1.

0 Introduction

1.1 Issue

As a video about the employees from J&T Express in Perak, Malaysia went viral, they were
protesting on the J&T's wage cut. The courier company reduced staff's commission from the original
RM1 or RM1.50 per package shipped. This is because employees earning RM1,200 were reportedly
only paid RM0.30 commission for each package under the new payment scheme. However, this issue
was majorly caused by some of the employees who did not understand the bonus payment scheme,
which led them to act in a way they should not. This shows how ineffective and unprofessional the
J&T management’s initiatives in blasting the news, which they do not ensure the spread of the
information to all of their employees are appropriately conveyed. In this report, there will be a
discussion on the issue, which will be presented with an introduction that consists of crucial point and
issue, the company's background, proposed solution, and recommendations on how to accomplish the
proposed solution.

1.2 Company’s Background

We have chosen J&T Express (Malaysia) for this case study report. They are known for the
tagline “Express your online business.” This Hong Kong invested courier company was founded in
2015. This company operates under the Geographical Structure of the company organization because
it has divisions from Southeast Asia countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand,
Cambodia, Philippines, and Singapore.

J&T is a courier express company with diverse businesses from express deliveries, warehousing
to supply chains, covering the same city, collection points, inter-islands, and international zone. J&T
is also known as a reliable integrated logistics provider. The company offers various facilities,
including the front office, back office, web suite, and mobile applications form. The Chief Executive
Officer (CEO) of J&T Express Malaysia is Mr. Roy Zeng, appointed by the Co-Founder Mr. Jet Li
and Mr. Tony Chen in 2018. J&T Express has more than 4000 offices, 3000-drop points, 200
gateways with large distribution equipment, and more than 50,000 employees from all around the
world.

J&T Express operates with a vision “Customer, Sharing, Service, Responsibility, Result
oriented” and two critical missions, “Significantly realizing a more practical and efficient express
service for online business.” and “Effectively encourage the development of our business partners to
be bigger and stronger.”

This study source was downloaded by 100000857217344 from CourseHero.com on 05-19-2023 03:03:50 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/92539681/CASE-STUDY-REPORT-LATESTdocx/
 2.0 Solution

The company gave a solution to the issue, where they mainly issued a notice explaining how the
problems occur and they apologized to all customers. This section also includes a proposed solution
by us, on how the issue could be handled better by J&T, using five steps of negotiation as our
guidelines.

2.1 Company’ Solution

For the issue stated above, J&T came out with a solution to the problem. The company issued a
statement, saying that all those rumors are caused by the employees’ “misunderstanding” about the
bonus payment in a press release held. They explained about the existing regulations that were
misunderstood by their employees which they said that “J&T has given employees year-end bonuses
after careful consideration, following the bonus rules and regulations, and in accordance with the
Malaysian Labour Law, full bonuses are paid to employees who have worked for a year. For
employees who have worked for less than a year, bonuses are paid according to the length of working
time without prejudice”. Still, some employees were not clear about the bonus payment scheme,
which led to violent sorting of packages on February 4, leading some employees to make collective
disturbances to the parcels to show their disagreement and protest toward the scheme and posting the
videos to social media.

In addition, the company’s management, of course, acknowledged the complaints about the
customers’ packages that were opened and damaged, plus with contents went missing. J&T promised
total compensation for the damaged goods to solve this issue. After that, the company employees have
also come up with a video apologizing for the incident and saying that J&T was not shortchanging
their staff and the violence was all caused by a misunderstanding between them and the management.

2.2 Proposed Solution

For our proposed solution, the type of negotiation that can be used to solve the J&T
management issue is collaboration negotiation. A collaboration negotiation identifies the concerns and
interests of both parties and finds a solution that satisfies these concerns. The negotiation style should
be assertive communication style so there would be no additional conflict arise and to maintain the
professionalism between the employees and the managements. To achieve this solution, it is crucial to
follow these five steps of negotiation.

This study source was downloaded by 100000857217344 from CourseHero.com on 05-19-2023 03:03:50 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/92539681/CASE-STUDY-REPORT-LATESTdocx/
 The first step is preparation and planning. One must be aware of the conflicts that are happening
in the company. J&T upper management should see the perspective of this issue to the worker’s side
and how the administration handles the issue. The management in the Perak branch is at its fault as to
how the departments across the state are not affected by the same issue. Based on the company’s
statement, the problem started when the employees misunderstood the new implantation of the bonus
scheme. However, it is also possible that the supervisor in the J&T branch in Perak doesn’t convey the
message and information in a more understandable way for the employees.

The second step is the definition of ground rules where the negotiation and procedure take
place. For our solution, we recommend using a problem-solving meeting, where it is only held to
when a specific problem emerges. The discussion should consist of analyzing the issue that causes the
issues arising within the employee. The company should stress the management issue in J&T Perak,
how the problem could happen from a simple miscommunication. It could be due to the lack of
explanation by the supervisor or misinformation from them.

The next step, which is clarification and justification. In this part, both parties should explain
how some mere miscommunication could occur in the company. As for the worker side, it could be
due to the fact that they are overworked with the excessive income of parcels every day, plus with the
current economic state that is affected by the pandemic, the workers are in a tired mental state of
mind, which could trigger their anger by a simple notice that they couldn’t understand. As for the
management side, the J&T branch in Perak should have considered their employees' background.
Some of them may not fully understand the content and message of the notice, which could easily
cause misinformation among them.

As for the problem-solving and bargaining step, we believe that an integrative bargaining
strategy is a perfect strategy in solving this problem. It is essential to reach mutual understanding
between the two sides, the employees and the management. In the initial notice by J&T, they
mentioned how the employees had admitted to their mistakes, and they apologized. However, there is
a lack of statement enclosed regarding the management’s fault. Hence, a more inclusive solution
should be considered so both parties will benefit from the solutions. Both the management and J&T
employees should issue an apology; later, the management in J&T Perak should reconsider their
supervisor's credibility and work performance to improve the efficiency of the branch.

Last but not least, closure and implementation should comprise all of the actions done by the
company. A notice should be issued to the public, explaining how the issue occurs and it is a mistake
from J&T management themselves. A black and white agreement between the J&T Perak branch and
J&T administration should be made, where J&T Perak branch should improve their management and
make sure that the management would not make the same mistakes in the future, and J&T
administration should apologize to the employees on the confusion caused by their side.

This study source was downloaded by 100000857217344 from CourseHero.com on 05-19-2023 03:03:50 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/92539681/CASE-STUDY-REPORT-LATESTdocx/
 3.0 Recommendations

As mentioned in the proposed solution, the chosen issue can be solved with collaborative type
of negotiation so both parties who are involved in the issues can obtain equitable and fair agreement at
the end of the discussion. The person who should initiate the negotiation first would definitely be the
J&T management from Perak branch itself, and the other party would definitely be all of J&T’s
employees. As mentioned in the proposed solution again, it is somehow practical and effective to
follow the five negotiation steps given in effort to solve the case easily with fair outcome to both
parties.

Since the issues are majorly caused by misunderstanding, it is recommended for the J&T’s
management to initiate a meeting or even online meeting for this type of announcement that involves
payment scheme so every employee would get the same point of what the meeting is all about, and at
the same time can avoid misunderstanding among those two parties. During the meeting, the
management perhaps can involve or even hire a skilled consultant to facilitate the meeting as there are
possibilities for problems to arise during the meeting especially from the employees’ side as the
meeting is about their payment scheme. A consultant is the most suitable third party in this case as
unlike the other third party negotiators, a consultant would encourage both parties that involved in this
case; J&T management and J&T employees to learn and understand each other so the same conflict
would not happen again as well as to mend the bond among the employees and the managements and
at the same time to retain the positive perceptions towards each other. In addition, the management
could probably come out with a notice after the meeting regarding the issue discussed so those who
are involved in the meeting can get aligned ideas about their wage status. When there is no conflict,
then their business can be as successful as usual, hence leading in improving their company’s service
and management quality.

This study source was downloaded by 100000857217344 from CourseHero.com on 05-19-2023 03:03:50 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/92539681/CASE-STUDY-REPORT-LATESTdocx/
 I dentify the problem.

-Issue of misunderstanding on the bonus payment scheme among the employees of J&T (Malaysia)

D efine the problem.

-J&T’s employees were not clear regarding the bonus payment scheme given by the management and
rebel, which has affected and violated the customers’ parcels.

E xplore alternative approaches.

-Conduct a meeting regarding this issue so their employees would get the clearest ideas of what the
meeting is all about and why they did it, in order to prevent further conflict among them.

 A ct on the best strategies.

-During the meeting, the J&T management can hire a consultant to facilitate the meeting as there are
possibilities for problems to arise during the meeting especially from the employees’ side as the
meeting is about their payment scheme.

 L ook back to evaluate the effects.

-The same scenario would probably not happening again as the employees would have fully
understood the point of the meeting which is to inform about the bonus payment scheme as well as
they would all receive the same information regarding the matters discussed.

This study source was downloaded by 100000857217344 from CourseHero.com on 05-19-2023 03:03:50 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/92539681/CASE-STUDY-REPORT-LATESTdocx/
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)