Excessive workload at tax department in district 11

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business VU BAO MINH EXCESSIVE WORKLOAD AT TAX DEPARTMENT IN DISTRICT 11 MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018 UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business VU BAO MINH EXCESSIVE WORKLOAD AT TAX DEPARTMENT IN DISTRICT 11 MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION SUPERVISOR: DR NGUYEN PHONG NGUYEN Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018 Running head: Excessive Workload at Tax Department in District 11 Table of Contents Executive summary CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND 1.1 Company background 1.2 Symptoms of problem in Tax department in district 11 1.2.1 High turnover rate 1.2.2 Low Customer Satisfaction 1.2.3 Significant decrease of growth rate in revenue 1.3 Initial Cause-Effect Map 1.4 Updated cause – effect map 14 CHAPTER 2: PROBLEM JUSTIFICATION 16 2.1 Problem definition: high workload 16 2.2 Problem existence 17 2.3 Problem importance 21 2.3.1 Work – life imbalance 21 2.3.2 Bad management 22 2.3.3 Job stress 22 2.3.4 Emotional exhaustion 23 2.3.5 Lack of communication in working environment 24 CHAPTER 3: CAUSES VALIDATION AND SOLUTIONS 24 3.1 The list of potential causes of the problem 24 3.1.1 Lack of career development opportunities 24 3.1.2 Unfairly treated by the manager 24 3.1.3 Unsupportive or bulling by manager 24 3.1.4 Unequal or substandard wage structures 25 3.1.5 Outdated in technology 25 3.2 The final cause-effect map 26 3.3 Root cause: outdated in technology 26 Running head: Excessive Workload at Tax Department in District 11 3.4 Possible solutions 26 3.4.1 Solution 1: Building a new project: E-recruitment 26 3.4.2 Solution 2: Upgrade contact center communications technology .28 References 34 SUPPORTING INFORMATION 37 Methods Qualitative Research 37 Interview transcription 40 Running head: Excessive Workload at Tax Department in District 11 Table of figures Figure 1: The percentage of resigned employees of back officers from 2015 to 2017 Figure 2:The number of apology letter for customer in 2017 Figure 3: The results of revenue of mandate of tax collection from 2015 to 2017 .9 Figure 4: Initial Cause-Effect Map .10 Figure 5: Updated cause – effect map 15 Figure 6: Percentage of employee’s feeling about unable to spend enough time with family 18 Figure 7: The influence of the supervisor or team leader on the participants .19 Figure 8: The evaluate of Workplace Stress on the participants 19 Figure 9: Percentage of knowledge of employee about workload increases when another employee quit their job 20 Figure 10: Percentage of level reaction of employee often carry heavy workload, and felt like leaving 20 Figure 11: The evaluate of communication on the participants 21 Figure 12: The final cause-effect map 26 Figure 13: Schedule of building E-recruitment and Communicate Center system .32 Figure 14: List of interviewees 38 Running head: Excessive Workload at Tax Department in District 11 Executive summary Today’s competitive world human resources management is considered crucial for the efficient and effective utilization of resources The requirements in terms of human resources management activities also have changed along with changes in the environment Improving public sector performances seems to be only possible when the public sector has qualified staff Organizations must identify innovative ways to increase efficiency and lower costs while maintaining quality services The paper begins with a brief description of the symptoms of human resource at the Tax department in District 11 The situation analysis indicates that Tax Department in District 11 is experiencing serious issues including excessive workload in employees, high turnover rate (resulting from the annual report of HR), low compensation compares with private organizations As a result, the overall performance has been deteriorating in recent years One indication for the poor performance is the decreasing annual growth rate, low customer satisfaction Another evidence is the mandate of tax collection is underperformed Besides, the current contingent of civil servants is still generally perceived as lacking the necessary competence, work ethic and motivation to meet the requirements of the tax department’s development Given the identified problems, the following recommendations aim to help the Tax Department in District 11 to overcome these challenges, improve performance, and lower operational costs: Building a new project (E-recruitment); Upgrade contact center communications technology Running head: Excessive Workload at Tax Department in District 11 CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND 1.1 Company background Tax Department of District 11 is under provincial-level Tax Departments The function of the District 11 Tax department is to perform the administration of taxes, charges, fees and other state budget revenues within the tasks of the tax sector in the district 11 under the law (Decision No 108/QD-BTC of January 14, 2010) In 2017, The District 11 Tax Department had a total of 172 employees There are nine departments in the organization: The Department for Propagation and Taxpayer Assistance, the Department for Personal Income Tax Administration, the Tax Declaration and the Accounting Department, the Department for Management of Debts and Coercive Collection of Tax Arrears, the Human Resource - Administration Department – Archives, the Tax Examination, the Internal Inspection Division 1.2 Symptoms of problem in Tax department in district 11 Criteria to evaluate the situation: o The turnover rate in employees: according to Chowdhury, labor turnover rate refers to the movement of employees in and gets out of a business, and the term is commonly used to refer ‘wastage’ or the number of employees leaving High labor turnover causes problems for business, and it is a costly affair, which lowers productivity and staff morale (Chowdhury) (1) In the public sector, the high turnover rate also takes many costs of the company includes money and time Managers and HR department have to spend time on recruitment and training for new candidates o KPIs: After that, the annual KPI for each department is the scale for the award In the KPI report, three essential elements demonstrate the effective operation of the unit: the percentage of completion of the assigned budget plan, the number of the file processed on time and complaints by the customer However, the Tax Department District 11 has not a good result in 2017 Last but not least, the relationship of colleagues in the public sector is complicated to determine the data or official paper Running head: Excessive Workload at Tax Department in District 11 However, it is also shown in the description of the duties of each member in the same department at the beginning of the year Turnover rate of back officers is the high number of staff 33 employees / total 172 employees This report will focus on the problems that the organization has been facing in recent years, especially in back officers Following by the results of historical data of human resource report 2017 This study offers possible symptoms or the findings, discuss the element of the bad signal of organizations facing with one of the hardest time since many symptoms have been proved as below 1.2.1 High turnover rate The turnover rate has been significantly high in recent years as suggested in the table below: Figure 1: The percentage of resigned employees of back officers from 2015 to 2017 Source: Annually report of HR team We have to compare this ratio with other departments in our company because we not have data of turnover rate in the other company in the same industry When comparing to the turnover rates of other departments in the organization, it can be seen the rate of resigned employees in back officer is higher in comparison with others This issue can potentially incur substantial costs to an organization in the form of recruitment and training costs and time When an employee resigns, HR needs to find a suitable candidate to fill in the vacant position The cost of recruitment and Running head: Excessive Workload at Tax Department in District 11 instruction will increase as the company has to spend on recruitment contests, interviews, and salaries for HR employees When a new employee is hired, it would take months of probation and training before they start delivering results However, by the time they pass the probation, many of them resigns due to the high level of stress and pressure As the employees start delivering his performance to the organization the sad part is that he or she is leaving the public sector and moving to another organization In addition, during the probation period, the new employee will not be able to handle all the assigned tasks thus many of these tasks are delegated to their colleagues, resulting in the increase of pressure and stress level on current employees Even though the managers understand the importance of creating a plan for the recruitment before doing it, the planning is still quite poor with the forecasting of the needed workforce in only near-future Almost employees’ resignation has to work under so much pressure such as the tax collection, risk, work-life balance When missing a position in the team and the time of hiring and training for new employees take too long From that, each current member has to have more tasks to completed work day Thus, Job overload becomes a serious issue in the organization The effects remain from the past with older labor force that is not easy to adapt to the rapid changes, weak in technical skills They can be trained but it will take a long time, and that means more money is wasted Running head: Excessive Workload at Tax Department in District 11 1.2.2 Low Customer Satisfaction Figure 2:The number of apology letter for customer in 2017 Source: Annually report of Administration Department The table below presents the total apology letters to customers in 2017 of Tax Departments that are similar in size and tax collection with Tax Department in District 11 In 2017, the rate of late document processing, bad feedback from customer higher than District 5, District 12 and the average of HCM is around 10-20% (following by annually report of administration department It means that the result also reflects the dissatisfaction of customers in the civil service of the Tax Department in District 11 As of now, according to Mrs Le Thi Ha, staff appraisal is carried out according to eight criteria However, there are general and broadly applied to applied to other departments across the organization Hence, the current policy does not appraise the work that people in an adequately effective way to enable an essential assessment of specific staff performance They are sometimes wrongly used as a voting device to select candidates for promotion opportunities Besides that, the evaluation of civil servant performance is only a formality The method and criteria for evaluation are unsuitable with no emphasis on Due to the lack of employee The rate of completion of tax registration and revenue need to collect was set at the beginning of the year has not been completed in time What is the current difficulty that the Tax Department in District 11 is facing? (Workload? Work environment co-workers, leaders? Compensation and benefits) The reduction of staffing in the structure of the state has been made to reduce the budget burden and increase the salary for civil servants However, staffing reduction should go hand in hand with a decrease in work pressure Therefore, it is necessary to improve the simplified procedure and to go along with improvements in worker support technology Actually, the work sometimes overloads, employees often have to overtime to work overtime in the peak season to file a report Do you have a solution to contribute to improving this issue? Improvement of tax management technology system to reduce the pressure of manual processing Encourage and raise the level of reward for job improvement initiatives from civil servants Do you contribute any additional information? No Topic Interview about the situation in employees in Tax Department in District 11 Venue 274 Binh Thoi Street, Ward 10, District 11, Hồ Chí Minh City Time 3pm, Friday, June 29, 2018 Interviewer Vu Bao Minh (ID: 22160032) Interviewee Le Thi Ha – employee of Propagation and Taxpayer Assistance – years experience My name is Vu Bao Minh and I would like to talk to you about your experiences with a civil servant in the Tax Department in District 11 The interview will take about 20 minutes I will be taping the session because I don’t want to miss any of your comments Although I will be taking some notes during the session, I can’t possibly write fast enough to get it all down All responses will be kept confidential This means that your interview responses will only be used to my research s and I will ensure that any information I include in my report does not identify you as the respondent Remember, you don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to and you may end the interview at any time Can you tell me some of your personal information? (What is the current occupation? What is your role in the company? I’m Ha I am a civil servant in Tax examination department My role is examining business accounts, offering specialist advice about tax and visiting businesses to interview board directors, lawyers, and accountants… I know you worked at private enterprises before, what your position? I was a retailer in ACB bank I discussed the financial requirements of, and providing financial and advising on and assisting with services such as setting up savings accounts, authorizing loans and moving money What you think the different about work in the public sector and private enterprises? I think job security - In the government sector, I'll be probably set for my life My papa has been a civil servant since 1990 and had a very stable and monotonous job life so there indeed security in this area but after one-point life (not the job) becomes stagnant Besides, poor technology was recorded Every year, the government sector will get a massive amount of funding, and only a few percent will be spent on technology advancement On the other hand, private enterprises always try to get update technology to gain excellent benefit for them How you rate the career between state agencies and private enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City? (Income? Competitive? Workload? Level of stability? Potential development?) Firstly, government jobs are more secure as compared to private employment Since, when appointed by the government you retire at the age of 55-60 depending upon the nature of work Whereas, in many cases of a private job, there is no job security The ones hiring staff are great in business They will only pay for employees as long as employees prove to be of some benefit to them Workload - The workload on private employees is much more as compared to government employees Individual employees often have to work day and night with no fixed office timings to achieve their targets Whereas there are fixed working hours for government employees, and the goal doesn't burden them What you think about your job when you work at District 11 Tax Office? (Workload? Work environment (co-workers, leaders)? Compensation and benefits? Previously, I was working for a private bank, although working in the office but was very stressed and busy, and when my marriage, I decided to move to a more relaxed state and have some time to look after myself, my family However, with a 9-year salary in the public sector today, I'm just living enough, so I'm trying to more work outside to earn more Regarding the staff assessment process in the Tax department, what you comment on the evaluation process? The annual assessment is highly formal, most people are skeptical, dodging responsibility, fear of collision and formal democracy I recognize when considering the vote, the first question people often ask is what is wrong or mistake, not asking what they have done For two consecutive years, in 2016 and 2018, core issues of the Tax Department in District 11 has not completed its assigned objectives In your opinion, what are the causes? In District 11, the majority of households are engaged in processing businesses, longterm production workshops, with economic development and foreign investment, which affects the business situation of families Individuals in the area cause loss of tax and other mandate of tax collection, no mutation increased to offset the failure to achieve the target set early this year What is the current difficulty that the Tax Department in District 11 is facing? (Workload? Work environment co-workers, leaders? Compensation and benefits) According to my assessment, the work of tax officials in Ho Chi Minh City is very much due to the pressure from the superior level However, there are still employees who are less active, and these managers are less likely to be assigned to the job, or the situation is uneven because the job assignment is ineffective This leads to a lot of backlog and a concentration of young civil servants The reduction of staffing and retirement in staffs increased, the recruitment of people need a long time to recruit often from 10 to 15 months for a new position This situation has been going for two years As before, my department has nine people to manage invoice activities for more than 2700 enterprises in the area, now only seven people but the number of enterprises has reached 3500 enterprises The pressure to complete the target for the job is enormous Do you have a solution to contribute to improving this issue? Need to recheck the current document process, reduce the administrative procedures can be Proposing to change the salary policy for civil servants in big cities such as Ho Chi Minh City to match living standards to reduce negative and attract talented people According to an article, I read recently, civil servants in Ho Chi Minh City are 3-5 times more productive than civil servants in other provinces, but their salaries are still consistent across the country That is a weakness that needs to be discussed 10 Do you contribute any additional information? No Topic Interview about the situation in employees in Tax Department in District 11 Venue 274 Binh Thoi Street, Ward 10, District 11, Hồ Chí Minh City Time 3pm, Wednesday, July 02, 2018 Interviewer Vu Bao Minh (ID: 22160032) Interviewee Le Hong Duc – Leader team of Management of Debts Department – 14 years experiences My name is Vu Bao Minh and I would like to talk to you about your experiences with a civil servant in the Tax Department in District 11 The interview will take about 20 minutes I will be taping the session because I don’t want to miss any of your comments Although I will be taking some notes during the session, I can’t possibly write fast enough to get it all down All responses will be kept confidential This means that your interview responses will only be used to my research s and I will ensure that any information I include in my report does not identify you as the respondent Remember, you don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to and you may end the interview at any time Can you tell me some of your personal information? (What is the current occupation? What is your role in the company? I’m Duc My task includes: setting up all new tax workflows in the electronic workflow system Running tax software reports to identify multiple versions of returns in software; assigning preparer numbers in the tax software Besides, identifying, correcting and maintaining issues and workflows Renewing and monitoring all professional staff personal tax identification numbers I know you worked at private enterprises before, what your position? My old job is sales administrative assistants provide support to the management team within a company's sales department I have to complete expense reports or sales proposals and carrying out administrative tasks such as coordinating meetings and office communications After you resign out the private enterprises, what is your current job different from when you worked at private enterprises? I've worked in the private sector and can confirm that private sector jobs are terrible For that 15 million salaries a private sector company will take 30 million work out of me Most of the times, even though official timings were to Monday to Saturday, I rarely left my office at and most of the days gone around pm and sometimes even worked on Sundays Now I'm in the Tax department job, and I arrive at the office at am and leave at pm without any problem How you rate the career between state agencies and private enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City? (Income? Competitive? Workload? Level of stability? Potential development?) The private sector offers more opportunities to grow as compared to the Tax Department Private job: better pay, opportunities to develop, can easily switch between companies and industries, live in metro-cities, etc Besides, in the case of the public sector Job, the career is fewer promotion opportunities What you think about your job when you work at District 11 Tax Office? (Workload? Work environment (co-workers, leaders)? Compensation and benefits? Compensation and benefits: Just fine not attractive About the pressure of work: From the end of 2017 and early 2018 the number of civil servants requested leaving the job, including the retirement, maternity leave Thus, the work for the current civil servants increased a lot To ensure that the work is completed on time, the direct teams and the inspection teams have registered for overtime and divided the whole day on Saturday When an employee resigns, he or she will notify the organization within 30 to 45 days for handover and dismissal However, due to current government policy, reducing the number of staff in each department, recruiting new people will take a lot of time and difficulties in the organization Regarding the staff assessment process in the Tax department, what you comment on the evaluation process? Formalism does not reflect reality Depends on the feeling of the direct manager very much For two consecutive years, in 2016 and 2018, core issues of the Tax Department in District 11 has not completed its assigned objectives In your opinion, what are the causes? No, I have no comment for this What is the current difficulty that the Tax Department in District 11 is facing? (Workload? Work environment co-workers, leaders? Compensation and benefits) As mentioned above, the pressure of work, lack of employees is the status in the Taxation today, and the assessment is not correct to the reality causing lack of motivation to work in the staff One more thing is that the tax management system is rather slow to process, possibly due to the growing number of data, which also hinders the handling of the work involved in this centralized tax system center Do you have a solution to contribute to improving this issue? If the compensation policy and timely distribution of suitable people are not changed, the current solution only is the leaders, and the head of the department will try to motivate the public servants to well In the nearly future, I think it is essential to upgrade the tax management software system to run faster, with faster results, and more automatic error detection functions, the pressure reduction for civil servants greatly Besides, I see that every year, every tax department launches an initiative to reform the workplace and gain a high appreciation from the council, but only on the papers and their department, and the application I regret this 10 Do you contribute any additional information? No Topic Interview about the situation in employees in Tax Department in District 11 Venue 274 Binh Thoi Street, Ward 10, District 11, Hồ Chí Minh City Time 3pm, Wednesday, July 04, 2018 Interviewer Vu Bao Minh (ID: 22160032) Interviewee Nguyen Thuy Nga – employee of Department for Personal Income – 14 years experiences My name is Vu Bao Minh and I would like to talk to you about your experiences with a civil servant in the Tax Department in District 11 The interview will take about 20 minutes I will be taping the session because I don’t want to miss any of your comments Although I will be taking some notes during the session, I can’t possibly write fast enough to get it all down All responses will be kept confidential This means that your interview responses will only be used to my research s and I will ensure that any information I include in my report does not identify you as the respondent Remember, you don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to and you may end the interview at any time Can you tell me some of your personal information? (What is the current occupation? What is your role in the company? I am Nga My main task is inputting, and cataloging data, I also am responsible for performing quality control checks, identifying taxation problems, and ensuring that reports are completed according to schedule I know you worked at private enterprises before, what your position? No, it’s my first job How you rate the career between state agencies and private enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City? (Income? Competitive? Workload? Level of stability? Potential development?) I have a little discovery that In public Sectors, in prose, part have: the most significant advantage is job security – peace Secondly, respect Thirdly, fair enough salary without inflation worries However, It has some cons like this Suppose, the civil servants have a problem with their boss, they cannot change the company or project Next, they can have just one occupation In the private Sector, pros such as salary could grow exponentially, good infrastructure and employees can work as they like until and unless they get the work done Besides they can always change your company or project Besides, they can have multiple sources of income However, their work pressure was a huge problem and weak job security What you think about your job when you work at District 11 Tax Office? (Workload? Work environment (co-workers, leaders)? Compensation and benefits? Compensation: low and not enough to cover family life About the pressure of work: My main task is input tax data for the company in Ward 15, the tax management system is no longer meet the development scale of the companies With a tax declaration, there are many things to deal with in the tax management system Also, the import and tax required to be very fast and extremely accurate to serve the business However, at the peak of the company's tax filings, the volume of information needed to process is enormous My colleagues in the department and I could not complete the application on time This situation has lasted for more than two years Many newspapers have reported that the government has shown willingness to use management technology in the opinion of the people However, half of our employees over the age of 45, training to update their technology skills is a huge problem This leads to difficulties in assigning the work of the department heads Even when there is an inequity in the psychological assignment between each member of the group, the negative impact of thought leads to the dissociation of the employee's relationship Regarding the staff assessment process in the Tax department, what you comment on the evaluation process? Evaluation of civil servants is regarded as the most important premise, but still the weakness, the most difficult is the assessment of civil servants that are still in form, not correctly reflecting the actual civil servants; job performance is not a significant measure in the evaluation of public servants; just focusing on emotional, style, lack of spirit built in civil servant assessment For two consecutive years, in 2016 and 2018, core issues of the Tax Department in District 11 has not completed its assigned objectives In your opinion, what are the causes? I think a reason is a goal at the beginning of year set in unsuitable, besides the decrease of staff in each department leads to overload in work Also, it is tough to find a hardworking person in the public sector They think they just only completed their target by themselves, the supportive from the colleague is barely visible What is the current difficulty that the Tax Department in District 11 is facing? (Workload? Work environment co-workers, leaders? Compensation and benefits) Civil servants' performance has become the more demanding professional to achieve effectiveness and efficiency There are many requirements for a public servant, especially is the duty of the civil servant I recognizable in the whole system of state administrative, there are still many irresponsible in civil servants and their performance of their duties which affect their rights and interests of citizens, organizations Do you have a solution to contribute to improving this issue? Need to convert the activities, report, with the 100% electronic data That leads to a decrease and invalid lousy input in the Tax department In recent year, Taxation was already launching using the e-invoice by connecting directly with tax management system This is meaning to improve the reporting of reports and calculate tax, specify an invoice for the business and Tax Department If the development of the automatic information and apply to the country, I think will be made more 20-30% of the current performance and creating more results of income 10 Do you contribute any additional information? No ... the Tax department in District 11 The situation analysis indicates that Tax Department in District 11 is experiencing serious issues including excessive workload in employees, high turnover rate... OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business VU BAO MINH EXCESSIVE WORKLOAD AT TAX DEPARTMENT IN DISTRICT 11 MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION SUPERVISOR: DR NGUYEN... technology Running head: Excessive Workload at Tax Department in District 11 CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND 1.1 Company background Tax Department of District 11 is under provincial-level Tax Departments