[governance-vn] State firms struggle to get rid of the dregs

[Vern Weitzel]

http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=01TAL230708

Talk Around Town

(23-07-2008)

State firms struggle to get rid of the dregs

by Khanh Van

As the number of qualified employees leaving State-owned agencies has been 
increasing, un qualified co-workers continue to stick around.

According to Decree 132/2007, an employee on the company payroll can be fired if 
he or she does not meet work requirements or has violated regulations. However, 
determining what that assessment criteria actually entails remains a serious 
problem.

Director of the HCM City Home Affairs Department Chau Minh Ty says that the 
majority of workers and officers do hold degrees, but it’s difficult to define 
how good those degrees really are. Ty notes that the present assessment and 
classification system for officers does not reflect the reality of the poor 
education system.

One problem is that managers in charge of assessing employee qualifications do 
not work directly with them, while the managers who work with them and know 
their capabilities do not have the authority to fire them, he said.

As the quality of training in many institutions is poor, there are a large 
number of under-qualified university graduates. At the same time, a worker who 
has passed the enrolment examination for a State-owned agency will probably work 
until retirement with minimal risk of being fired.

Fifty-one-year-old Le Hoai Phuong has been working as a typist for a State-owned 
agency in Ha Noi for nearly 30 years. She feels content with her job, but she is 
no longer particularly effective given technological advancements. As an 
official worker of the agency, Phuong will very likely stick around.

Phuong is among a growing number of civil servants who are on company payrolls 
but do not meet professional requirements, and show no sign of going anywhere fast.

Workers who do not meet requirements like Phuong end up hindering the 
development of the company.

In addition to hurting the company, many employees work alongside other 
personnel paid to do the same work but who actually do very little. In addition 
to not knowing their jobs, some employees either waste their working hours, or 
are not given enough work to do.

"I was asked to do this one task in one month. I tried to finish it in 10 days 
and spent the rest of the time relaxing," said Nguyen Tien Thanh, an engineer in 
Ha Noi.

Administrative agencies in particular often have a large number of personnel who 
work at low efficiency levels. Not only is this a waste of resources, but local 
people who depend on these officials, like for construction and investment 
procedures and notarising, end up paying the price.

For these companies and agencies to advance they need well-trained staff, but 
old workers are reluctant to update their knowledge and improve their 
professional skills. Until those workers are forced into the new millennium, 
companies and the public will continue to suffer from under-qualified staff. — VNS