Luận văn Improving employee motivation at ntt data Vietnam

ive years and its sales outside Japan (NDVN contributed a little part) have expanded to more than 40%, compared with just 1% when NTT DATA first ventured out into global market. NTT DATA used three values for employees working orientation and communication with customers, partners: “Client first”, “Foresight”, “Teamwork”. (Website NTT DATA). NDVN is a subsidiary company of NTT DATA Corporation, therefore it also followed three values. The thesis focus on employee motivation, therefore, the value “Teamwork” needed more attention. In thesis’ theoretical framework, “Colleague relationship” depended much the value “Teamwork”. Major subsidiaries of NTT Group Figure 5. Major subsidiaries of NTT Group. (Source: NTT DATA) Major sectors of NTT DATA Corporation (NDVN company is belong to China & Asia-Pacific sector) Figure 6. Major sectors of NTT DATA Corporation. (Source: NTT DATA) NDVN was established in 2008, charter capital is 2 million USD, it is subsidiary of NTT DATA Corporation. The Chief executive officer is Mr. Akira Watanabe (Japanese citizen). The head office is No. 239 Xuan Thuy street, Cau Giay district, Hanoi city, Vietnam. The company also has 2 branches at Da Nang city and Hochiminh city. Based on hierarchical structure of companies, human resources department also has vertical managing structure from Human resources management department of Headquarters (at Japan) to Human resources management department of China and Asia-Pacific sector (at Singapore), to Human resources management department of NTT DATA Vietnam (at Hanoi, Vietnam). Figure 7. Vertical structure of managing human resources Branch structure of NDVN Figure 8. Branch structure of NDVN. (Source: NTT DATA Vietnam) Departments structure of NDVN (vertical organization structure) Figure 9. Departments structure of NDVN. (Source: author) Human resources are organized in also horizontal structure and vertical structure. Horizontal structure: In three branch offices has human resources staffs, administration staffs, software engineers, salespersons. Hanoi head office Danang branch office Hochiminh city branch office Board of directors Has General Director/ Director of Hanoi head office concurrently Director of Danang branch Director of Hochiminh city branch office Accounting department Has chief accountant, accountants Human resources department Has Head of Human resources department, HR staffs Has HR staff Has HR staff Administration department Has Head of Administration department, Telephone teller, Purchasing staff, Administration staff Has reception/administration staff Has reception/administration staff EIT development Business Unit Has Head of EIT development Business unit, software programmers, System analysis specialists, (English – Japanese - Vietnamese) Communicator staffs Has software programmers, System analysis specialists, (English - Japanese - Vietnamese) Communicator staffs Has software programmers, System analysis specialists, (English – Japanese – Vietnamese) Communicator staffs Sales EIT Has Head of Sale EIT, Sale executives Has Sales executives Has Sales executives PIF development Business Unit Has Head of PIF Development Business Unit, Software programmers, System analysis specialists, (English – Japanese - Vietnamese) Communicator staffs Has Software programmers, System analysis specialists, (English - Japanese - Vietnamese) Communicator staffs Has Software programmers, System analysis specialists, (English - Japanese - Vietnamese) Communicator staffs Sales PIF Has Head of Sales PIF, Sale Executives Has Sale executives Has Sale executives Table 2. Human resources are organized in horizontal structure. (Source: author) The company has career path for many types of employee, these are chances for employee’s advancement. Notice: All PIF’s employees need Japanese skills (N1, N2, N3, N4 or N5 Japanese certificate), and working much with Japanese partners. EIT means Enterprise Information Technology, EIT’s employees mainly work in management information system for enterprise customers. 4.3.2. Job titles At NDVN, one employee has one job titles in below list (the ordering is not important) No. Job title 1 General Director 2 General Manager 3 (Branch) Director 4 General manager 5 Head of HR (Human resources) 6 Senior manager 7 Deputy manager 8 Manager 9 System analyst 10 Senior system analyst 11 Senior software programmer (EIT) 12 Software programmer (EIT) 13 Senior software tester (EIT) 14 Senior software programmer (PIF) 15 Software programmer (PIF) 16 Software tester (PIF) 17 Senior software tester (PIF) 18 Bridge engineer 19 Sales executive 20 Senior sales executive 21 Executive 22 Senior executive 23 Communicator 24 Senior communicator Table 3. Job titles. (Source: author) Job titles bring the pride to employee, make them confidence when communicating with customers, suppliers, partners, and colleagues. Job titles also implies specialist of a field, level/rank of employee in organization, and position in organization. Job titles also implies who are line-manager of others. 4.3.3. Career paths NTT DATA has a long-history in business operating, NDVN inheritance career path designing from NTT DATA. NDVN has a comprehension set of career paths for all type of employees. The below result obtained by extracting and synthesis from common practices at NDVN’s human resources department. Career path for software specialist (4 paths) Figure 10. Career path for software specialist in EIT Business Unit. (Source: author) Figure 11. Career path for software specialist in PIF Business Unit. (Source: author) Figure 12. Career path for software tester in EIT Business Unit. (Source: author) Figure 13. Career path for software tester in PIF Business Unit. (Source: author) Coding titles for software specialist No. Code Description 1 PG1 Software programmer 2 PG2 Senior Software programmer 3 SA1 System Analysis 4 SA2 Senior System Analysis Figure 14. Coding titles for software specialist. (Source: author) Career path for communicator (Japanese – English - Vietnamese) (4 paths) Figure 15. Career path for communicator in EIT Business unit. (Source: author) Figure 16. Career path (type 1) for communicator in PIF Business unit. (Source: author) Figure 17. Career path (type 2) for communicator in PIF Business unit. (Source: author) Figure 18. Career path (type 3) for communicator in PIF Business unit. (Source: author) Career path for accounting staffs Figure 19. Career path for accounting staffs. (Source: author) Career path for administration, human resources staffs Figure 20. Career path for administration, human resources staffs. (Source: author) Career path for employee in Sales department (All employees in sale department need Japanese skill, because almost enterprise customers or public sector customers that related Japanese citizens, companies, government). Communicator staffs can reach advancement in career path of Sales staffs. Figure 21. Career path for employee in Sales department in EIT Business Unit (Source: author) Figure 22. Career path for employee in Sales department in PIF Business Unit (Source: author) 4.3.4. Performance evaluation and salary Salary of employees based on ladder levels of employees. The below result obtained by synthesis process from author. No. Title Employee level 1 PG1 5 2 PG2 6 3 SA1 7 4 SA2 8 5 Manager 9 6 Senior manager 10 Figure 23. Ladder levels when calculating salary (Source: author) Start per half fiscal year, per employee must write down their challenge sheet, and at the end of half fiscal year, line-manager of the employee will assert the advancement of them in period, then line-manager decides new salary incentives, new level of employee, or new job title. If employee has concern about salary, working conditions, dissatisfaction perspectives, employee can talk with his/her line-manager in Challenge review session. In one year, the company has 2 evaluation rounds for ranking level A, B, C, D, E for employee’s motivation evaluation, and deciding bonus money amount for per employee. NDVN evaluates working performance of employees two times in a year. According to common practices at Japanese companies, one fiscal year start at April 1st to March 31st, but for suitable with Vietnam traditional context, company apply few principles are: Has an evaluation time at previous of Lunar New Year, Six months period for an evaluation time. It is preparing for bonus before Lunar New Year. Month Japanese companies’ Fiscal year 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 Luna New year in Vietnam x Evaluation session x x Table 4. Fiscal year, Luna New Year in Vietnam, and Evaluation session (Source: author) Employee performance ranking No. Ranking Bonus (Net monthly salary * rate) 1 A Based on rank 2 B Based on rank 3 C Based on rank 4 D Based on rank 5 E Based on rank Table 5. Employee performance ranking (Source: author) Bonus money for per employee at per period based on specific ranking coefficient (coefficient is often from 1.0 to below 2.0, but maybe varied year over year). The formula for calculating employee performance ranking for one year based on 2 six-month period. The last period has higher weight (twice weight when comparing with first period). Yearly employee performance ranking decides bonus before Lunar New Year: (Yearly employee performance ranking) = (First six-month period employee performance ranking) + (Last six-month period employee performance ranking) x 2 4.3.5. Reward The company rewards by in-house certificate and incentive money No. Reward Period Object Has money reward 1 Employee of month monthly Personal Yes 2 Employee of quarter quarterly Personal Yes 3 Employee of half-fiscal-year Half fiscal year Personal Yes 4 Employee of year One fiscal year Personal Yes 5 Team players One fiscal year Team members Yes 6 Loyalty 10 years Ten consecutive working years Personal Yes Table 6. Types of rewarding. (Source: author) Reward “Employee of month” often called “EoM” (per branch office has one “EoM” for one month, receiving bonus money at end of month). And the company has rewarding most outstanding employee of quarter, employee of half-fiscal year, and Employee of Year. 4.3.6. Training The company hold many training courses for per job type for software programmers, sales executive, administration staff, human resources executive, manager, senior manager, etc. 4.4. In-depth interview result The purpose of in-depth interview is determining, preliminary re-examining factors affects to employee motivation in literature review in specific reality context. The thesis author as interviewees the major factors affected to their working motivation. Interview is very good suitable methodology for exploration opinion and thought of research objects. However, to this, interview methodology is very important. Closed questions or choosing questions seemly has no effect in exploration deeply opinion also thought of people (research object) (Thang N.V, 2017, pp.99). The author of thesis used almost open questions for exploration factors cause the feeling, changing in employee motivation. The author prepared carefully before interviewing sessions. Interviewees are asked many opened, multi-choice questions. Interview sessions have not a concrete, strict structure because it depended on a specific context with per interviewee. For one question, the author may be need ask in many difference ways for the same exploration purpose. For example, for asking seniority years at NDVN, author can ask interviewee directly, or asking about his/her positions in specific periods at NDVN, or asking him/her about start working year at NDVN. Clearly, have many ways for asking or fill in an answer for a question. Few subtle questions related to salary and welfare need more carefully and subtle interview skill. Introduction section before going to the main content of conducting in-depth interview session to make sure creating trusty, and comfortable atmosphere. The interview session become a conversation, and freedom to speak. Researcher does not need introduce too detail about research objectives, according to interviewee’s interest-level related research topic, sometime, introduction about general research objectives is good enough (Thang N.V., 2017). The main section of interview session has easy-to-understand questions, like an equal exchange conversation, tight with interviewee’s context. Interviewer use recording software on handheld device to record all information and take note carefully. The content of in-depth interview at Appendix 2. After in-depth interview with 6 current employee and 3 ex-employees at also three area. In general, the collected factors set impact to NDVN employee motivation from in-depth interview process like factors what pointed out in literature review. The author detects these factors are affected to employee who interviewed in research’s context include: salary and welfare, working conditions, stability, advancement, corporate culture, colleague relationship, autonomy at work, leadership, motivation at work. Major result of opinion about attributes of motivation from interviewees No. Opinion about motivation Interviewee 1 - Feel happy when come to office per day - Interest with current job - Appreciate the incentive policies of the company Interviewee 2 - Feel safety for income and health - Working with confidence - Don’t afraid violence, firing at work - Interest with current job Interviewee 3 - Interest with current job - Working as hobby - Appreciate the incentive policies of the company - Willing to work with best performance Interviewee 4 - Appreciate the incentive policies of the company - Willing to work with best performance Interviewee 5 - Interested with current job. - Willing to work with best performance Interviewee 6 - If salary is assured for household income, interviewee loves job and he/she feel motivation for working. - Feel good, cheerful and optimistic at work. - Willing to work with best performance Interviewee 7 - Feel workplace as home. - Interested with current job. - Feel good, cheerful and optimistic at work. - Willing to work overtime to finish task on time. Interviewee 8 - Try best at work - Interested with current job. - Feel energy, commitment, and creativity and bring these things to his/her jobs. Interviewee 9 - Willing to work with best performance - Willing to work overtime to finish task on time. - Appreciate the incentive policies of the company Table 7. Major result of opinion about motivation from interviewees. (Source: author) Major result of opinion about factor impact to employee motivation in ordering (lower number is higher important level) Interviewee Factor 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Working conditions 3 4 5 4 4 4 8 3 8 Stability 14 5 7 6 5 5 7 4 6 Advancement 4 3 4 5 6 6 6 2 5 Corporate culture 7 7 6 7 8 8 5 5 4 Colleague relationship 6 6 8 8 7 7 4 6 7 Salary and welfare 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Autonomy at work 5 8 3 3 2 2 3 8 3 Line-manager, senior manager’s leadership behavior 2 2 2 2 3 3 2 7 2 Superior’s mentoring, supporting 8 9 9 9 N/A 9 9 9 9 Gender percentage of employees 10 10 10 10 N/A 10 13 13 10 Working time 9 11 12 11 9 11 14 14 11 Employee birthday party 12 14 11 13 N/A 14 10 10 12 Office’s position 11 12 13 12 N/A 13 11 12 N/A Equality on treatment 13 13 14 14 N/A 12 12 11 N/A Table 8. Major result of opinion about factor impact to employee motivation in ordering. (Source: author) The author collected result, pick most important factors to questionnaire in survey research. The interviewer also received many complaints about facts affect to motivation at work: + When creating, reviewing, evaluating “Challenge sheet”, this process is formal, not in effectiveness. + Free time is high; Received sales orders amount is insufficient for workforce, in contract, the company still recruiting more for increase head counts. + Staff mobilizing is lacking flexibility; reward policy on regulation papers is good but it is not in effectiveness. + Employee-level based on mainly seniority years at the company, not based on real qualification, proficiency or seniority years at other companies (when before joining the company). + Cohesion between two EIT (Enterprise Information Technology) business unit with PIF (Public Information Infrastructure) business unit is very weak. + Employees seldom have chance to use new technology, popular technology in technical world, because employee must use many in-house frameworks, SDKs what developed by the corporation. The tools almost are free, open-source tools like IDEs, because company must compliance copyrights laws strictly and reduce cost of software development, the property tools is better, but software programmers are not allowed using many property tools. The joyful, high performance production in software development is lacking. + The company has reviewing for employee’s salary increment two times one year, but employee often wait for long time (many years) for one salary increment time. Few employees said that one salary increment time, they received only 500,000 VND one time after many years of waiting. They feel their salary is not equally with salary in contemporary labor market (in fields: Information technology, information system, software engineering). 4.5. Current situation of employee motivation Synthesis from in-depth interview process, the author received a summary about current situation of employee motivation at NTT DATA Vietnam, in general, motivation of employees is quite low. There are many components cause low motivation at work: Creating a “Challenge sheet” is formal, cognitive, meaningless. Percentage of free time is so much, time involved in the actual projects is less leads to employee’s frustration. Number of employees left job is high, it makes skeptic in current employee’s thinking, causes lacking trust in company development process. Staff mobilizing lacks rationality, waste of human resources. In many cases, staff mobilizing cannot done due to rigid separation between two business units (EIT - Enterprise Information Technology and PIF - Public Information Infrastructure). Employees who has high seniority years at NTT DATA Vietnam feel boring, after many years work at the company, they tend to look for new job for recreation joyful, new experience, new challenge, new friends, new colleagues, new management style, and new technology. Many young, talented, dynamic software programmers feel lacking an environment where they can keep up with latest technology in software development, management information system development with new advancement, cutting edge technology, tools, methodologies. 4.6. Survey analyzing 4.6.1. Coding observed variables Answer for questions filled in columns what coded as below: AG: “Your age is ” GN: “Gender” QA: “Highest qualification” SE: “Seniority years at the company is ... years” WO: “Working conditions” observed variable WO1: “Company supply working facilities (PC, laptop, internet connection, Wi-Fi, dual-screen for programming, licensed software, development tools, SDK, etc.) fully.” WO2: “Working room is clean, silence, enough large, non-toxic factors.” WO3: “No work over-time.” WO4: “I feel comfortable with ancillary services (motor parking, car parking, lunch restaurant, building staff).” ST: “Stability” observed variable ST1: “I don’t worry about losing their jobs.” ST2: “The company operates stably and effectively.” AD: “Advancement opportunities” observed variable AD1: “The company often has suitable training courses.” AD2. “Learn new technology from applying new technology in new software project.” AD3. “I have chance to learn from talent colleagues.” AD4. “The company has clear career paths and employee feel satisfaction with evaluation to next ladder on the path.” CO: “Corporate culture” observed variable CO1: “I proud of the company brand.” CO2: “I recognize that the entire customer partner values the company's brand.” CO3: “I appreciate corporate culture.” CO4: “The company has a sustainable development strategy.” CO5: “I feel the company’s vision and values is suitable.” CO6: The company always product high quality products also services. CR: “Colleagues relationship” observed variable CR1: “My colleagues are reliable and honest.” CR2: “Teamwork operate effectively.” CR3: “My colleagues often share, support experience in work also in life.” CR4: “My colleagues are comfortable, joyful and sociable.” SA: “Salary and welfare” observed variable. SA1. “Wages paid are worth the effort the employees spend.” SA2. “Wages can guarantee the life of staffs and families.” SA3. “Reward policies are timely, clear and transparent.” SA4. “Welfare regimes are diversise, complete and correct employee group is entitled.” SA5. “I satisfied with the welfare policy of the company.” SA6. “Welfare, wages, bonuses paid timely and satisfactory yet?” SA7. “Policy salary, bonus, welfare regime has really care about employees or not?” AU: “Autonomy at work” observed variable AU1. “Take risks by creativity and innovation.” AU2. “You are asked about number of jobs that fit your capacity” AU3. “Be involved in production planning.” AU4. “Division of labor is reasonable.” AU5. “Employees are involved in decisions that affect their work.” LS: “Leadership behavior” observed variable LS1. “Leaders evaluate employee achievement in terms of equity and recognition.” LS2. “Leaders help and support staff to complete the work assigned.” LS3. “Leaders provide feedback to help employees improve job performance.” LS4. “Leaders protects the rights of employees.” LS5. “Leaders believe the ability of employees.” LS6. “Leaders are subtle when criticized.” MO: “Motivation” observed variable MO1. “I interested with current job.” MO2. “I feel good, cheerful and optimistic at work.” MO3. “I am willing to work with my best performance.” MO4. “I appreciate the incentive policies of the company.” 4.6.2. Evaluate scale measurement reliability Independence variable “Stability” has Cronbach’s alpha = 0.293. Deleting any observed variable of “Stability” independence variable cannot make Cronbach’s alpha of this variable increase, therefore author remove this variable. Independence variable “Corporate culture” Item-Total Statistics Scale Mean if Item Deleted Scale Variance if Item Deleted Corrected Item-Total Correlation Squared Multiple Correlation Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted CO1 14.73 5.687 .466 .351 .488 CO2 15.91 6.115 .043 .010 .745 CO3 14.94 5.919 .475 .371 .494 CO4 14.72 5.721 .415 .216 .507 CO5 14.94 5.996 .449 .264 .504 CO6 14.88 6.450 .423 .278 .526 Table 9. Scale reliability analysis of observed variables belong to independence variable “Corporate culture” (Source: author) Follow Hair Jr. et al. (pp. 90), “Cronbach’s alpha (is) measure of reliability that ranges from 0 to 1, with values of .60 to .70 deemed the lower limit of acceptability”. The author of thesis will remove observed variable has Cronbach’s alpha value < 0.6 for ensuring reliability of primary data. If deleting observed variable CO2. “Employees recognize that the entire customer partner values the company's brand.”, The scale reliability of independence variable “Corporate culture” will increase. Therefore, author decide remove survey data of observed variable CO2, then Cronbach’s alpha of independence variable “Corporate culture” will become to 0.745 > 0.600. Independence variable “Corporate culture” has analysis result Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Items N of Items .293 .295 2 Table 10. Cronbach's alpha of independency variable "Stability" (Source: author) Item-Total Statistics Scale Mean if Item Deleted Scale Variance if Item Deleted Corrected Item-Total Correlation Squared Multiple Correlation Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted ST1 3.72 .779 .173 .030 . ST2 4.08 .946 .173 .030 . Table 11. Scale reliability analysis of observed variables belong to independence variable “Stability” (Source: author) Independence variable “Stability” has Cronbach’s alpha value = 0.293 < 0.600, and if removing any observed variables of it, Cronbach’s alpha cannot improve, therefore, the author decides removing observed data related to independence variable “Stability”. With another independence variables, Cronbach’s alpha value are valid. The below table is synthesis for all independence variables. No. Indepe