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COVER STORY

and requirements,” Mr. Levan told VET. “We hiring and recruiting from overseas, many life balance, and brought employees together
need our senior-level staff to be able to quickly have used this as an opportunity for capacity towards the common goal of sustainable
adapt to any change. Only flexible individuals scanning and identifying middle managers development, for the company and for the
can co-develop in a volatile world and quickly that can be trained and upskilled towards community. “Though the pandemic presented
adapt to the culture and team at a new com- senior management. issues to the industry, we took it as an oppor-
pany. It is important to find candidates with During Covid-19, the local business sector tunity for URC Vietnam to find the most tal-
good social leadership skills who can quickly faced a host of crises in terms of financial health ented people for our operations to continue
connect with other team members. People and simply doing business. Ms. Cap Thi Minh and excel in the future,” Mr. Levan said.
often find it stressful to deal with new team Trang, HR Director at Schneider Electric Vietnam The company’s strategy during the pan-
members, especially when social distancing and Cambodia, acknowledged that cost man- demic was to retain its current team by
is involved.” agement in parallel with ensuring sufficient offering them stable incomes and benefits,
Meanwhile, with a workforce of some 900, resources to enable a business rebound and while continuing to promote employee engage-
Schneider Electric Vietnam needs the right growth is a challenge. “With strict control on ment activities as well as support for their
amount of re-invention, re-proportioning, and external hiring during the pandemic, we con- mental health. “We have a clear strategy for
re-prioritizing to adapt to shifting customer ducted a resource rebalancing exercise to ensure workforce development in the future, by
demand and markets in response to the crisis enough talent was deployed into resilient seg- closely following our business goals and decid-
created by Covid-19. From an organizational ments,” she said. “Job sharing has been promoted ing to retain and develop internally, combined
perspective, it promptly captured market trends strongly, to fill resource gaps while providing with recruiting new talent from outside to
and turned them into mid- and long-term development opportunities for our people.” form a dynamic team with many new per-
workforce strategies with more career oppor- Moreover, the pandemic has had a huge spectives,” he said.
tunities for internal talent, using an Open influence on how companies recruit new As part of its talent development and
Talent Market as a new platform to enable job talent, especially FIEs, which generally have retention strategies, Schneider Electric Viet-
sharing, and adopting an expat localization more expatriate candidates than local candi- nam has a clear group of “must-keep” talent.
plan with an aggressive timeframe. dates. “The uncertainty has had a major impact “We identify our internal talent pool via
on jobseekers’ behavior,” said Mr. Techottius- annual assessments, and apply a Talent Reten-
Challenges to confront sanee. “Local candidates at the senior level tion Toolkit to have an appropriate level of
The pandemic further highlighted the crit- are unlikely to change jobs during such a sen- engagement and proactive retention efforts
ical role of HR professionals in all businesses. sitive situation. Most decide to stay in their when needed,” Ms. Trang said. “Senior talent
Strong HR leaders are needed now more than current position and are unwilling to accept a who are successors in leadership roles,
ever, given the ongoing changes and evolving new challenge.” women, young talent, as well as talent with
employee and organizational needs brought URC Vietnam aims to hire the right people critical skills and expertise for our business
about by the pandemic. with the right mindset, who must share com- growth are all part of our talent pool.”
There have indeed been more hurdles to mon values. In addition to basic factors such Meanwhile, MM Mega Market’s strategies
surmount in the face of the pandemic, not as offering attractive packages, to find such to retain existing talent include providing a
only in recruiting but also in retaining senior people the leadership team also needs to be career path and advancement, and better
staff, according to Dr. Jung Woo Han, a Lecturer regularly trained in interview skills, how to benefits, and its plan for HR recruitment in
in Human Resources Management and Entre- listen to and inspire candidates, how to read 2021 is to keep promoting the company’s
preneurship at RMIT. He sees that demand a person and find the most suitable career employer branding and be recognized as
for talent has remained consistent and, in some path for them, and whether it is best to hire among the best employers. “Investing in
sectors, has actually grown. What has happened them in the first place. employees is an important part of creating
is that organizations are becoming more adept an engaged workforce and is an effective way
at considering their options in hiring. Future strategies of reducing staff turnover, and we continue
For example, many organizations have In order to find competent and compatible to go beyond our solutions to take on the
looked at opportunities to upskill and promote staff, URC Vietnam has designed attractive challenging workplace environment,” Mr.
their internal staff. Given the difficulties in remuneration packages together with work- Techottiussanee said. %

WORKPLACE PRODUCTIVITY LOWEST SALARY / PERSON / MONTH HIGHEST SALARY / PERSON / MONTH
BY SECTOR, 2019
(Unit: $) 93,523
112.8 113.7
68,394
29,279
60.44
28,454 28,454
14,283
12,897
9,862 9,413
12.9 12.9 5,310
4.3 4.3 4.3 5,310 4,145
FIEs Private 100% SOEs State-controlled FIEs Private State-controlled 100% SOEs
enterprises enterprises enterprises enterprises
All businesses
State-owned enterprises
FIEs 2018 2018
Non-State enterprises 2019 2019
Source: MoLISA, 2020

E FEBRUARY 2021 | VIETNAM ECONOMIC TIMES | 17

per year
(