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The fight for talent
A high salary is not the only thing a potential employee considers; but it is a very important thing that can help companies attract talents and retain them.
Low pay cannot retain qualified staffs
Navigos Group, a human resource service provider, has released the results of a survey which shows that a lot of companies adjust the salaries of their staffs two or three times a year.
Navigos’ Lia Abella, Head of the group’s Project Division, said that the 2008 salary adjustments clearly mirror the happenings in the economy.
“Most companies have to raise their staffs’ salaries in order to retain talents in the context of high inflation,” Lia said.
865 of 1,176 people who joined the quick survey on VietnamWorks.com website in August 2008, or 74%, believe that the average pay level in the labour market will increase towards the end of the year. Meanwhile, only 275 persons think that there will be no change and 36 persons, or 3%, think that salaries will decrease.
High pay is not the only thing, but it is a very important thing that can help companies attract talents and retain them. There was a wave of labourers shifting from different business fields to the banking and finance sector one year ago when banks and securities companies tried to attract talents by offering large salaries.
A quick survey on VietnamWorks.com website in June 2008 showed that 44% (4,479 vs. 10,215 persons) said an attractive salary is the most important thing for them when seeking jobs. According to a survey also in June 2008 on VietnamWorks.com, 56% of 5,435 people said they had given up jobs because they were not satisfied with their pay.
According to Lia from Navigos, a lot of companies which joined Navigos’ salary survey in 2008 said that they have to adjust salary levels more than once a year.
Incentives very important
Lia said that besides good pay, companies should also use non-financial measures like incentives and other perks to encourage staffs to stay. However, she said it seems that companies in Vietnam do not often think of these.
A representative of SYM Vietnam also said that good incentives will help retain qualified staffs for a long time. “Travel, house allowances, gifts on birthdays and gifts for staffs’ children and good treatment all prove to be things labourers care about. It is very difficult to attract talents, but it is even more difficult to retain talents,” he said.
A representative of Yokohama Vietnam, a tyre producer, also said that it is advisable to retain qualified staffs with good incentives and treatment, as Vietnamese people value sentiments and concern from other people.
According to Winnie Lam, Personnel Consultancy Director under Navigos, there is a rivalry among enterprises to hunt for brains, in which Vietnamese enterprises are still far behind foreign ones. A lot of Vietnamese enterprises have complained about brain-drain.
Winnie said that Vietnamese companies have been losing their staffs to newly set up enterprises, which have deeper pockets and tend to spend more money in the first period of operation.
In fact, Vietnamese are inferior to foreign-invested enterprises not only because they offer lower pay. The environments in modern companies, good working conditions and good opportunities for promotion are making foreign enterprises more attractive in the eyes of labourers.
VNN
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