications can take her all day to complete” In brief, they build the task allocation simply based on what team members can do, but not refer to the demand of business to actively adapt to the volume When the volume of any task is the peak in the seasonal

sale, employees of that task become busier and overloaded which is mentioned in the research of Bauer and Zimmermann7

Secondly, ineffective task allocation causes an imbalance arrangement among employees

Some employees have more tasks, while others have less As a result, the ones have to do more, they have to work OT As per the research8, overtime can be the consequence of organization mechanism when the more productive worker is likely to work overtime to cover tasks of less productive ones

This is suggested by Manager:

“In fact, the new ones need to perform more basis tasks to get to know the process perfectly, while experienced staff have more knowledge, skills and experience, so they have more tasks … Phung, Kim and Ngoc our experienced staffs are assigned more complicated tasks like disbursement, document issuance, and staff loan, and many small tasks.”

And VP shared the same view:

“Every employee has 8 working hours a day, they can capture 5 applications during 8 hours, now they need

to perform other tasks like Hsbcnet fund transfer about 2 hours a day So, they have to work at least 10 hours, right? When other staff they are assigned for document issuance and pay off, but no request for documents issuance during the day, then they just do half day.”

From the discussion with management levels, it is figured out that more experienced staffs have more tasks with higher complicated level because they already know the process and system well On the other hand, the new joiners are given the basic task to get familiar with the whole process better before taking more things This point is also discussed in the research of Golden9that the senior employees are often required to work OT rather than new hires All team members are assigned different tasks and their workload depends on the specific volume of that day If any task does not have requests, the staff in charge may not have anything today and will have surplus time, while other tasks have many requests, and staff in charge are overloaded and work OT Therefore, with current ineffective task allocation, the workload may not balance within the team

to make sure everyone works fully during the day

Thirdly, an ineffective task allocation forces staff to perform what they don’t have job

motivation and competency to do According to research10, the correlation between task performance with job motivation and abilities is positive The job motivation was defined as “the complex of forces, drives, need, tension states, or other psychological mechanisms that start and

maintain activity towards achieving individual goals” stated in the study of Hoy and Miskel; and the ability or competency include skillsets, knowledge, qualifications, experience, and characteristics as per Sanusi as cited in the research of Pongpearchan10 According to a research11, capacity is the activities that an individual can do in a standard situation, the capability is described

as the activities that an individual can do in the daily situation, and performance is the actual activities that a person does; personal factors such as the motivation and willingness has a positive impact to performance as per table 5

In 2nd discussion with VP:

“Basically, when your staff is bad at something or no motivation, they cannot do it at their best The SUT is the standard unit time for normal employees who has knowledge and skills for the task already But if you assign a task with many numbers to a person hates number, they can do but slowly A common sense that employee has lower performance then expectation from high level management view.”

In conclusion, from both perspectives, when the task is given to staff without consideration

of competency and motivation, they cannot perform as the expectation

Fourthly, it is implied not good task allocation can lead to OT in many ways such as

employees are also assigned to do some tasks that the different requests come to them at the same time This is confirmed by VP: “…The structure is not good, and some tasks cannot be performed

at per SLA because 1 staff are in charge of them; they cannot handle everything at the same time.”

Table 5: Constructs of Capacity, Capability, and Performance in Relation to the Role of

Contextual Factors Construct 11

Ms Kim has the same confirmation toward this point:

“With the current arrangement, my tasks are not always completed as expected because when I have an urgent request, I am working on another task I have to stop there to do the urgent thing, then when I continue the pending, I start from beginning Although I note down the process, but I still have to read the documents again to continue It takes me double of time to do one thing.”

The ineffective task allocation is a potential problem that can direct to high OT and high time-consuming process by different ways: the current human resource cannot absorb the fluctuation of volume, imbalance arrangement, the task does not match with staff competency and motivation, and staff has to do many different tasks at the same time

3.2.3 Low staff capability of team MBS

The capability of team members in MBS is also a concern Capability12 is defined

“integration of knowledge, skills, personal qualities and understanding used appropriately and effectively - not just in familiar and highly focused specialist contexts but in response to new and changing circumstance to take actions in uncertainty, and to see initial failure as a basis of learning how to do better” As per research11, there is a positive correlation between capability and performance It is possible that low capability is be followed by the low performance because staff

is not capable of doing the tasks, subsequently, staff needs more time to process their task in comparison with standard time With a specific volume assigned based on standard processing time, team members may spend more time in total to complete all their tasks and would use OT This can make the process longer as well

VP shared her view from the management perspective:

“I think possibly due to staff capability 2 of 5 staff have less than 6 months experience, 1 has over 1 year and 2 have over 2 years Lack of capability like knowledge, skill and experience may be an issue here.” “I cannot expect the new joiners can perform as 1-year employee and hard to compare with over 2 years.”

“Staff need to experience in this role at least 3 years to fully understand and can perform all types of tasks at full smoothly, quickly and accurately Unfortunately, we don’t have such staff currently.”

The capability is mentioned by team member:

“Because I am new, I have to learn a lot, read procedures But everything is new and complicated, so I can perform my tasks now without help but I think I need longer time Sometimes, I need to read my note, guidelines, asks other colleagues The processes are many and all are complicated I are under pressure to prepare the quality documents, if I input wrongly, I cannot imagine what happen.” (Mrs Thu)

Low capability is a probable problem In this essay, the capability is defined as the ability that staff can meet job requirements Low staff capability means that they are off track to perform and meet job requirements While the processes are complicated with many sub-processes and work with the local authority, team members are having less working experience in the field with

2 less than 6 months experience, remaining ones have more than 1 year

As figure 10, the job requires staff to have good knowledge of products/systems/application which is quite difficult for a new joiner to fully meet requirements Therefore, low capability can

be an existing problem that is fully aware by VP and team members

3.2.4 Poor quality of applications in team MBS

The quality of applications is defined as the ability that RBWM sales can provide the standard documents so that team MBS can proceed without asking for more clarifications or more documents In this essay, poor quality of application means that RBWM sale fails to provide the MBS team sufficient numbers of documents, unclear, or lacking information in documents as stated in H policies and procedures As a result, MBS team members have to take time to check, list out the missing points, return to RBWM sale, and give clear instructions if RBWM sale does not know how to handle From preliminary cause and effect tree, it is cleared that poor quality of applications is a potential problem that can indirectly make the staff work OT, directly make the process longer, and high number of documents errors

3.3 Problem Validation

In conclusion from the above potential problems, after taking interviews with VP, manager and team members, and literature research, there are four potential problems: ineffective task allocation, low staff capability, high job demand, and job control, and poor quality of applications

Figure 10: Job requirements of MBS team members (Source: Internal data)

Firstly, As per Burke which is cited in the research of by Kang, Matusik, and Barclay13

that the overloaded, ineffective working arrangements, and unexpected issues can take responsibility for OT because staff has to complete all tasks within the day in all situations to contribute for the organization and achieve the target Golden14 argues that the company can deal with the expansion in its business by lengthening the working hours of existing employees instead

of recruiting new staff to support the increase of workload, which is not only to save costs but also

to utilize the currently available human resource Another research15 confirmed that more volumes are a reason for OT as employees want to show their commitment toward their organization Therefore, the ineffective task allocation is a reason for OT, especially the case that allocation cannot absorb the fluctuation of workload or high volume Besides, with the ineffective task allocation, when team members who have many more tasks would become overloaded and use OT

to complete the tasks and vice versa those staff have fewer tasks would have spare time during working day Another research by Wong16 discusses that the ineffective task allocation that limits the employees from having a balanced arrangement to have the proper workload and able to share tasks and knowledge with other team members flexibly can indirectly make employees have different viewpoints and hard to communicate and co-operate smoothly; especially in complicated tasks, when team members can communicate and leverage the knowledge overlap to reduce error and shorten processing time Additionally, the employees who have higher capability can take more extra duties which cause OT

Diagram 3: Behavior mechanism 17

As per diagram 3, when staff performs a specific request, if they have a low capability or they are not competent in the task, they have to learn from other senior members until they can complete the service, if not, the task will be done by other staff The whole process of learning and interacting leading to increase process time of a specific process and indirectly higher OT if such

a scenario happens frequently When the task allocation is not established randomly but based on real demand, team performance to build an effective matrix, “right tasks to the right members to optimize overall performance”, otherwise, the structure would be messy and lower team performance studied by research17 Therefore, provided by research17, how team assigns tasks to team members to have a big effect on task execution, and impact the team itself after the task is completed Besides, motivation is also important The task should match with employee’s personalities which is positively correlated with motivation to achieve the target, for example, a person with agreeableness should have less ambitious performance objectives18

Therefore, the ineffective task allocation can lead to high OT and long processing time when it cannot serve a higher volume of work, assign staff with imbalance arrangement, and does not base on their competency and motivation

meet the requirements of their role, while the existing staff can handle the same task with more skills, less time, and easily Therefore, the staff with less experience and lower performance may process a specific longer because of lacking time to build necessary skillset and knowledge leading

to longer processing time and high OT In this case, low staff capability is identified properly because the staff is new to the team Moreover, the task allocation cannot be balanced among all team members because the new joiners have limited capabilities while the other three are experts

Research20 argues that an organization should analyze KSAOs (knowledge, skills, ability, and other characteristics) of an individual and team to utilize its human capital resources and make

a suitable arrangement; if the organization fails to understand this, it cannot maximize the human resource to achieve the targeted performance Pointed out by Kichuck and Wiesner21, the task allocation must be founded based on not only staff competency but also motivation to do the job because motivation can help to identify who is capable of doing the task and add validity to performance, failure to do so, staff will have lower performance

Besides using reliable input from in-depth interviews, in this problem validation part, we collect more factual data to analyze and validate the problems, associated with theories, then identify the real problem

The SUT of all tasks in CLMBS are collected

Table 6: Average SUT of team in CLMBS separated by teams from June to November 2019

(Source: Internal data)

Mortgage

business service

Disbursement document verify

Card

Maintenance and

Payment

Card and

Personal loan

onboarding

As can be seen from table 6, the SUT of task capture of MBS is 80 minutes per case which

is much higher than that SUT of Card and Pil capture 6 minutes and 12 minutes respectively This

is initially calculated by counting the average processing time of processors spending on that task per request Because different applications may vary the complication level, SUT is the average amount of processing time of all kinds of requests with different difficulty levels, so that processors can use SUT as a benchmark for their execution Due to the high complexity and high demand, the SUT of MBS (excluding task servicing) is much longer than all other tasks in the same department It means that when assigning tasks to team members, the complexity of tasks and SUT

are considered to estimate the maximum capacity of each task Hence, high job demand and high job control are not the reason for high OT in MBS

Currently, MBS has 37 groups of tasks and 52 subtasks (refer to appendix 2) Tasks are assigned to team members with the main role, back up 1 and back up 2 When any team member has off day, back up 1 and back up 2 have to perform their own task and backup role

Table 7: Current tasks allocation of MBS separated by person in charge (Source: Internal data)

Staff name Tasks

Ms Bao Home loan capture, OD loan purpose follow up, transit reconciliation, send mail,

hard copy consolidation

Mrs Phung Approving for all tasks related to drawdown, paid off, dual check for documents

issuance before signing by manager, doing project

Mrs Thu Compliance check, documents issuance for normal house, load new OD

Ms Kim Home loan drawdown, staff loan convert, and loan purpose follow up, car loan

settlement, OD cancellation and maintenance, confirm tittle deed by CMU

Ms Ngoc Documents issuance for staff loan and under construction, car loan amendment,

and maintenance, bank confirmation, check release, renew car title, hand over documents, and insurance renew, hand staff exit procedure, PIL and home reconciliation

As per table 7, Ms Bao and Mrs Thu – new joiners have much fewer tasks; Mrs Phung is the main supervisor to approve and dual check for all activities; Ms Kim and Ms Ngoc have many tasks with a high level of complication Therefore, there is indeed an imbalance arrangement in task allocation when some members have fewer tasks, while others have a lot of tasks Besides the main tasks, Ms Kim and Ms Ngoc are the main back up for each other; similarly, Ms Bao and Mrs Thu are the main back up for each other Therefore, this imbalance causes more workload to

Ms Kim and Ms Ngoc on normal days, especially when either of them has off day

By studying clearly about the task allocation, it is found that the staff in charge have difficulty in handling tasks because of the time conflict

Table 8: Time conflict of tasks MBS separated by person in charge (Source: Internal data)

Staff name Tasks

Ms Bao Home loan capture conflicts with back up tasks document prepare and issuance,

and load new OD

Mrs Phung Approving for all tasks related to drawdown, paid off, dual check for documents

issuance before signing by manager, doing project

Mrs Thu Documents issuance for normal house conflicts with load new OD

Ms Kim Home loan drawdown conflicts with OD cancellation and maintenance, and back

up task hand over doc

Ms Ngoc Documents issuance for staff loan and under construction, car loan amendment,

and maintenance, bank confirmation has conflict with back up tasks: drawdown, cancel OD

It can be seen that all related tasks of OD have a conflict with other tasks as table 8 This

is because the SLA of these tasks is very short – 1 hour in comparison with other tasks When a request of OD including new loading, cancellation, or maintenance has scanned to MBS, staff have

to pause the on-progress task and handle OD Next, the current competency level of five team members (refer to appendix 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) are explored to validate staff capability In fact, Ms Kim and Ms Ngoc have reached the highest level – competent and certified to train others in all tasks

of the team Mrs Thu and Ms Bao are competent in their main tasks only and have to study in another task, or have a basis but need to improve quality and productivity So, as in the management plan, Mrs Thu and Ms Bao have to have more training to learn and expertise in the remaining tasks of the team MBS In principle, the capacity of Mrs Thu and Ms Bao is not high

as other members because they are new joiners and they need more time to study, however, they can reach full capacity in their main tasks already and both VP and manager accept that status

Next, QAS data is collected and validated After collecting data and analyze, it can be seen that if the actual volume counts the volume of new requests and those cases with errors that cannot

be processed for the first time but need more back and forth, the actual volume is much higher

In fact, the actual volume is much higher and staff may need to spend more time completing their tasks by OT This is explored by analyzing table 9

Table 9: Percentage of application with errors: return to sale in MBS from June to Nov 2019

(Source: Internal data)

As per table 9, the average QAS rate of task capture is 27%, the average volume of new requests is 85, therefore, the actual volume is 108 Similarly, the actual volume of documents issuance and disbursement document verify are 8% and 90% higher than the volume of new requests respectively As a result, if the management team counts the volume based on new requests and calculates the work source, it cannot reflect the correct full-time staff needed to processes for all incoming processes during the month

The real problem is an ineffective task allocation This is also confirmed by VP, Manager, and employees The detail is as below:

3.3.1 Management perspective

As per the sharing with the manager, she said that ineffective task allocation and poor quality of application are two main problems of high OT and high time-consuming time, while staff ability is not her concern at the moment because all team members are having a good performance There is some new staff but the team can work independently in their tasks now which is confirmed by the manager: “Generally, our staff now are all experts They are competent enough to perform everything very well without any supervision and with minimal instruction.”

From the second in-depth interview:

“What I want to resolve now is the task arrangement Task arrangement is in my scope to control and monitor

I strong believe if MBS has an effective task allocation, OT will be zero and team can meet SLA and perform

Mortgage business service: Capture

Mortgage business service: Document issuance

Mortgage business service: Disbursement document verify

Actual volume

QAS Rate

Volume

of new requests

Actual volume

QAS Rate

Volume

of new requests

Actual volume

as standard time Except some seasonal period like Tet holiday, when customers have more requests, I accept the higher volume during that time, so that staff have to work OT to clear the requests.”

VP detects the ineffective task allocation to be the real problem in the team MBS and emphasize to resolve this problem If this problem is resolved properly, high OT and high time-consuming processes do not happen anymore As a result, her team can work to deliver higher service quality when team members are relieved from stress and health problem, boost productivity, and meet SLA and SUT, the company does not need to pay OT salary and avoid legal risk Related to high demand and high control problems, VP confirmed that this nature of the job

is considered when recruiting and design SUT and SLA so that this cannot be a real problem in this topic Low capability can be resolved when team members have more time to work and experience, and poor quality of the application is now focused by RBWM already Finally, ineffective task allocation is defined as the most priority problem according to VP and she accepts that OT will happen in the seasonal period, so this essay excludes the first reason of ineffective task allocation – resource does not support sale’s volume

3.3.2 Employees’ perspective

Mrs Thu and Ms Bao, who are the new joiners of MBS, shared that they are now trying

to learn and expertise in all tasks They accepted they are new so that lacking experience and knowledge is an obstacle, and the tasks are mentioned as a complication However, what they need

is time to practice and adapt

On the other hand, the more experienced team members like Mrs Phung, Ms Kim, and

Ms Ngoc mention that they have either of having a lot of things to do during the day, or having many things to do coming at the same time Such requests cause them overloaded, decrease quality

of output, and lengthen the processing time They imply that if they could have a better arrangement, they can perform better when do not receive too many different requests at the same time shared by Ms Kim, Ms Bao On the other hand, Ms Ngoc mentions that she can improve performance if she can do the right job Mrs Thu shared another idea that her task depends on her approver as well, if approver can manage to complete approval earlier, she can go home earlier

In brief, all employees share a similar view that we can improve performance, decrease OT, and commit SLA and SUT if they have a more effective task allocation

3.4 Real problem

There are four potential problems: high job demand and job control, ineffective task allocation, low staff capability, and poor quality of the application After collecting factual data, related theories, and make several discussions with VP, manager, and employees, this project chooses ineffective task allocation is the real problem leading to high overtime and high time-consuming process High job demand and job control are indeed making the processes longer in comparison with other processes in the same department, however, this nature of the job is already considered when arranging human resource to be more officers, and longer SUT and SLA, so this potential problem does not pass the validation Low staff capability is accepted as a problem but can be resolved by staff gradually when staff spends more time to learn, work, and adapt Poor quality of the application is proved to make the process more time-consuming and indirectly cause high OT, however, a project to decrease flow back is already in place, and a solution is out of the scope of VP, so this problem is excluded The real problem – ineffective task arrangement is agreed

by company representatives and clearly shown by the internal record By resolving this real problem fully, high OT and the high time-consuming situation can be disappearing along with their effects The final cause and effect tree including real problem, symptoms, and effect in the scope of this essay is as below

Diagram 4: Official cause and effect tree (Source: Consolidated by author)

Next part is to identify potential causes and select the root causes for solution designing

4 Cause analysis

After locating the real problem is ineffective task allocation to lead to symptoms which are high OT and high time-consuming process, this essay continues to research for the potential causes and validate them to identify the main causes so that the alternative solutions can be found to resolve the problem for the team MBS The updated official cause and effect tree is consolidated

Diagram 5: Updated official cause and effect tree (Source: Consolidated by author)

4.1 Causes exploration

4.1.1 Lack of clear objective for task completion

4.1.1.1 No clear KPIs setting

Kaplan and Norton22 also mention about the internal business that the manager should organize an applicable target for cycle time, quality, cost, and productivity so that the lower-level employees can have a clear plan for actions, choice, and personal improvement to make a valuable contribution to the overall mission This research23 also suggests a KPIs can be useful to get exact information by making comparisons within actual and target performance to fulfill objectives or make timely adjustments According to other research23, in the current fourth industry,

organizations focus more on production efficiency, productivity, saving cost, solutions, and flexibility of business that current performance indicators are not effective enough, therefore, they start to use KPIs As per Gaertner cited in research24, “a clear description of the KPIs that drive the growth and success of the business” Building KPIs which is based on a balanced scorecard can provide the organization to have a comprehensive plan that can embed the company’s strategic objectives into performance evaluation25 It is also argued that employees should join in goal setting because they are less motivated to achieve the goal created by others, then have lower performance26

The availability of a system is also important for the team to follow up on the KPIs progression and performance appropriately If the information system is unresponsive and not timely, it can be harmful to performance management because the management cannot have real-time reports and proactively react to an unexpected event or any signals22

In brief, if the team has a given task allocation with KPIs, it is much more valuable for employees to have good performance to achieve the target of team and company, otherwise, employees may be demotivated and not know what to do and improve which can lead to lower performance

4.1.1.2 Lack of comprehensive task descriptions and requirements

Job description27 is defined to be “the blueprint of the position”, it can provide the employees the essential duties and main responsibilities of a position which is used for task assignment and help employees to have “a sense of focus and direction” Furthermore, if the job description is too wide and not regularly updated, it is difficult for managers to allocate the right job to qualified employees According to Ramhit28, without a detailed task description, employees may face a major situation including “performing duties outside job description” A comprehensive task description allows employees to get familiar with their assigned tasks and perform properly, on the other hand, employees easily get confused and do an out of scope duty because lacking information about the job, then leading to lower performance as per Lane, Robbins, and Judge which cited in research28 Therefore, an inaccurate or too general task description is the cause of the confusing task allocation when employees are not tolerant to do their assigned job but not in the task description and perform the job without a clear route