The Vietnam context
Vietnam is one of the few countries that stands to gain from global economic disruption(s). Even before the effects of Covid-19, Forbes had, in late 2019, identified that foreign companies were seeking to shift their operations to Vietnam, in a bit to diversify their reliance on their traditional supply chains. Indeed, as highlighted by the Nikkei Asian Review, the global pandemic has helped to quicken this trend with companies such as Google and Microsoft accelerating their efforts to do so.
Nonetheless, for a number of years now, there has been a shortage in the management-level workforce across engineering projects, IT industries and increasingly in the tourism sector. In these sectors, the lack of professionally qualified human resources is hurting businesses and their bottom line. The OECD suggests that Vietnam has weak corporate governance when compared with other ASEAN Countries, and is an area that would benefit from more development. Similarly, a recent World Bank overview report of Vietnam suggests that there is a need to upgrade the skills of the workforce in order to create greater large-scale productivity for the future. This has had a domino effect on the quality of human resources, middle managers and potential leaders of the future. The changes in global economic environments, politics, and indeed growth trends suggest that these issues need to be resolved to the benefit of Vietnam as a country.
The long-term economic impact, post Covid-19, is also a very real problem yet to be faced, but Vietnam has an opportunity to reinvent itself and develop its labour force. The majority of the Vietnamese population is between 18 and 45 years of age with 70% below the age of 35; this, together with one of the highest rates of schooling and rising postgraduate enrolment combines to make it an incredibly appealing base of operations to multinational corporations. Similarly, a World Bank report suggests that Southeast Asia is primed to embrace the digital revolution with large parts of the population already adopting digital technologies. This analysis rings true for Vietnam.
Ultimately, Vietnam has the opportunity to foster and engage the next generation of middle and senior managers who are vital in providing expertise and oversight as the world exits the dark clouds of Covid-19. The next generation will not only oversee economic growth but will create confidence in the Vietnamese economy for future investors and emerging businesses.
What can businesses do in the meantime?
Indeed, many companies have utilised the ‘downtime’ and deftly pivoted their business models and put into place flexible work arrangements that allow for employees to receive additional training and qualifications, primarily via online delivery. They have taken the opportunity to not only retrain their employees but looked at avenues to upskill them – An approach recently recommended by the World Economic Forum as a means to utilise the disruption from Covid-19 as a means to “progress towards longer-term upskilling and reskilling agenda(s)”.
Companies can look at the restrictions as a means to develop their workforce through:
- Firstly, businesses should analyse the skill gaps within their organisation, identifying where and what further training is needed. They should also consider if the training can be done internally and if staff can be repositioned into different departments based on their current skills set.
- Identify courses for online or home training for managers and junior managers to upskill. There is also the opportunity to learn in an international arena as a large number of global providers are shifting towards or are already providing quality online training. Trainees should also become trainers of the future, enabling the skills to be shared for the benefit of the organisation.
- Look at opportunities for mentoring and sharing of best practice. There are avenues for more senior management to develop internal training mechanisms and shadowing processes in advance of returning to normal working arrangements. Training manuals and systems can also be developed by senior managers.
- Plan for succession, knowledge storage and transfer. A lot of information and knowledge is lost when senior managers or staff leave. Similarly, practical and anecdotal knowledge is often not stored but rather shared ad hoc. The shutdown provides an opportunity to create succession plans and identify mechanisms to store knowledge to be passed to junior members. Many companies develop logs, training manuals or an online knowledge database.
- Recruit external candidates and retain knowledge. Look at the shortages within the company and if upskilling is not possible, recruit appropriately and ensure that the knowledge is disseminated across key people within the firm.
The future may be bright
Clarity in decision-making and communication alongside the empowerment of localised managers, are all avenues of an agile and collective organisational strategy. A robust support network for employees and a desire to focus on the positives rather than dwell on the failures are all vital to display strong leadership in times of uncertainty. There are opportunities here, through adversity, to identify the leaders of tomorrow.
Inevitably, companies that survive are those that are resilient and adapt well to change and uncertainty. They seek avenues to exploit a bad position and create positives for the future. SMEs and large organisations that adopt this mindset will survive the economic impacts of the pandemic. Furthermore, currently, there are opportunities to enhance the workforce while maximising the ‘downtime’ by engaging in activities such as upskilling. Businesses that adopt these measures may just come back stronger post-Covid 19.
Dr Seng Kiat, Kok is Senior Program Manager, Human Resource Management and Entrepreneurship, at the School of Business and Management, RMIT Vietnam.
If you would like to know more on this topic we invite you to join an online webinar that will explore how Vietnam will progress out of the pandemic. For more details and to register please visit this link.
