Human Resources
Your company is competing for workers with other enterprises in Vietnam and with international companies. How can your business find the workers it needs to keep the doors open and meet production requirements? How will you find and retain the most reliable and productive employees for your SME? The time and attention you put into people not only makes your business run better, it builds your reputation as a good company and a good place to work.
Recruitment
You will attract different types of potential employees depending on where you post your recruitment notices and what type of information you include. How can you recruit the right people? First, consider where the types of employees you are seeking will be looking for work.
Traditional Recruitment Methods
Here are some traditional recruiting options with advantages and disadvantages.
| Recruitment method | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|
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Tell your staff you are hiring Post a recruitment notice |
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| Run a job ad in the media |
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| Post the job online |
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| Participate in a job fair |
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| Hire through colleges and universities |
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New-Technology Recruitment Methods
Cellphones and social media have changed the way people look for work and the way SMEs find their team members. Following are some new-technology recruiting options and their advantages and disadvantages. Which ones are right for your business?
| Recruitment method | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|
| Social networking with a post on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ |
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| Telephone interview |
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| SMS brand-name messages via PGB, Hrlink, or M-Talent |
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What Information Do You Need to Have Ready for Recruiting?
Job title and description
It’s best to be honest about job details to attract a permanent employee. Job title is very important to many employees, so research industry standards before choosing a title. To get ideas for writing your job description, look at similar job descriptions from your competitors. Pay attention to the types of information as well as the vocabulary, especially if you are hiring a specialist who has skills that you are not familiar with.
Geographical location of job
Many recruitment websites allow workers to search by location. Including an address in your job listing will help it appear in these searches.
Job requirements
Be sure that you list all required skills for the job. However, if you are not receiving enough applicants for a job posting, perhaps you listed too many required skills compared to the salary offered. If a skill is not required but is desirable, you can include it in a secondary list of optional skills. For example, use the phrase “Priority given to applicants skilled in...”
Salary
You will attract quality applicants and move ahead of your competitors with a clear salary statement. Look at similar job postings and industry salary standards if you don’t know what salary range is reasonable.
Benefits
Detailing benefits can give your posting a competitive advantage.
Company information
Include your website, industry or sector, years of operation, size, and other basic information. Hiding or omitting your company details can make some potential employees nervous.
Keywords
Most applicants search job listings through keywords: address, career, education level, job title. If you tag as many relevant keywords as possible, your post will appear in more searches.
Follow up
You can send an automatic response as confirmation of receiving an application. You could also send an individual message to those applicants you are interested in or those you wish to keep as a customer.
Lessons Learned
A Facebook post used humour to find a special staff member
Secrets to effective recruiting
How to get attention with your online job posting
Best practices for sharing a job posting online
Online Recruitment
Where are your potential employees? They are probably online, so that is where you need to be to find them. To help you connect, recruitment websites are very popular. Your posting will have hundreds of viewers daily, for free.
Recruitment websites
- http://www.vietnamworks.com
- http://careerbuilder.vn
- https://www.careerlink.vn
- http://mywork.com.vn
- http://vieclam.24h.com.vn
- http://tuyendung.com.vn
- http://timviecnhanh.com
- http://itviec.com
- http://vieclam.tuoitre.vn
- http://jobstreet.vn
Example steps to online recruiting
Here is an example of how to register on MyWork.
Step 1: Access the MyWork website at http://mywork.com.vn and set up a recruiter account. Select “new recruitment post” section in new window.
Step 2: Post your recruitment information (see above, “What Information Do You Need to Have Ready for Recruiting?”). Note: Any field marked with an asterisk is required.
Step 3: Select a free or paid service package, and then click “recruitment post” to finish.
Step 4: Your post will take 24 hours for approval. Once it is approved, you will begin to receive responses.
Staff Retention
How do you combat the brain drain that happens when large companies attract great people from your company? You need a strategy that will help you keep the high-quality people who work for you.
Good fit
Aim for a good fit with between the individual’s goals and the business culture. This plays an important role in job satisfaction, engagement, and long-term commitment.
Competitive salary
A high salary is not a guarantee for attracting talent; however, a low salary might be a factor in losing your top employees to another company. A fair, competitive salary system is necessary.
Transparent human resource policies
Make your policies transparent and comprehensive. Include assessment and feedback, and opportunities for training, promotion, and career progress.
A good reputation
Many factors make up a company’s reputation, including:
- Performance results;
- Work environment;
- Product and service quality;
- Business management style; and
- The CEO’s public image and reputation.
Praise
Praising good effort is an effective way of retaining staff. Honest, timely encouragement from executives helps retain staff better than just praising large successes.
Empowerment
Provide opportunities for your staff to make decisions within the scope of their work. Be brave and trust them. Empowering people improves their loyalty and their skills. Employees will be more loyal if they feel they have exciting opportunities.
Develop a “this business is a family” culture
One of the strengths of SMEs is that people work closely together. Take advantage of this to develop your business culture. Make your company your staff’s second family by hosting events, doing activities together, and taking time to get to know your staff personally.
Lessons Learned
What Nguyen Tam Trang learned about human resources over 20 years with Unilever Vietnam
How to attract good talent for your business and how to use your networks for recruiting purposes
Promoting a Spirit of Innovation
Innovation is a necessary factor in retention. Innovation is most effective when everyone works together. As a leader, aim to be someone who always ignites the spirit of innovation in the whole team. How can you ignite a spirit of innovation?
Create a friendly, comfortable work environment
Create a workplace with room for innovative thinking. Directly discuss with your staff how you can develop such a work environment together, and meet periodically to assess how you can improve the work environment. Some ways might include a flexible work calendar or work hours, office social events, and office decorations.
Encourage staff to create interest groups
When people discover a shared interest and enjoy each other’s company, they may spark other ideas that will help their work.
Allow staff to use social networks
Social networks can be a distraction for the internal activities of a company if people are using company time for personal communication, but they can also be an important place for employees to connect with each other. Staff may also play a helpful role in building the company’s social media followers and marketing messages. Managers should be trained on how to present a professional image when representing the company online, and how to maintain boundaries with staff while connecting on social media.
Encourage employees to take breaks as needed
Taking breaks improves productivity and satisfaction at work. Inspiration and insight often arrive when a person steps away from the problem for a period of time.
Be fair – provide opportunities for all employees and all ideas
To encourage employees to innovate, treat every innovation as meaningful and assess it objectively. Ignoring new ideas is a barrier to innovation, and it often happens because the idea seems so different that no one takes it seriously enough to assess whether it will work.
Award innovation
Every good innovation deserves an award. Be clear when applying an award policy. Sometimes, a few words of praise in front of the group, perhaps with an award certificate, is enough to fuel staff innovation.
Bring people together and remove silos
The best business ideas come from discussion among partners, investors, and team members. Take steps so staff members will connect across departments and understand the work that other employees do.
Be a leader and set an example
Leaders’ behaviour sets the example for the whole company. If you frequently share new ideas, bring groups together for innovation, and praise employees for good work, this will encourage a positive working environment. However, if you ignore ideas or treat employees with disregard, this will create a negative environment and your best employees might start looking for a new job.
Lessons Learned
Learn how great entrepreneurs estimate the value of their employees by understanding human nature
Software for HR Management
Human resource management is a challenge for businesses, especially when expanding and adding staff. Software can help.
SV-HRIS
Human Resource Information System software, a product of Viet Star Technology, is not only a free HR profile manager but also provides support for recruitment, training, and assessment for a variety of companies and sectors. It also manages work permission and work dates, salary, awards, insurance, and individual taxes. The editable salary formula is easy to adjust when state policies change (e.g., ratio of insurance, individual tax reductions, family situation).
Perfect HRM 2012
Perfect HRM 2012, a product of the Hoan Hao Software Company, provides a general approach to human resources. A version is available free for SMEs. This software received the 2014 Sao Khe Award from Vietnam Software Association (VINASA) and the Ministry of Information and Communication. It supports management of social insurance and individual income tax. It has quick functions for search, live inquiry, and statistical reports, and an easy-to-install, easy-to-use interface. It supports data entry from Excel and vice versa, and it automatically sends employment marking tables and salary tables through email.
HR-MANAGER
HR-Manager software, a product of Hoang Ha Software Co. Ltd., manages staff profiles with a centralized database, developing a model of professional human resource management. This software helps senior management to develop and implement a strategic vision for the company’s human resources. It provides diversified reports and an overview of staff, salaries, and human resource related violations. vulnerabilities of staff in a year.
LUCKY HRM
Lucky HRM, a product of Vietnam Ssoft Software Technology JSC, provides a deep human resources approach, along with all the basic functions for Vietnamese labour law such as the management of insurance and income tax deductions. It can manage activities like labour contracts, training, recruitment, employment history, salary measurement, awards, and employee welfare. It produces a visual reports for every user, and tracks the movement of employees within an organization between positions.
FAST HRM
This software summarizes various human resource management functions, updates staff status, and quickly searches per layer of your business structure. Fast HRM also supports the company in staff information management, and salary and individual tax calculation. It has easy-to-use tools for human resource management and a diversified report system. It can assess and report on capacity, skill, experience, and outstanding performance of each staff member. It helps track employment, and measure salaries, insurance, and individual income tax in a clear, timely, and accurate manner. The software also allows you to log in from various devices.
Human Capital Management – iHCM
iHCM is the first software staff governance system with various useful applications for scientific staff management. Employees may self-assess, and HR professionals can guide employees to achieve specific objectives using the software features. Functionality is flexibly developed, customized with data, with process per objective customized to the structure of the organization. The software can interface with other systems according to open standards such as CRM, ERP, and time clock. It also allows staff to access to their own profile in a quick and highly effective manner. The software also has multi-language support for Vietnamese and foreign businesses.