Excessive workload of the cleaning team in the case of office building z

The last part is recommendation solutions and action plan which is the combination set solution of re-assessment workload of the current cleaning team and amend the work shift schedule c

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-DO THI NGOC THUY

EXCESSIVE WORKLOAD OF THE CLEANING TEAM IN THE CASE OF

OFFICE BUILDING Z

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2021

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-DO THI NGOC THUY

EXCESSIVE WORKLOAD OF THE CLEANING TEAM IN THE CASE OF

OFFICE BUILDING Z

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: DR PHAN THI MINH THU

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2021

Table of Contents

Figures 5

Tables 5

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 7

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 8

1.1 PROBLEM CONTEXT 8

1.2 SYMPTOMS 12

CHAPTER 2: PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION 16

2.1 POSSIBLE PROBLEMS 16

2.1.1 Increasing and high frequency using cleaning spaces and areas 17

2.1.2 Over the workload of the cleaning team 18

2.1.3 Taking time for waiting service lift to move from floor to floor 20

2.1.4 Irregularly inspection and general assessment from property management team 20

2.1.5 Infrequency cleaning restroom and public areas 21

2.1.6 Unreasonable shift work arrangement 22

2.2 PROBLEM VALIDATION 24

2.2.1 Excessive workload of the cleaning team 24

2.2.2 Ineffective quality control 25

2.2.3 Inappropriate shift work schedule 26

2.3 PROBLEM DEFINITION 29

2.3.1 Problem Definition 29

2.3.2 Justify the importance of problem 30

CHAPTER 3: CAUSE VALIDATION 31

3.1 POTENTIAL CAUSES 31

3.1.1 Increase the scope of work 31

3.1.2 Different cleaning works in different type of properties 31

3.1.3 Reduction of cleaning staff 32

3.1.4 Poor quality of equipment and green cleaning concern 35

3.2 MAIN CAUSE VALIDATION 36

3.2.1 Final Cause – Effect Map 37

CHAPTER 4: ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS 38

4.1 Set solution 1: 38

4.1.1 Re-assessment the workload of the current cleaning team 38

4.1.2 Amend the work shift schedule corresponding to the operation hour of the building 41

4.2 Set Solution 2 42

4.2.1 Using overtime work schedule 42

4.2.2 Amend the work shift schedule corresponding to the operation hour of the building 43

4.3 SOLUTION VALIDATION 43

4.4 ACTION PLAN 45

4.4.1 Objective 45

4.4.2 Timelines and Estimated Cost 45

CONCLUSION 47

REFERENCES 48

CHAPTER 5: SUPPORTING INFORMATION 51

APPENDIX 1: DAILY REPORTS (MAY TO DECEMBER 2020) 51

APPENDIX 2: SUMMARY OF INTERVIEWS 56

Figures

Figure 1: Organization chart of the office building Z 11

Figure 2: The responsibilities in managing outsourcing service of each team of property management group 12

Figure 3: The complaints to Property Management Group from May – Dec 2020 13

Figure 4: The number complaints to Operation Team & Technician Team from May to Dec 2020 14

Figure 5: The ratio of complaints to each outsourcing service 15

Figure 6: Number of main building users from May to Dec 2020 18

Figure 7: The initial cause and effect map 23

Figure 8: The updated cause and effect map 28

Figure 9: The final cause-effect map 37

Figure 10: Workload Conceptual Model 38

Figure 11: New Shift 1 (06:30 – 15:30) 42

Figure 12: New Shift 2 (10:30 – 19:30) 42

Figure 13: Five hours with full of cleaning staff working in peak time when combining new two shifts 42

Figure 14: Applying 2 hours working overtime 43

Figure 15: Component of two set solutions 44

Figure 16: Timelines for action plan 46

Tables Table 1: The number of the complaints from May 2020 to December 2020 12

Table 2: The number of the complaints to the Technician and Operation team 13

Table 3: The number of the complaints to each outsourcing service 15

Table 4: The number of complaints from the Tenants and the Landlord 15

Table 5: The number of the cleaning staff in the period of May to Dec 2020 19

Table 6: Operation hour of the office building Z 22

Table 7: Work Shift Schedule of cleaning team 22

Table 8: The gap of number cleaning staff as per agreement and allocation 25

Table 9: The scope of work and staff allocation as per agreement 32

Table 10: Number of cleaning staff need as per agreement and number of cleaning staff allocation from May to Dec 2020 33

Table 11: The number of floors occupied by tenants from May to Dec 2020 33

Table 12: An illustration of cleaning staff as per agreement in August 2020 34

Table 13:An illustration of cleaning staff allocation in August 2020 34

Table 14: An illustration of cleaning staff as per agreement in December 2020 34

Table 15: An illustration of cleaning staff allocation in December 2020 35

Table 16: The result of survey verifies the main causes 37

Table 17: The number of floors occupied by tenants from Jan-May 2021 40

Table 18: The gap of number cleaning staff as per agreement and allocation in Jan-May 2021 40

Table 19: New work shift schedule solution 41

Table 20: Result of survey to identify the suitable solution 44

Table 21: The difference of current cost and new cost per month 47

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to express my sincere gratitude and special thanks to my supervisor Dr Phan Thi Minh Thu for her dedicated support and guidance, encouragement and excellent advice during my thesis research

Furthermore, I would like to extend my thanks to Dr Tran Phuong Thao and Dr Ly Thi Minh Chau for their valuable comments and constructive suggestions

I also take this opportunity to express a deep sense of gratitude to Prof Dr Tran Ha Minh Quan and ISB’s Director Board give me an excellent opportunity to approach much valuable knowledge and work with many professors in the MBA program

A special acknowledgment goes to the whole Cleaning team, Operation Manager, Building owner, and Tenant of office building Z who saves time to participate in the meetings with me My thesis report could not complete without their precious support

Last but not least, I would like to thank all my classmates in the MBA program for all their support and sharing during my study in the International School of Business - University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City

an action plan for the stakeholders of the office building Z This research includes four main parts The first part presented the background of the company and its building operation management practices The second part identified the potential problem by theories and intake meetings with stakeholders The analysis showed that the company is facing the excessive workload of the cleaning team, ineffective quality control and inappropriate shift work schedule However, the excessive workload of the cleaning team problem is significantly impacting the building performance The third part, the research also identifies the main cause

of the problem which is the reduction of cleaning staff The last part is recommendation solutions and action plan which is the combination set solution of re-assessment workload of the current cleaning team and amend the work shift schedule corresponding to the operation hour of the building Although the cost of the new solution is higher than the current cost for the clean team, however, the benefit of the recommended solution is much higher This will enhance the quality of cleaning service and building performance as well as improve the current customer satisfaction and building reputation, especially cleaning is one of top concerns in the pandemic of Covid-19 circumstances

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 PROBLEM CONTEXT

With the negative effects of the Covid-19, 2020 is considered as a year of tough and challenges for many country economies in the world in general and Vietnam economy in particular The Vietnamese government has put great efforts to monitor the spread of the Covid-

19 pandemic rapidly Although the Covid-19 pandemic has strongly negatively affected Vietnam's economy in general, Vietnam is one of few countries whose GDP growth in 2020

by 2.91% (14)

The improvement in infrastructure and administrative procedures of the Vietnamese government attract more foreign investors to Vietnam as well as the moving waves of manufactures of many big companies out of China has made Vietnam one of the prioritized investment areas for foreign investors (15) Therefore, the demand for office space has increased either in the central business district or downtown of the city According to a report

of Nhip Cau Dau Tu, the office market in the two biggest economic cities Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi City still grows despite the Covid-19 pandemic impacts which means the demand for office space has not cooled down (16)

According to Real Estate Market Updates for the first quarter of 2021, the Ho Chi Minh office market has signs of recovery in the first quarter of 2021 after the pandemic (17)

Source: CBRE Vietnam Research, Q1 2021

The company A Global established in 1993 in one of the member countries of the European Union is mainly engaged in real estate development in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia The portfolio of activities A Global includes the implementation of office buildings, residential complexes, shopping zones, as well as industrial complexes

The company A Global established its affiliate in Vietnam named the company A Vietnam

as well as the owner of the building located in Ho Chi Minh city in 2010 with the strategic vision to join in the real estate market in Asia In 2020, the first project of A Global in Vietnam which is the grade A office building located in the center of Ho Chi Minh City has completed and released to the market after 10 years with extreme efforts through all regulations and administrative procedures

The focus customer segment of the office building Z aims to be the ideal placement for western business entrepreneurs developing their activity in Vietnam and South East Asia region

as well as Vietnamese companies doing the international business operation This first office building project is also aiming at a foundation goal for the development of other office and commercial projects of the company in Vietnam Therefore, it is extremely important to improve the performance of the office building Z which not only builds the brand image reputation of the company but also improves the competence of the office building Z to others office building of competitors

This office building offers 90% of the gross floor area for office function 10 % of the gross floor area for food and beverages shop and conference center The office building Z certified a green certification for property wards which emphasizes the energy-saving design The office building Z offers to its tenants high performance of air conditioning system, energy and water-efficient systems, fire and life safety, technology security system control as well as green landscape friendly to the environment

The company B Global is one of the world’s leading property management companies all over the work with over 36,000 people working across the United States, Europe, Asia Pacific and Africa, including Vietnam as the company B Vietnam

The relationship between A Vietnam and B Vietnam is a Principal-Agent Relationship is that signed a written contract by both parties According to Kyle at el, the principal is the one who hires and the Agent is the one who does the work (2) The company A Vietnam play a role

as Landlord/Owner hires the company B Vietnam as a full-service partner as property management of the office building Z with maximizing the profit of the property and asset value

in the long term which includes in managing and taking care of the building, control operation cost, income flows…etc as well as enhance the performance and reputation of the building The Company B Vietnam assigned a group with 16 employees to office building Z to work as the property management group to manage and operate this office building This property management group is not only managed by the company B Vietnam headquarters but also the company A Vietnam as the Landlord/Owner

The number of property management group who are working in the office building Z is

16 members divide into 3 main teams: Technician Team, Operation Team, and Accounting Team

▪ The whole team is led by the Property Manager who takes the important role of the property management team takes overall responsibilities for the daily operation of this office building in a professional manner which includes the supervision of the fit-out stage, pre-opening stage, and opening stage of the building The Property Manager report directly

to Company A Vietnam and the headquarter the company B Vietnam

▪ The first team is the Technician team has 11 members, which is leading by Chief Engineer Technician team takes responsibility to manage all technical system of the office building

Z such as carrying out the maintenance and operation plans which comply with the recommendations of the manufacturers and ensure that all the equipment of building is in good efficient and safe conditions manner

▪ The second team is Operation Team has 3 members is leading by Operation Manager There are two parts of the duties of the operation team The first part is customer service which responses to all requirements, complaints, messages, requests, etc for tenants and visitors in a professional and timely manner in the building The remaining part of the operation team is managing the subcontractors or vendors who provide services to operate the office building Z which includes cleaning vendors, security vendors, pest control vendors, and landscape vendors…etc

▪ The last team of the property management group is the accounting team which is accountable for monitoring the payment process, operation expenses, payment collections, inventory, and billing invoices to all the tenants

Figure 1: Organization chart of the office building Z

Additionally, many subcontractors are engaged with the property management team to provide their services in the office building Z such as cleaning, security, fit-out contractors of tenants, landscape, maintenance all building technical systems, marketing, garbage collection, pest control…etc All whole group works together to make sure the operation of office building run smoothly to satisfy all the Tenants and Landlord

These subcontractors are outsourcing services that work permanently based in the office building Z include the cleaning team, the security team, the other service suppliers work on demand include garbage collection vendor, landscape vendors, pest control vendor, maintenance contractor and other technical vendors/suppliers The below chart shows which property management team manages which vendors/suppliers

With the limited scope of this thesis paper, the author pays attention to the cleaning service

of the building, therefore, the author will mainly focus on describing the scope of work of the cleaning contractor

The company A Vietnam hires a cleaning service as outsourcing contractor who provides the cleaning service in the office building Z The scopes of work of the cleaning team are that provide clean all the building areas such as basements, elevators, parking areas, public areas, restrooms, surrounding of the building, ground floor, typical floors, corridors, roof floor, staircases and depend on each scope of work, the cleaning work finish different schedules daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly

Figure 2: The responsibilities in managing outsourcing service of each team of property

management group

Each team in the property management group plays its important role to operate the office

building smoothly and make sure to reach the expectation of tenants

Last but not least, the last stakeholders are the building users who are tenants who are a

customer of the company A Vietnam, building visitors who are tenant’s guest,

couriers/workmen, contractors, all property management groups, outsourcing service

contractors…etc

1.2 SYMPTOMS

Since the office building Z was put into operation phase in May 2020, there are many

complaints from Tenants and Landlord regarding the service and facilities of the office

building

As a table below, there is the number of complaints about the period May 2020 to

December 2020 All these complaints are received by customer service via emails, hotlines as

well as messaging applications from both Tenants and Landlords

Source: Daily report 2020 – Customer service

Table 1: The number of the complaints from May 2020 to December 2020

Figure 3: The complaints to Property Management Group from May – Dec 2020

The trend chart illustrates data about the number of complaints received by customer service from May 2020 to December 2020 It can be seen that the trend fluctuates and intends

to increase significantly from 5 complaints in May 2020 to 17 complaints in December 2020

In order to figure out the stakeholders who are getting involved in such complaints, a deeper analysis of the report from customer service was conducted Most of the complaints came from Tenants and Landlord regarding the operation team and technician team from May to December 2020

Source: Daily report 2020 – Customer service

Table 2: The number of the complaints to the Technician and Operation team

The column chart below demonstrates the number of complaints regarding each team The number of complaints regarding the operation team was typically higher than the technician team in every month of 2020 Accordingly, the number of complaints regarding the operation team is about 60% in the meanwhile the number complaints regarding technician team are 40%

in total For instance, the number of complaints regarding the operation team was 8 complaints significantly higher than the technician team in September 2020

Figure 4: The number complaints to Operation Team & Technician Team from May to

Dec 2020

For the reason that the percentage of complaints regarding operation team is higher than technician team as well as the expectation of Landlord aims the office building Z to be the ideal placement for western firms developing their activity in Vietnam and Southeast Asia region and at the same time for Vietnamese companies doing international business Therefore, customer satisfaction is an extremely important and highly strong concern of the company as well as be serving the purpose of this paper, the researcher pays attention to investigate the problems to figure out the reason why the number of complaints regarding the operation team fluctuates and intends to increase

The operation team has the responsibility to responses all requirements, complaints, messages, requests, etc for tenants and visitors…etc as well as managing the service vendors including cleaning, pest control, landscape and security vendors at Building As the below table shows that the number of complaints regarding each team vendor from May 2020 to December

2020

Operation Team May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total

Source: Daily report 2020 – Customer service

Table 3: The number of the complaints to each outsourcing service

Figure 5: The ratio of complaints to each outsourcing service

It can be seen that the highest percentage of complaints is 84% regarding cleaning vendor

which is extremely high The other percentages are 10%, 4%, and 2% for landscape, pest

control, and security vendors respectively

Moreover, the complaints to the cleaning service are mostly from the Tenants who work

in the building The table below shows the number of complaints from the Tenants and the

Landlord during the research period

In order to find out the problem caused the increasing of complaints to the cleaning service, the author analyzes the components of complaints in details According to daily report of customer service, Tenant complained about dirty on the elevator wall on 11th May 2020 This complaint also happened again on 14th July 2020 and 14th October 2020 Furthermore, the most complaints about the bad smell of restroom happened many times, specifically: the first complaint about the smell was on 17th May 2020, then customer service received the same complaints regarding bad smell on 24th June 2020, 17th July 2020, 31st Aug 2020, 22nd Oct

2020 and other few times in November and December 2020 One of other complaints to the cleaning service was that trash bins are full of garbage also received by customer service in few times during research period Last but not least, the Tenants also complained about the spilled water and dirty on the floor of restroom many times in Jun 2020 and happened again in the following months during research period

Although all the complaints from the Tenants and Landlord are also about other service of the building, however, the cleaning service is the most service that received highest rate of complaints The situation is not only impact to Tenant’s satisfaction but also the performance

of the building generally Furthermore, due to Covid-19 disease pandemic, people are pay attention to the cleanliness of working areas, therefore, people expect the quality of cleaning service reach the standard and reduce the risk of spread Covid-19 disease as much as possible

CHAPTER 2: PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

2.1 POSSIBLE PROBLEMS

To figure out the problem that caused the increasing of number complaints regarding the cleaning team, few meetings have been conducted from 17th February 2021 to 27th April 2021 The face-to-face meeting has been conducted for six people including the Operation Manager, Supervisor of the cleaning team, Team Leader of the cleaning team, Cleaner, the representative

of Landlord and Tenant

The purpose of meetings is to understand the opinion of those stakeholders about increasing the same complaints in the cleaning team for months at office building Z for the period of May 2020 to December 2020 After those meetings, there are some possible problems

as below:

2.1.1 Increasing and high frequency using cleaning spaces and areas

The office building Z is a grade A office building located in a prime location in the heart

of the city which is quite convenient walking distance from other business facilities and other business centers The office building Z offers a professional working environment as well as management service with international standard that attracts more new potential tenants to rent office space for operating business In fact, there were more tenants move-in the office building

Z from May 2020 to December 2020 as well as the number of building users also increasing in that period

For the avoidance of doubt, the Tenants who complained are the building users The lease term agreement between the Tenant and Landlord is about at least three years The complaints

of the Tenant may not strongly affect the business of the building at this moment However, those complaints will strongly impact the business of the office building Z when the lease term

is expired Since those complaints of the Tenant will impact the Tenant’s satisfaction in terms

of deciding whether the Tenants continue to extend their lease term or not Moreover, once the office building Z is fully occupied 100% of all space areas, there is no more new tenants move-

in until the lease term expires in 2023 afterward

The below table shows that the number of employees of the tenant who are working in the office building Z plus the number of visitors who came to the building This is excluded the delivery who are temporarily visiting the office building Z and contractors who came to the office building Z to work after working hours

The number of tenants and visitors has increased which leads to an increase in the number

of building floors is occupied during the research period Therefore, there are more spaces and areas for the cleaning team to handle

Figure 6: Number of main building users from May to Dec 2020

Moreover, as a result of increasing the number of people in the building, it leads to high frequency using restrooms, elevators and public areas The cleaning team can not handle many areas in a timely manner; therefore, it causes increasing complaints from tenants

Regarding this matter Mr D – Operation Manager gave his opinion that:

Most of the complaints are about the cleaning service and facilities The number of tenants who are working in the building, as well as visitors, is extremely high And because of that, the number of people who are using the restroom quite high that the cleaning team cannot clean it

in a timely manner For private concerns and building regulation, tenants and visitors will use the passenger elevators to go up and down, some of them bring dust from outside the office building Z and the material of elevators are glass, therefore, the passenger elevators are visible

to see dirty

Ms P – Team Leader of the cleaning team shared that:

Every time we received complaints, we took over and solve them right away There are more and more people working in the office building Z and using the restroom more often than we need to frequently check up all the areas

2.1.2 Over the workload of the cleaning team

According to the report of the property management group, the number of cleaning staff

is slightly increased in the meantime the number of the cleaning spaces and areas dramatically increased in the research period

Ms P – Team Leader of the cleaning team explained:

0 200

There are too many works for our team to work One staff takes four typical floors but we don’t have enough personnel to work However, the actual number of personnel is less than the number of personnel in the contract agreement Our staff is stressed because of over workload, many of them already left the job here

Therefore, this leads to over workload of each cleaning staff The below table indicates the number of cleaning staff in the office building Z from May 2020 to December 2020

Number of

Source: Vendor report 2020 - Operation team

Table 5: The number of the cleaning staff in the period of May to Dec 2020

Moreover, Ms P – the Team Leader and her coworkers of the cleaning team sincerely shared her

opinion about this matter that “we have many works to do during our shift, we don’t have much time to rest We only have one hour to have lunch and rest at lunchtime We normally keep walking and go up and down every four hours My colleagues are all women This kind of work scope is too much for them They are very tired to keep their job done well.”

Additionally, each cleaning member has their own duties for some specific floors, when

it rains, the building users left shoe marks with dirty mud at the main lobby and outdoor when going in and out during the rain The cleaning supervisor needs to arrange more staff members from the other building areas to support clean it frequently and quickly as much as possible

As a result of this situation, the cleaning staff missed their own task areas which leads to increase complaints about the cleaning service of the building Z

Ms T – Supervisor of the cleaning team also explained:

The workload of our team increases in the meantime that we didn’t have enough cleaning staff

to take over When it rained, the main entrance lobby often got dirty The cleaning staff who was mainly taking care of the main entrance and passenger lifts couldn’t clean dirty shoe imprints of people who go in and out of the office building Z in a timely manner I needed to arrange for some other staff who were working on other building areas to go down the lobby to support staff in the lobby to quickly dry the wet floor in order to avoid accidents for tenants and guests On the other hand, there was splashing water in the basements during the rain That such water was from the vehicles from outside which drove to the basement for parking Therefore,

I also arranged for some other staff to go to basements to clean water there timely.”

Furthermore, the convenience of online food delivery encourages people to order more foods and drinks during working hours nowadays The office building Z users often spills those such foods and leakage water from drinks and beverages on the floor Moreover, the volume

of trash from food and drink is whereby increasing respectively This also causes increasing the workload of the cleaning team

Ms A – Cleaner said that:

Sometimes, our tenants ordered food or coffee, milk teas outside, and carry them to their floor offices They drop water and food on the floor in the public area and main entrance especially

at lunchtime, or sometimes they drop their ice cream or coffee on the floor of passenger elevators

2.1.3 Taking time for waiting service lift to move from floor to floor

Continues with the investigation to find out whether there are any more problems that cause the increase of complaints at the office building Z, the meetings disclose some other potential problems

At the office building Z, there are four passenger lifts moving from the ground floor to the top floor that is exclusive use for tenants and visitors There is only one service lift which serves for commodities transportation, transport of heavy goods or high quantities of the good This service lift serves contractors, delivery, cleaning team, security team, technician team, workmen, and tenant cleaners Furthermore, due to the private security purpose of the office building Z regulation, the use of a staircase is not permitted, except for in case of fire With the large number of stakeholders who need to use the service lift move from floor to floor, it causes time consumption for the cleaning team to go up and down to work

Regarding this matter, Ms A - Cleaner shared that:

Sometimes our team member has to wait for the service lift for more than 10 minutes to go up and down If there are some contractors delivered heavy large furniture and equipment that we need to wait longer We are not allowed to use the staircase to go up and down each floor, therefore, it takes time for us to finish our task

2.1.4 Irregularly inspection and general assessment from property management team

Last but not least, one of the possible problems comes from the property management team, especially the operation team who manages the cleaning team at the office building Z Most of the service is outsourcing at the office building Z that includes security service, pest

control service, landscape service as well as cleaning service etc There is a lack of management of the operation team for cleaning team which causes the same complaints for months

Ms N – representative of Landlord – who directly manage all property management team

at the office building Z as well as one of tenant shared her opinion regarding on the increase of complaints from tenants:

I think the property management team doesn’t check the cleaning areas regularly They do not focus on eliminating problems before the problem has the chance to happens They often respond to the situation when it has happened already Moreover, they access vendors at the end of every month therefore they are not often following up the performance of vendors within the month All property management assessment for vendors services is “good” in general in the meanwhile Tenants complaints about the services increasingly.”

2.1.5 Infrequency cleaning restroom and public areas

Most of the complaints of the cleaning service are about the dirty restroom, more dust in the elevators and bad smell in the restroom

Ms D – one of tenant of the building shared her opinion about what she complained about:

Our office based on 4th floor and a part of 5th floor which shared floor spaces with other companies I and my colleagues often saw the dirty toilet, water on the floor and bad smell in the toilet Sometimes, I saw the trash bin full of trash I think the problem is that they (cleaning team) do not clean the toilet more often to reduce the dirty and bad smell And because of Covid-19 at that time, we care more about the cleanliness and hygiene matter than ever

Ms N – representative of Landlord – who directly manage all property management team

at the office building Z as well as one of tenant shared her opinion about the dirty and bad smell

in the restroom:

I think cleaning team do not clean the area more often and missing some areas that tenants can see Moreover, they do not put their efforts to work, such as they need to clean the restroom deeply every time and visit the cleaning area more often As I know, they only check the restroom for every 2 hours Also, there are two restrooms on each floor, one for female and another for male Cleaning team checkup schedule for each floor is about 2 hours/visit, therefore, they cannot clean all dust and dirty in timely manner

2.1.6 Unreasonable shift work arrangement

The operation hour of the building is from 08:00 to 17:00 Monday to Friday and from 08:00 to 12:00 on Saturday Moreover, all the building services and facilities need to be ready before the operation hour

Building operation hour

Monday to Friday Saturday

Table 6: Operation hour of the office building Z

However, the shift schedule and staff allocation of the cleaning team are not suitable for the operation hour of the building In fact, the working schedule of cleaning team is from 6:30

to 15:30 in the morning shift and 13:00 to 22:00 in the afternoon shift There are 9 people working in the morning shift and 5 people working in the afternoon shift

Monday to Saturday Working hour of the cleaning team Shift 1 (Morning Shift)

(6:30 – 15:30)

Shift 2 (Afternoon Shift)

(13:00 – 22:00)

Source: Internal sources

Table 7: Work Shift Schedule of cleaning team

Apart from some of employee of tenants work late, the normal working hour of all tenants

in the building is from 08:00 to 17:00, therefore, almost of building users often leave the building around 17:00 to 18:00

It can be seen that two above schedules are not reasonable After building operation hours, there are not many people in the building, especially from 18:00 to 22:00 According to the work schedule of the cleaning team, there are only 5 cleaning staffs working from 15:30 to 18:00 As a result of this, these five cleaning staffs cannot handle all the scope of work of the cleaning service, it leads to increase the complaints from tenants Furthermore, as the possible problem analysis about the raining season above part, there were the raining season which normally happened from late in the afternoon, that caused more works for the cleaning to do The cleaning team would miss other cleaning areas to focus on cleaning the main entrance and the basements which cause the complaints from tenants about the cleaning services

As a result of interviews, the initial cause and effect maps have been created as Figure 7 below:

Figure 7: The initial cause and effect map

Problems

Increasing same complaints for months

in the cleaning team

Increasing and high frequency using

cleaning spaces and areas

Over workload of cleaning team

Taking time for waiting service lift to

move from floor to floor

Unreasonable shift work

arrangement

Losing lease agreement extension

Losing new potential lease agreement

Decreasing Customer satisfaction

Effects Symptoms

Irregularly inspection and general

assessment from property

management team

Infrequency cleaning restroom and

public areas

2.2 PROBLEM VALIDATION

After depth-interviews, it is essential to review some theory frameworks to prove and conceptualize the problems that lead to the symptoms at the Building

2.2.1 Excessive workload of the cleaning team

Regarding the increasing of cleaning space and areas as well as high frequency using cleaning space areas, Teran and vanDommelen-Gonzalez found that the changes in the areas and spaces workers have to clean as one of the main contributors to their increased workload, particularly the impact of changes in density or space design such as the increase in the number

of floors or overall square footage that workers clean, that layout of the floors is changing over time due to more workspaces per floor or remodeling trends with an open office space plan As

a consequence of these changes, there are more works for cleaning workers to do (1) It is confirmed that increasing the number of cleaning spaces and areas associated with high frequency using the restroom, elevators and other public areas are the most factors to increase the workload of the cleaning team Moreover, there were more people come to the building for working and visiting during the research period which makes more workload for the cleaning team such as more restrooms to clean, more spaces areas to dust, more trash bin to collect, and need more time and efforts to work etc It can be seen that the more increasing and high frequency using the cleaning spaces and areas, the more increasing same complaints about the cleaning service

According to Lumen Learning, one of the effects of organization downsizing cause increase workload and pressure on the remaining employees The remaining employees are not only complete their own job function but also pick up the additional task of the other employee (18) Moreover, in the finding of Teran et al also found that reduction of cleaning workers has resulted in an increased workload The current clean workers are assigned additional work tasks

to complete in the same amount of time as a result of changes in the cleaning areas that make increase the workload (1)

In fact, there are an increase the number of cleaning spaces and areas that needs to clean are significantly, however, the number of cleaning staff are slightly increased during the research period There is the big gap between the number of current staff and the actual number

of the cleaning staff need which results in increased workload for cleaning team The current cleaning staff need to handle more the cleaning areas of the other people that they are supposed

to work to maintain the general cleaning service of the building The below table show that this gap:

Source: internal source

Table 8: The gap of number cleaning staff as per agreement and allocation

Another finding of Teran et al is scheduling decisions do not include a variety of tasks that takes up janitor’s time contributes to increasing workload (1) This study indicates one of the current problems at the Building Z the Cleaning staff takes much time to wait for the service lifts in order to move from floor to another floor, it makes the cumulative cleaning task

as a result of this problem as well as job stress of staff This matter was not considered in the scope of work of the cleaning team at the beginning, therefore, this is also considered as one

of the factors that cause increasing the workload of the cleaning team

2.2.2 Ineffective quality control

According to Kyle at el, routine inspection is about awareness of the overall condition and operations of each property which allows for a more extensive check of the system, equipment, and conditions of the building This helps to find the small problem before they get worse (2) Moreover, according to Hanson J, the most important element of quality assurance control is inspection which can identify whether services need to improve, declining or stay the same (19) Given the fact that irregular inspection of the property management team is not only impacts to quality of the cleaning service at the office building Z but also increases the complaints from tenants

The research of Silke J Forbes shows that customer complaints measure customer’s dissatisfaction with the quality of products and services (20) Also, the result of the study of issues in building maintenance indicates that cleaning service is the most area commented by tenants/clients since it is the most visible and touchable areas by the building users (8) As the discussion with the tenant of the office building Z, they often saw the dirty and dust in the

restroom and public areas of the building Moreover, since the cleaning areas have not been cleaned frequently that make the cleaning areas easy to see by building users This is also one

of ineffective quality control of the supervisor of the cleaning team The supervisor did not regularly check-up cleaner’s works in order to make sure her staff do the work done, evaluate their performance and avoid the mistake Therefore, it is confirmed that the quality control at the office building Z is poor due to infrequency cleaning areas

In addition, cleaning service is the specific service industry, therefore, the author also refers to some common possible problems in cleaning service in different types of properties

of some leading companies in the cleaning service in over the world which cause the customer dissatisfaction about the quality of cleaning service which is not mentioned in the customer complaints of the office building Z such as revealed by The Janitorial Store about missing cleaning areas and step guidelines, using the wrong cleaning tools, out of supplies (21), and Austin Professional Cleaning Services, LLC and Austin Professional Cleaning Services, LLC also mentioned unemptied trash bin (22) (23)

2.2.3 Inappropriate shift work schedule

The necessary information which requires for staffing scheduling are staffing requirement, possible shift and day patterns Moreover, Wal revealed that workers are allocated to the shift once the shift has been made (24) Also, Dunham found that the use of shift schedules of work has been established by the demand of continuous process industry and effort to maintain high levels of production (25) Kelly et al., also mentioned working time arrangement impacts, directly and indirectly, employee productivity and organization performance (26) In the case

of the office building Z, the schedule of cleaning working hours, which is divided into two work shifts, do not suitable with the operation hour of the building There are seldom people who stay late in the building in the time frame from 18:00 to 22:00 Moreover, the building offers the service to all its tenants within operation hours, therefore, the cleaning staffs who work in the morning shift have to handle more cleaning spaces and areas than the cleaning staff who work in the afternoon shift This arranges impacts to the cleaning staff in term of productivity and performance as well as the building performance accordingly

In conclusion, following those meetings with related stakeholders and theories inform, there are three potential central problems which include the excessive workload of the cleaning team and ineffective quality control and inappropriate shift work schedule As a consequence

of the analysis, the cause-and-effect maps have been updated as Figure 8

Although these three possible problems have affected the quality of the general cleaning service of the office building Z which causes the increasing of complaints of tenants, however, the increase of workload of the cleaning team is considered as a main central problem In fact, the excessive of workload of the cleaning team is not only impacting the quality service that provides to tenants but also threatens the goal of the company which invests and develops more office buildings in the real estate market in Vietnam The excessive workload of the cleaning team also impacts the performance of the building which highly is the important strategic vision

of the company A Global in building the brand reputation in Asia, including Vietnam Moreover, if the company takes no action to fix this problem, it will affect to company revenue

in signing a new lease office agreement and extend the lease agreement of current tenants Furthermore, the meetings with related stakeholders revealed that the excessive workload strongly impacts the cleaning service of the building in particular and the building performance overall Therefore, the excessive of the workload of the cleaning team is proposed as the central problem in this research

Figure 8: The updated cause and effect map

Problem

Increasing same complaints for months in the cleaning team

Increasing and high frequency using cleaning spaces and areas

Over workload of cleaning team

Taking time for waiting service lift to move from floor to floor

Unreasonable shift work arrangement

Losing lease agreement extension

Losing new potential lease agreement

Decreasing Customer satisfaction

Effects Symptoms

Irregularly inspection and general assessment from property management team

Infrequency cleaning restroom and public areas

Potential Central

Problems

Missing cleaning areas/step guidelines, using wrong cleaning tools, out of supplies

2.3 PROBLEM DEFINITION

2.3.1 Problem Definition

As the definition of Cambridge, the workload is the amount of work that a person or machine has to do within a particular period of time (3) The term of workload has been studied for a long time ago There are many definitions of the load of work In the research of Martins

at el indicated that the load concept of work is about all factors that determine the work process such as technological resources, organization, and sharing of activities, interpersonal relationships, relationship with the environment and physical structure, among other factors that could overload the professionals, his/her work, ability and may destroy their vital energy (4) This finding also indicated that the load concept of work is grouped by its nature and characteristic such as physical load, mechanical load, philosophical load… and its load concept also results of reaction between requirements, circumstances (4)

According to Yang's research, workload is one of six variables (comprising a variety of factors) that influence employee performance The findings of this study's empirical research also support the idea that employee burden has a major influence on their performance (32)

Excessive workload, according to Teran at el., is a workplace danger that may lead to sprains and other injuries, as well as being a major source of employment stress, especially in physically demanding jobs like janitorial work (1)

Koehoorn at el defined cleaning work is generally labor-intensive depend on the design

of the building, facilities, and furniture as well as cleaning tools, machines, and methods (5) Teran at el indicated that cleaning work is based on physically demanding work (1)

Teran at el also demonstrate that increased workload is the increase in number and complexity of the task, the increase of the quantity of work for schedule work (1) According

to Health and Safety Executive (HSE), excessive workload can result in human performance issues and Workload issues may be more relevant in times of downsizing or temporarily during peaks (27)

Due to excessive workload of the cleaning team, they always have to rush to finish their works assignment as well as cover the other cleaning spaces and areas

2.3.2 Justify the importance of problem

Changing in workload is the impact to the performance of employee (6) and employee satisfaction affect to organizational performance in term of customer satisfaction (7) There are some serious consequences of problems if the company do not fix the problems:

Negative effect on building performance: David at el emphasize that a cleaning

building is critical to attracting and retaining satisfied customers (8) Cleaning is one of the maintenance plans of every property management, and it is the most visible and touchable by building users (8) Therefore, it is essential that the office building Z management need to provide a comprehensive and high-quality cleaning service to increase the perceived value of the property It is a serious impact on customer satisfaction and in the bigger picture, this problem will affect building performance, reputation as well as the capabilities of competition

with other office buildings in the heart of the economic city of Vietnam

Cause high turnover rate of cleaning team that impacts to the quality of service: In

the findings of employee turnover damage service, Lowery emphasizes that losing employees means that customer service standards decline (9) The excessive workload causes pressure and over workload for the cleaning team The cleaning team is all women, therefore, the excessive workload will increase the number of works need to finish for the same amount of time This

is the reason why many members of the cleaning team quit their job in the research period due

to the health and safety concern of the cleaning team The replacement for every position will cost the quality of service at the end of the day Given the fact that if the company or property management team do not fix the problem, the general quality of cleaning service will be declined as well as decrease customer satisfaction It also harms the long-term goal of the company which offers the tenants an ideal workplace with the international standard

Declining the revenue of the building: Zhang at el figured that customer satisfaction is

positively improved the financial performance of the company (10) The excessive workload problem do not fix as soon as possible, the number of complaints regarding the cleaning service will continuously increase in the future This problem will seriously affect to lose extension agreement of current tenants If the tenants are not happy with the quality of the current service, they will change their minds to find other office buildings to operate their business As a consequence of customer dissatisfaction, the company will lose extend the lease agreement with the tenant, whereby, the revenue will be declined respectively

CHAPTER 3: CAUSE VALIDATION

3.1 POTENTIAL CAUSES

Giving the importance of the current problem, it is necessary to analyze deeper to figure out the possible causes for this problem As a result of theoretical frameworks and meetings, there are five potential causes that are considered as the causes of the problem

3.1.1 Increase the scope of work

Teran at el mentioned the density of premises due to “open spaces” trends or remodeling trends which are more workspaces per floor as one of the greatest factors increasing workload (1) However, the cleaning team at the office building Z takes responsibility for public areas and restroom areas per floor The cleaning team is not allowed to enter into Tenant’s premises Therefore, the scope of work of the cleaning team per each floor at the office building Z keeps the same as the beginning plan However, there are some holiday decorations and main lobby decorations such as Christmas holiday decorations or event celebrations decorations which relocate some furniture in the lobby When all chairs and tables move out, there are more spaces for the cleaning team to clean

As the above data in the previous chapter is shown that increases in a number of building users and the number of floors that the cleaning team has to clean during the research period The spaces and areas that the cleaning team has to clean expand larger with the same amount

of time Since the number of floors has increased in the research period, the workload of the cleaning team has increase respectively As the results of these increases, there are more restroom and common areas for the cleaning team to clean more often as well as keep those areas cleanliness as much as possible

3.1.2 Different cleaning works in different type of properties

Kyle at el divided real estate into four major classifications includes residential, commercial, industrial and special-purpose in terms of property management (2) Each type of property is not the same which required a different combination of knowledge and skill on the part of management as well as the different scope of the cleaning works The type of cleaning task is accordingly unlike residential properties or other classification of property The office building is a commercial property that endures heavy traffic during the day (2) Hence, most areas such as washrooms, lobbies, corridors…etc must be maintained cleanliness for the whole daytime