The retail sector faces a high rate of employee turnover, hampering firms’ long-term development, argues a recent report by Navigos Group, the country’s leading human resources recruiter.

According to the report by Navigos Group, 28 per cent of retail industry hirers said that their employees did not make long-term commitments and 49 per cent said that their employees often changed jobs. In addition, candidates in the industry often leave their positions when rival companies in the industry invite them to work.

Sixty per cent of respondents said that the average employee works at their company for only two or three years.

Nguyen Phuong Mai, managing director of Navigos Search under Navigos Group, said that companies seeking to build an effective culture must identify the core values ​​of the business and build from there. Ensuring company-wide awareness of values, however, can be difficult if employees are transient.

“In order to minimise the job shift rate, companies need to focus on two factors: developing a leadership team with human management skills and regularly providing training courses to develop human resources,” she added.

According to Diep Dung, chairman of the management board of the Saigon Union of Trading Co-operatives (Saigon Co.op), the company’s development strategy for the next few years seeks to maintain its role as one of the leading domestic retailers while it expands into new markets. The company says its employees will play a critical role in implementing the strategy.

“To achieve this goal, Saigon Co.op will focus on five solutions based on one of the fundamental foundations, which is management teams and human resources,” he said.

Saigon Co.op has diversified its organisation and focused on training and developing its management teams and human resources, viewing this as a way to promote business performance and stable development.

Not only the retail sector, but many other industries and sectors in Viet Nam also face difficulties in human resource management in the digital age, according to Bui Thy Huong, human resource director at Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) Viet Nam.

As technology develops rapidly, the traditional hiring processes may no longer be sufficient to help companies identify future leaders.

“Therefore, human resource management strategies must be flexible to take advantage of technological change,” Huong said.

Debanjan Sen, human resources director at Deloitte Singapore, stressed that those applying high technology to human resource management have low rates of job resignations.

For example, while HP Inc’s rate of job resignation was 10 per cent, the rate was 20 per cent in other companies in the same industry, said Debanjan Sen. 

VNS