With salaries and bonuses no longer the key issues for employees in deciding to stay in their jobs, some reports are noting that many companies have turned to building a shared culture, increasing digital experiences, and creating opportunities for employees to achieve work-life balance.

Personnel citing healthy workplaces over salary issues, source: shutterstock

In Anphabe’s “Best place to work in Vietnam 2022” report, published earlier in November, its survey explained that stress is an invisible killer of motivation and engagement of employees. A total of 42 per cent of Vietnamese workers are working in a constant state of fatigue and boredom, the report noted, mainly caused by the reasons of finance and family; the nature of the work; working relationships; and workplace conditions.

Tran Trung Hieu, founder and CEO of job assistance site TopCV Vietnam JSC said, “Salary or benefits are no longer the top concern of candidates. More important is the standards of a suitable corporate culture, which can give them a clear career path, and training courses to improve professional skills and opportunities to share, be empowered and challenge themselves.”

As a recruitment company, the technology factor is utilised by Top CV to bring better employment experiences to employees.

“It is necessary to apply digitalisation and technology to deploy work faster and more widely,” said Hieu. “As the labour market is gradually being filled by Gen Z and millennials who are familiar with technological devices and have innovative thinking, building a corporate culture based on the support of technology is the solution to help businesses attract and retain employees.”

The Deloitte 2022 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, published in May, showed that professional development and life balance were the two factors voted as most important when employees choose a workplace. Some 46 per cent of Gen Z and 43 per cent of millennials have decided to leave a company when feeling burned out due to the intensity and high demands of working environments.

Keeping in mind factors like these, companies like FPT are actively applying technology to human resource (HR) management to develop a digital culture.

According to Tran Duc Long, training director at FPT Software, its employees previously took part in a review every year that lasted an hour to discuss, share, and evaluate their work efficiency with their direct manager. The process was deemed ineffective, and so FPT developed an application called myFPT to connect and store information about the working process of employees.

Leaders can respond, evaluate, and even reward employees on the app so that the recognition of work results is quick, increasing interoperability and motivating employees.

In the Anphabe survey, which saw the participation of nearly 58,000 employees from over 500 companies, AEON Vietnam ranked 21st in the list of Vietnam’s 100 best places to work in the country, up 60 places in the past five years. The Japanese retailer also ranked second among the top retail/ wholesale/trade companies with the best working environment in Vietnam out of 34 businesses in the same field.

AEON’s progress is thanks to reforms in building a working environment and policies on sustainable HR development. The business has also been voted one of the best places to work in the entire continent by HR Asia for four consecutive years.

AEON’s employees are supported to develop skills through training programmes at home and abroad. The annual wellbeing programme organised by the company also encourages employees to participate in community activities, including a policy of working from home 1-2 days per week to help them balance health, work, and life.

“This is the biggest and most sustainable benefit,” said Tran Thi Tuyet Trinh, head of HR at AEON Vietnam. “The strategy of building and developing people is always one of the top goals of AEON Vietnam in the long-term vision to become the most attractive employer in the retail industry in Vietnam.”