The job stress in aircraft service international in vietnam airlines caterers

Executive summary In a long time, Aircraft Services International section ACSI in Vietnam Airlines Caterers VACS is known as a section with high number of staff leaving the job, especial

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-Gian Hong Phi

THE JOB STRESS IN AIRCRAFT SERVICE INTERNATIONAL IN

VIETNAM AIRLINES CATERERS

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – 2019

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-Gian Hong Phi

THE JOB STRESS IN AIRCRAFT SERVICE INTERNATIONAL IN

VIETNAM AIRLINES CATERERS

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: Dr Nguyen Phong Nguyen

Ho Chi Minh City – 2019

SUPERVISOR’S REPORT ON THE THESIS PROPOSAL SUBMITTED

FOR DEGREE OF MASTER of BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

The thesis proposal title: THE JOB STRESS IN AIRCRAFT SERVICE INTERNATIONAL IN VIETNAM AIRLINES CATERERS

Student Name: Gian Hong Phi - Student ID: 22150050

Supervisor: Dr Nguyen Phong Nguyen

฀ Meet requirement for submitting

฀ Not meet requirement for submitting

Table of Contents

1 Background: 6

1.1 Company background: 6

1.2 Symptoms: 6

1.3 Initial cause effect map: 9

1.4 Update cause effect map: 19

1.5 Potential problem of interest: 22

2 Problem Justification 23

2.1 Central problem definition 23

2.2 Problem existence: 23

2.3 Problem importance: 25

3 Causes validation and solutions: 27

3.1 The Real Causes of Central Problem List: 27

3.2 Set of solution: To find my solution used and running to following 28

3.3 Recommend solution: 32

References: 39

Executive summary

In a long time, Aircraft Services International section (ACSI) in Vietnam Airlines

Caterers (VACS) is known as a section with high number of staff leaving the job,

especially in new employees However, the situation become worse in recent years As a result, ACSI is always in lack of manpower situation In the contrast, the number of international flights has increasing dramatically in same time Therefore, VACS should recruit new employees for ACSI continuously The high turnover rate is not only

increasing the cost for company but also reducing the quality services of ACSI

By using the interview method, some main reasons for this problem are listed: the job stress, the job dissatisfaction and dissatisfied in career development However, because of the limitation of this thesis, as well as the possible of the solutions, this thesis will focus

on the job stress factor, which is already as a result of various minor causes For example: poor management skills, job dissatisfaction… By providing some potential solutions for reducing the job stress, it is expected to decrease the turnover rate as well as to improve the working environment in ACSI

1 Background:

1.1 Company background:

Vietnam Airlines Caterers (VACS) is a company processing inflight meals and providing catering services to airlines at Tan Son Nhat International Airport since 1993 Vietnam Airline Caterers is also a subsidiary and head catering quarter of Vietnam Airlines After

24 years of growth, Vietnam Airlines Caterers has been received many certificates and awards For examples: ISO9001:2008 Certificate, HACCP Certificate, The Catering Award "Best Performance of 2016" from Asiana Airlines… Vietnam Airline Caterers now is the largest airline caterer company in Vietnam and provides about 23,000 meals per days for both Vietnam Airlines and 22 international airlines in Tan Son Nhat

International Airport

1.2 Symptoms:

In Vietnam Airlines Caterers, the Aircraft Service International section (ACSI) of

Operation Department is responsible for loading the in-flight meals for international airlines According to manager of this section, the ACSI had a high turnover rate in

recent years However, the problem became more serious since last year, when the

number of international flights has increased dramatically For more detail, the ACSI now

is lack about 10 staff to cover all the operation activities and fulfill all the days off for employees At the moment, over 50% employees are new persons, who have less than 2 years working in company

After collecting the data from company, a report of turnover rate in ACSI are made by myself However, because of the limitation of data, in the thesis, I will choose the time from May 2015 to May 2017, when I begin working in VACS, and this is the time having the high turnover rate in ACSI

In this period, the flights of present customers and new customers have increased

dramatically For example:

-China Southern increased from 2 flights/day to 7 flights/day

-Eva Airlines and Korean Air increased from 2 flights/day to 3 flights/day

-All Nippon Airways and Philippine Airlines added 1 more flight per day

-China Air, Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines added more flights per weeks

-New customers are Turkish Airlines, Hongkong Airlines, Jetstar Airways, Air New Zealand and Xiamen Airlines Each airline is operating about 3 to 7 flights per week

Totally, the numbers of new flights increased about 103 flights per week According to meal daily report from Production Department last week, the number of international flights now about 250 flights per week It means there are increased from 150 per week in

2015 to 250 flights per week in the present It is about 67% increasing in 2 years In the contrast, the total of employee in ACSI increased from 41 in 2015 to 47 official staff in the present It is only about 15% increasing in 2 years

Table 1.1: The increasing of flights per week and number of ACSI staff

May - 2015 May – 2017 % Increase

After collecting the data, the statistical analysis of the turnover rate in ACSI section is about 21.2% from 2015 to 2017, while the turnover rate of employees who leave after less than 1 year is about 71% which is explanation by the calculation below:

Calculation of turnover rate:

𝐓𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐚 = Average number of the employee during the period Employee separations for the period

Employee separations for the period from May – 2015 to May – 2017 are 25

- May – 2015: 41 employee

- May – 2017: 47 employee

 Average number of the employee during the period: (41+47)/2 = 44

 Turnover rate: 25/44 is nearly 57%

According to Nahar, Islam (2), the acceptable turnover rate is about 25%, but for the low skill job like on ACSI, the turnover rate can be exceeding 50% normally (6) The

turnover rate for ACSI employee is nearly 57% and this rate is extremely high Moreover, the number of flights also increases 67% from 2015 as mentioned above These factors lead the result that the ACSI managers are impossible to ensure having enough

manpower for operation activities daily, as well as schedule enough the day off and

vacation for all employee Therefore, employee in ACSI sometimes have only 3 days off

in a roster - 2 week The situation has become so serious that company decided to pay money for permission days for all employee in ACSI in 2016, because the manager

reports that he could not handle to set up permission days for his staffs This situation is still serious in the present, and it is predicted by the ACSI manager that company should pay money for the permission days on 2017

1.3 Initial cause effect map:

In order to preparing the initial cause effect map for the reason of high turnover, some short interviews are conducted with 2 present staff and 3 formers staff in ACSI

Table 1.2: List of interviewees

ORD Name Education Position

Year of Leaving

Length of Service

After conducting with them, some their reasons and opinions are shown in below table

Table 1.3: Cause of high turnover rate

Nguyen Thanh Ki

-Imbalance work life -Job stress

-Poor communication among other sections

1 Imbalance work life -Lack of day off

2 Job stress:

-Heavy workload -Unfair treatment Nguyen Le Anh Quang -Imbalance work life

-Job stress -Limited career growth -Low salary

1 Imbalance work life -Unstable working time

2 Job stress:

-Heavy workload

3 Limited career growth -Long time to get promotion Nguyen Hong Bang

-Low salary -Job stress -Unexpected job

1 Low salary:

-Limited budget

2 Job stress:

-Heavy workload -Rude and strict behavior from supervisors

3 Unexpected job:

-Not match as their thinking -Hard working environment Tran Quoc Vinh -Lack of motivation from

manager -Lack of recognition -Job stress

1 Job stress:

-Heavy workload

Nguyen Hoang Duy -Negative health effect

- Lack of motivation from manager

-Lack of recognition

1 Negative health effect: -Working outdoor in bad weather

-High noise from airplanes

Firstly, I want to explain the job of an ACSI staff in Vietnam Airline Caterers An ACSI staff is responsible to check and ensure all the in-flight meals and equipment matching with the standard requirement After checking, he will load all the meal carts to the truck and transport it from company to the airplane with a driver At the airplane, he will install the new carts to in specific places inside the cabin and off-load the old cart from the airplane Finally, he will confirm the meals with cabin crew Moreover, the staff is

responsible to prepare the equipment for next flight They need to clean all the glasses and chinaware items and set up them in the carts This is a manual work and hard job According to Ki – who has 2 years’ experience – complains that he has more work in a shift than in the past and this heavy workload makes him stress For details, he explains that ACSI should need operating continuously 24/7, therefore it has many shift working time and a shift time is only 8 hours A staff in his working time will be assigned work-to-do by a Team leader In the past, a staff would prepare and load in-flight meals for only 1 large flight or 2 small flights a day However, because lack of staff in recent time,

a staff now should load meals for 2 large flights or 4 small flights a day Although

company tried to hire many new employees in one time, but many new employees quit after training time, while other old staff decided to quit the job too The increase of flights and lack of staff force them to service more flights in a shift than before, and need to work overtime to complete everything As a result, the employees feel extremely tired after work, and require more time to restore energy

Although ACSI is lack of manpower, the unfair treatment in set up work in a shift time is making the situation worse The ACSI section now includes 1 manager, 4 Supervisors and 8 Team-leaders Ki explains that in a shift time (AM shift or PM shift), it is only 1 Team-leader is responsible for prepare assignment table for all staff in shift time, the other team-leaders in that shift should work like a normal staff However, the on-duty team-leader will affair the other team-leaders and will assign them less work than other team members in the same shift time as usual It means that the other staff in that shift should do more work because of this unfair treatment and they feel more stress at work

Ki confesses that it is difficult to report this situation to the manager or to change this

“traditional treatment”

In addition, Quang complains about the unstable time shift, which makes him feel stress and have an unhealthy work-life balance He knows that as a shift employee, he should adapt the flexible working time But the changing from day shift to night shift affect a lot

in his routine, because the body cannot properly adjust to the sleep pattern changes He explains that with early day shift, he usually sleeps early on night, and wakes up early in the morning to begin a new day However, when he changed to nigh shift time, he should

go home late at the midnight and it is hard to sleep at this time Moreover, because he sleeps late, he wakes up late and cannot go to eat breakfast with his girlfriend It means many habit in daily life need to be changed to adapt the new working time The other staff agreed with Quang’s opinion that the changing of time sleep is the most difficult part, and it do not affect only to their daily life, but also affect to their health as well as

their work performance Moreover, another factor can affect to their working time is delayed flights When they have delayed flights, if they cannot pass the flight for other staff, they need to work overtime to wait these flights The flights have many reasons for delayed (maybe for heavy rain, for storm, bad weather, problem with machine…)

Therefore, most of the delayed flights are unpredictable Quang and Ki complains that they missed some appointment with their friends, or need to change his plan

unexpectedly because of these delayed flights However, because delayed flight is a part

of this job, they accept to work overtime for this But it is still annoying

In addition, another influence affect to their routine is about day off Many young

employees in ACSI confess that they cannot use permission leave because they lack of manpower in section now In more detail, they explain that the schedule time of their section is prepared for 2 weeks Therefore, each employee has 4 days off in a roster They can book the day off in next roster by mail to the manager before last Saturday in old roster However, sometime they have only 3 days off in a roster because of lacking

employee Last year, company decided to pay money for permission days for all

employee in their section, because their manager reports that he cannot handle to set up permission days for his staffs As a result, they can only use the standard day off If they need 4 days off or more for personal reason, they need to save the days off in this week and use it in next week It means that they should work continuously 10 days or more to get 4 days off Most of them agree that they feel tired and exhausted when they are

working continuously day by day in a long time like this

In addition, Bang describes that this job is an on-the-job-training, the new comer like him will be instructed directly by old staff But the old staff now are extremely busy with their job in working time, so they are lack of time to train new comer carefully For more detail, Ki confesses that as a trainer, he will need more time to explain carefully for new comers about the procedure and how-to-do the job But he still should do his own work

on the shift, which are already very heavy Thus, many old staff avoid to train the new comer or cannot train them carefully as in the past After one-month training, the new employees need to prepare and load the inflight meals by themselves However, as a result of unwell training, they are poor working skill staff and usually make many

mistake in working and need other co-workers help them to fix the problem The old staff usually feel stress when are in a shift with many new employees like that

Another result of unwell training is the rude and strict treatment from team leaders and supervisors The new unwell-training-employees are usually make the mistakes on

working, and it can make the flights delayed or received the complaints from customers Therefore, the on-duty team-leaders and supervisors, who will be taken responsible and

be disciplined for the complains in their shift, treat them very strictly If a new employee makes a serious mistake, he will be blamed harshly by team-leader or supervisor Quang confirms that another new employee quitted the job last month because he could not stand the pressure and negative feeling in working environment Quang also confesses that the strict treatment makes him feel stress and sometime want to quit the job,

especially when he has blamed harshly from team-leaders

In the other side, Quang gives another reason for turnover intention He complains that although there are many team-leaders in ACSI, the way to choose the new team-leaders is unclear The new team-leaders are decided by managers of Operation Department and ACSI section, and a staff also needs a long time to get first promotion – about at least 5 years Thus, he is dissatisfied with career development in section now Besides that, the low salary and compensation is also another dissatisfaction factor, which motivates him

to find a new job Furthermore, Ki presents another internal problem in company He explains that the other section in Operation department or in Production department have their own internal problem Thus, sometimes they cannot work well and smoothly with ACSI and this can lead to a serious mistake, such as making a flight delayed However, when it has a large mistake or complain, no one wants to take the penalize for this, so they will blame the mistake for each other and try to refuse the responsible Ki says they

he is uncomfortable to work on this working environment, and this is very difficult to change or improve it This situation is a characteristic of the company

Duy and Vinh - who are ex-employee in ACSI - agree with these factors They complain that the shortage of manpower has begun long time ago, but it became worse in recent years, because the flights have increased dramatically and it is high turnover rate in new employee Their workload was heavier and heavier every day, while the managers could not find a possible solution to solve the problem Vinh confesses that he was so tired and stress with this job, so he wants to try a new job with new challenge Moreover, the other main reasons leading them to quit this job are low motivation and lack of recognition

Vinh explains that sometime he and his collages tried a lot to get good performance For example: ACSI staff tried their best to load the last minute meals on time, especially in high peak season or bad weather time, but they were not rewarded and recognized for their contributions In contrast, if they made even a small mistake, they should be shouted

or nagged by managers, or even they could have been disciplined and got fined This unfair condition made them feel stress He gives opinion that the employee recognition program should be changed in the positive way Moreover, he describes that the

managers and supervisors in ACSI do not motivate employees to perform at their best, or increase loyalty with company Therefore, the staff only want to finish their daily work and come back home As a result, they could not feel comfortable to stay longer, and try

to find a better job Agreeing with the opinions about low motivation and lack of

recognition, Duy adds that the difficult working environment is another reason for

quitting job In this job, he should work outdoors, in plane parking in all weather

conditions and extremely high noise from plane turbines This working environment negatively affects his health Moreover, he has a family with 2 children now, thus he wants to find another job with stable working time, higher salary and better working environment

After these interviews, an initial cause effect map is outlined depend their opinions There are many factors lead to high turnover rate

Rude and strict behaviors

Lack of motivation from manager

Job stress

Lack of employee recognition

Unexpected job

No clear job description when recruitment

Low salary

HIGH TURNOVER RATE

Lack of day off

Imbalance work life

Limited career

Budget constraint Long time to get

Unstable working time

Initial cause effect map

1.4 Update cause effect map:

After drawing the initial cause effect map with data from interview, some theory about turnover causes are collected In the literature, many various factors are listed as reason for turnover intention But the authors have their own method to verify the factors

Hinkin and Tracey (3) present that 3 main factors for turnover are: poor supervision, a poor work environment and low compensation They also discovered that people quit the current job because of dissatisfaction with the job more than by getting better place While Ongori (1) shows 3 main group factors for turnover:

-Job related factors: job related stress, lack of commitment, job dissatisfaction…

-Voluntarily and involuntarily factor: the death or incapacity…

-Organizational factors: working environment, career advancement…

In addition, Jagun (4) shows the factors in details such as: work environment, training and development, superior and subordinate relationship, career development,

communication, benefit and rewards, work-life balance and job satisfaction Furthermore, according to Nahar, Islam (2) more causes for turnover intention are listed: organizational instability, high levels of inefficiency, poor communication, poor recruitment practices, poor managerial styles, lack of recognition, dissatisfaction job and low compensation

There are many factors leading to turnover intention, and it is difficult to confirm which are the main causes for high turnover in a company, because it should depend on the

on the cause effect map like: job stress, low compensation, poor communication or low motivation, lack of recognition However, the other factors are not mentioned by the interviewees Besides that, each main factors are result of many minor causes For

example: there are many reasons can lead to job stress: lack of resource, work overload, lack of harmonization and poor communication with immediate superior and with

coworker (7)

After collecting new theory and information, I found that the new factors are poor

management skills and job dissatisfaction The unfair treatment, lack of motivation and recognition from managers can also the potential causes of poor management skills (18, 19) A manager with poor management skills also increases the turnover rate and job stress in company (20) While other causes such as: low salary, limited career growth and hard working environment can group on job dissatisfaction (21, 22) The “unexpected job” factor is deleted because it is only effect on new employee in first week on training time After the training time, the official employee will quit the job because of other reasons Finally, the updated cause effect map is renewed and presented in next page