Toughest Challenge is to Retain Top Talent

Navigos Group, the leading and largest executive recruitment solutions provider in Vietnam, recently announced the top five 2010 HR challenges according to its survey conducted early this year among 168 companies operating in Vietnam, including foreign-invested companies and local-invested companies. The survey shows that the toughest challenge this year is to retain the best talent.

 

Ms Nguyen Thi Van Anh, Managing Director of Navigos Group said, “For many employers in Vietnam, 2009 was a year of prudent belt-tightening toward their HR budget. However, when the economy started turning mildly positive, we realized that many of our clients started planning their workforce for the economy rebound.”

According to the Navigos Group’s survey, 63.8 percent of respondents ranked employee retention as the number one HR challenge in 2010. This result is not surprising, as it has been a hot topic in many recent HR discussions. “Vietnamese employees aggressively pursue opportunities to accelerate their career track to senior positions, challenging work, stretch assignments, continual training and development and competitive pay. As long as this is the case, employee retention is hard work,” added Van Anh.

 

Also, 57 percent of survey respondents agreed that hiring the best talent is a major challenge in 2010, ranking this issue second among the top 5 challenges of 2010. “It has never been easy to find the right and best talent in the Vietnam market, and the situation will remain unchanged in the near future,” commented Van Anh.

Career development management, attracting candidates to the organizations and succession planning filled in the top five 2010 HR challenges with 54.3 percent, 44.1 percent and 38.3 percent of the votes, respectively.

Van Anh said “Of course, the survey findings only tell us the respondents’ intention at the time of survey and trends will change in reality. However, the findings of the survey, as well as recent observations indicate that getting the right people into the right job with the right skills, and to have them stay and grow are the missions which will keep HR personnel busy in 2010,” she continued.

 

72 percent of the respondents said that they have had their HR budget increased in 2010, the highest of which was at 120 percent while the lowest at 2 percent. Only 3 percent of respondents said their budget decreased and 13 percent of respondents revealed their budget had not changed from the previous year.

Consequently, 133 respondents, accounting for 67 percent of total responses, said that they plan to increase headcount in 2010, while 8 percent said that their plan is to decrease headcount.

“It is likely that the employment market is heating up again, making it an employee’s market,” Van Anh said. “However, we’ve observed that our clients hiring practices have and will become more selective and efficient in order to maintain competitiveness,” she shared.