Low employee motivation in JAMJA Corp

LOW EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN JAMJA CORP. Table of Contents I. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 3 II. SYMPTOMS ....................................................................................................................................... 8 2.1 Low ratio of renew contracts 2019 ............................................................................................ 8 2.2 Decrease new signed contracts/month....................................................................................... 9 2.3 Increase ratio of complaints ..................................................................................................... 10 III. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION ..................................................................................................... 12 3.1 Problems identification............................................................................................................. 12 3.1.1 Low employee motivation.................................................................................................... 12 3.1.2 High pressure at work......................................................................................................... 13 3.1.3 Unprofessional sales communication ................................................................................. 14 3.1.4 Slow processing of contracts............................................................................................... 14 3.1.5 Ineffective discount programs ............................................................................................. 15 3.2 Problems validation .................................................................................................................. 17 3.3 Central Problem........................................................................................................................ 19 IV. ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION ......................................................................................................... 22 4.1 Causes validation ...................................................................................................................... 22 4.1.1 Causes identification........................................................................................................... 22 4.1.2 Causes validation................................................................................................................ 24 4.2 Solutions analysis ...................................................................................................................... 27 4.2.1 Solutions for Fair recognition cause................................................................................... 27 4.2.2 Solution for Feedback and Supervision causes................................................................... 31 4.3 Alternative solutions ............................................................................................................. 32 4.4 Action plan............................................................................................................................. 34 4.4.1 Human allocation................................................................................................................ 34 4.4.2 Timeline and Action plan .................................................................................................... 35 V. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................. 37 VI. SUPPORTING INFORMATION ................................................................................................... 38 Transcript .............................................................................................................................................. 38 References.............................................................................................................................................. 57 Executive Summary JAMJA is a promotion driven platform that helps merchants increase traffic and sales (online and traditional stores). This startup aims to become a discount app in Vietnam with hourly discount bookings and rapid expansion from restaurants and entertainment to beauty. The platform will be upgraded day by day to help merchants optimize sales by offering various discounts based on the number of empty tables, time frames and actual sales in a day. Customers will also benefit from these improvements, such as instant booking of up to 50% off at certain times of the day besides an average drop of 10% to 30%. JAMJA has reached nearly 5 million views per month and aims to become the number 1 daily transaction app in Vietnam pioneering time-based discounts for bookings along with the ability to quickly expand into many markets ranging from entertainment to travel. The KPI of the Partnership Department includes many factors such as GMV (Gross Merchandise Value/ Volume), commission from providers, leads, new contracts, renew contacts and partner feedback,... Although other factors also have bad manifestations but not really as prominent as the three symptoms mentioned in Symptoms Chapter. In addition, they account for a high proportion in the KPI evaluation of the members as well as a prominent expression of the business situation of the department. Therefore, I can call all three symptoms briefly as the low KPI performance of the Partnership Department. Based on quality data from interviewing Mrs. Thuy, Ms. Thao and Mr. Trung combined with literature, I have discovered potential problems that exist in the Partnership Department. In particular, there are some problems that seem to be quite serious and should have been solved as soon as possible such as high pressure, ineffective discount programs but they are out of control of our department. Although we want to solve it thoroughly, it depends on other groups such as the Marketing or HR department so it is very difficult to do it right now. So, in the end, I chose the low motivation as a central problem because it is completely under the control of the department and will definitely bring good results. Because it can even help solve partly high pressure problem and thereby improve the unprofessional sales communication problem when employees feel more comfortable and satisfied with their work. The relationship between employee motivation and performance seems to be clear. Because when we recognize a task to be important and valuable, employees will do it with a high 1 LOW EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN JAMJA CORP. level of dedication and enthusiasm to accomplish it. With that in mind, managers need to have the right ways to keep their employees motivated as much as possible. Employee motivation is critical for every organization to improve the performance and productivity. In the Central problem part, I delved deeper into the problem of employee motivation, from the definition and the impact factors and the consequences. This will be a solid foundation for the next chapter to find the cause and solution for this problem. Research on factors affecting work motivation will provide information for managers to determine which factors have a strong impact on employee motivation, creating a premise to build right solutions to encourage and motivate employees to work hard in order to increase the efficiency of human resource management as well as improve the business results. The effect of motivation depends on the incentives (material and mental) that stimulate employees to use up their potential capabilities and try their best in doing the job. Despite the efforts to persuade and create the best conditions to promote their productivity, many managers still fail. The reason is that from the beginning, they did not eliminate all the false ideas in stimulating subordinates' motivation. Some managers think money is everything. Certainly, if paid well, the staff will be willing to do everything for you. However, the feeling of excitement for high pay is short. Remember that putting concerns, giving compliments, confirming the contribution and position of employees is the real stimulus that can really boost work performance. With the alternative solutions proposed in Chapter IV, I hope to bring motivation to employees to have greater efforts to learn, draw on their work experiences, improve their knowledge, qualification for self- improvement. In addition to the direct values and benefits, we can see that motivating employees also brings indirect value that is the solidarity of collectives and teams. It is this solidarity that brings about efficiency in employee performance. 2 LOW EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN JAMJA CORP. I. INTRODUCTION JAMJA is a discount promotion platform with an application installed on Android and iOS operating systems smartphones, with the ability to provide information about discounts, promotions of fashion brands, coffee shops, restaurants, spa and clinics. With JAMJA, customers can go to eat, drink and purchase with preferential prices. At times of great promotions during the year such as the New Year holidays, Black Friday,… JAMJA is a powerful assistant of discount hunters. With the convenience of the application, users can save time, effort to find what products or brands are promoted. JAMJA was founded in 2015 by Mr. Le Hung Viet with starting point as a platform that provides the discount information of major brands on fanpage or website. JAMJA focuses to become a hub that summarizes all types of promotional information, reclassifies and helps users find it easier. The number of promotional post in that time is more than 100-150 new promotional posts added every day. The ability to search is the core of JAMJA products, users not only have approach to a lot of information but also to refine and access to their interests. Through a filter mechanism, JAMJA allows users to personalize experiences that motivates users to JAMJA. After 3 years of development, JAMJA has constantly expanded and integrated more utilities for customers, JAMJA has chosen the business model as a booking platform which cooperate with restaurant, coffee shop, spa and clinics’ owners (providers) to create discount programs on JAMJA’ website and mobile app. Users can select deals and book by choosing the time and the number of customers. Providers receive the booking request and spare the empty tables for JAMJA’ customers. 3 LOW EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN JAMJA CORP. Figure 1: JAMJA' website Service industry (restaurants, hotels, spas, cinemas ...) all have problems with empty tables, vacancies or unsold seats. CEO of JAMJA - Mr. Hung Viet believes that this is a great opportunity for JAMJA, because in Vietnam there is currently no product that focuses on optimizing empty tables through hourly discounts like JAMJA. JAMJA can help partners which are coffee shops, restaurants or spa sell "vacancies" as quickly as possible - even in just 1 minute and optimize autonomous discount programs, adjust the discount level based on the number of empty tables. Due to the ability to customize hourly discounts, JAMJA can cooperate with many famous brands in Vietnam like The Coffee House, Kichi Kichi, Toco-Toco, Food House, Popeyes to offer promotions up to 70%. Therefore, JAMJA operates as a B2B platform which works with restaurants, coffee shops, spas, … to help them increase brand awareness and get close to customers. The service delivery is aimed at Z generation users who are adults in the new technology era. Currently, JAMJA has more than 1 million active users each month and is currently growing rapidly. JAMJA's vision is to become a super application that customers can use every day when shopping and eating. Currently, there are a variety of applications or websites jumping into the game of building discount management applications and promotion updates. Not only the big competitors like TableNow, Hotdeal, Pasgo,… but also the new ones who have the same technology development direction make JAMJA beware. However, the founder of JAMJA is still very confident in JAMJA' 4 LOW EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN JAMJA CORP. core values: JAMJA is a discount information hub, so customers come not only to hunt the discount programs but also to communicate with the community of users in order to share and update about food, drink or beauty. In addition, JAMJA not only provides promotion information of the restaurant, spa and clinics but also applies to other fields such as e-commerce, entertainment,... - this is also the difference value of JAMJA among ecosystems. JAMJA with about 100 employees is arranged according to functional structure, which determines how the organization will operate and perform. In a functional structure, a common configuration, an organization is divided into many departments by areas of specialty (such as Customer Success, Finance and Accounting, Marketing, Partnership,…). JAMJA CORP. Customer Success Design Product Finance and Accounting Human Resources Partnership Marketing Customer Success Hanoi Partnership Hanoi Marketing Hanoi Customer Success HCMC Partnership HCMC Marketing HCMC Figure 2: Organization Structure In particular, JAMJA Hanoi has seven departments while JAMJA HCMC only has Partnership, Marketing, Customer Success departments. Partnership staffs build strong relationships with providers, sign contracts, collect discount programs and then send to the Customer Success department which is responsible to process and operate these programs. Besides, Marketing and Partnership department coordinate together and build specific plans to achieve corporate goals such as fill vacancies, increase sales and brand awareness for providers, manage expense budgets related to the implementation and execution of promoting discount deals in all channels as fanpage of JAMJA in Facebook, Instagram, Zalo, website and mobile application in order to approach and attract customers to use deals. 5 LOW EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN JAMJA CORP. Partnership department is considered as the largest with 32 employees in both 2 branches, 17 employees in Hanoi and 15 remaining in HCMC. Partnership Department Head of Department in HCMC Head of Department in Hanoi Sales Admin Leader of Food team Leader of Drink team Leader of Beauty team Sales Admin Leader of Food team Leader of Drink team Leader of Beauty team Sales development Sales development Sales development Sales development Sales development Sales development Account Executive Account Executive Account Executive Account Executive Account Executive Account Executive Figure 3: Partnership Department Structure Two branches have the same Partnership department structure including a Head of Department, a Sales Admin and three category teams - Food, Drink and Beauty. Each team has a leader, a Sales development and two or three Account Executive. The role of Head of Department – Mrs. Nguyen Thanh Thuy is responsible for setting short-term and long-term targets, devising strategies, finding and implementing new ideal plans for driving KPI growth of the whole department, three category teams and each member. She also works with the Marketing and other departments to propose materials and tools in order to support and boost growth, as well as interview and hire new members of the department. Sales Admin prepare contracts for providers, stay up-to-date sales reports,… and three sales teams of different categories. Each team has a Sales development who researches and establishes leads and arranges introductory needs analysis meetings between Account Executives and providers. Account Executives are responsible to introduce and discuss provider’ needs and requirements, win the contracts, take care of them at all phases of the contracts and campaigns, provide professional after-sales support, remain in regular contact to understand and meet their needs as well as maximize their loyalty. Sales Development and Account Executive work under their Leader’ control and the Leader is responsible for 6 LOW EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN JAMJA CORP. reporting member performances to the Head of Department and working with her to boost department growth. 7 LOW EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN JAMJA CORP. II. SYMPTOMS 1. Low ratio of renew contracts 2019 Signed contracts are valid for one year and in that time providers can have many discount programs with 30-day duration or 90-day duration which are described in annex contracts. When any discount programs expire, Account Executives have to work with providers to sum up the old program results and renew the next annex contracts as soon as possible so that the deals of providers are always shown at all channels of JAMJA. The average ratio of renew contracts in 2018 is 78% while the average ratio up to November 2019 is only 65%. Target Actual % Jan 107 77 72% Feb 151 113 75% Mar 129 100 78% Apr 228 156 68% May 148 86 58% June 134 74 55% Jul 152 82 54% Aug 139 86 62% Sep 79 50 63% Oct 99 62 63% Nov 132 84 64% TOTAL 1498 970 65% Table 1: The ratio of renew contracts of each month in 2019 (Source: Company data) 8 LOW EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN JAMJA CORP. 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May June Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Figure 4: Ratio of renew contracts 2019 2. Decrease new signed contracts/month 2018 is the second year JAMJA established in HCMC and grew rapidly by cooperating with a variety of providers like coffee and tea shops, well-known restaurant chains, spa and clinics. The average new contracts/month in 2018 is 56 and JAMJA HCMC aims to increase 20% this number, it means the target in 2019 is 67 new contracts/month. Unfortunately, Partnership members achieve about 48 new contracts/month up to November in 2019. Month Target Actual Ratio Jan 67 55 82% Feb 67 54 81% Mar 67 49 73% Apr 67 52 78% May 67 43 64% June 67 39 58% 9 LOW EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN JAMJA CORP. Jul 67 45 67% Aug 67 47 70% Sep 67 45 67% Oct 67 48 72% Nov 67 49 73% Table 2: Ratio of new signed contracts/month in 2019 (Source: Company data) 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 82% 81% 73% 78% 64% 58% 67% 70% 67% 72% 73% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Jan Feb Mar Apr May June Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Figure 5: Ratio of new signed contracts/month in 2019 3. Increase ratio of complaints Customer Success department has a Merchant Operation team which is responsible for processing and implementing discount programs for providers in their places as well as receiving their comments and complaints about JAMJA and the performance. Providers also can click “Contact us” on the website, send email to xinchao@jamja.vn or call a hotline or send a message to other social channels of JAMJA in order to leave complaints. In 2018, JAMJA HCMC received 10 LOW EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN JAMJA CORP. 25 complaints while 52 ones in 2019, increasing 108% compared to last year. In particular, there are 34/52 complaints related to the Partnership department, which account for about 65% of total. Source 2018 2019 Email 5 11 Hotline 9 23 Website 2 3 Facebook 8 13 Zalo 1 2 Total 25 52 Table 3: The number of complaints According to internal reports, customer complaints to Partnership department are mainly about issues such as: delay in contract delivery, unable to contact the person in charge of cooperation, not actively re-signing the contract, run promotion programs that are not effective for providers, give false information about the program content to users, ... 11 LOW EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN JAMJA CORP. III. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION To find out potential problems that lead to these symptoms above, I conduct 3 interviews to collect the adequate and objective information. The first interviewee is Mrs Thuy - the Head of Partnership Department who has an overview of KPI performances as well as the connection with other departments in the company. The second one is Ms Thao - Account Executive of the Food team who has 55% of the KPI average in the last 11 months, lower than the 68% average KPI of the whole department. She can clearly know which problems she has as well as can listen and observe all other members to represent them. The last one is Mr. Trung who is an old provider who has collaborated with JAMJA 3 months ago, he will share the reason why he decided stopping the cooperation as well as likes or dislikes about JAMJA. 3.1 Problems identification 3.1.1 Low employee motivation According to Mrs Thuy - Head of Partnership Department, some members who used to have lively discussions, positive comments in group meetings, their spirits of debate have recently disappeared. Instead, they just follow the instructions from the leaders, do not be active to ask questions and find solutions, as well as stopping giving new ideas. She also recognizes that some members no longer want to join projects and events regularly, still complete all assigned tasks but they may not have much to try as before as well as disregards warnings and comments of her and their leaders then continue to repeat mistakes. In addition, “the number of work late and unexpected leave times are increasing” in recent 6 months according to internal reports. They even have lunch longer or take more time to break in a day. Number of work late members Number of work late times Total time of work late January 5 12 93 minutes February 3 8 86 minutes March 4 9 75 minutes 12