Implementation of Civil Service

Legislation in Vietnam:
Strengthening Elements of a Position-Based System

Team Members:
Saskia P. Bruynooghe Trina Q. Firmalo
Ann E. Futrell Jonathon A. Kent
Rohan Mukherjee Isy Faingold Vigil

Princeton University
April 2009
 Position vs. Career-Based Systems
 Research Question / Methodology
 Research Focus: Career Paths

1. Recruitment and Retention

2. Performance Management
3. Compensation/Incentives
◦ Findings
◦ Recommendations
◦ Challenges
 Career-Based
◦ Internal promotion
◦ Encourages generalized skills
 Position-Based
◦ Lateral recruitment
◦ Encourages specialization
 Position Career Spectrum

Vietnam
 Research Question
◦ How can the Government of Vietnam and other
interested parties strengthen the position-based
elements of Vietnam’s largely career-based civil
service?
 Methodology
◦ Interviews
Vietnamese government officials
Donor agencies
Civil service employees
◦ Quantitative data
MOHA, GSO2003
WB, ADB, GTZ, VDR2005
 Predominantly career-based
 Lack of transparency in recruitment
procedures and proper training of
interviewers
 Higher-level positions are primarily filled from
within the Civil Service or party; selection
criteria are largely political
 Rapid economic growth has pulled qualified
civil servants to the private sector
 Attract high quality candidates
 Improve perception of CS as elite workforce
 Improve outreach via multiple channels
 Increase transparency and quality of
recruitment process
 Carry out job analyses and create job
descriptions that will be used in
recruitment
 Improve training and retraining methods
 Continue experimenting with lateral
recruitment at senior and middle levels
 Develop human resources to a
professional level
 Institute reforms to compete for talent
with private sector
 Overcome bureaucratic retrenchment and
political resistance
 Three-tiered assessments
◦ Self-evaluation
◦ Peer review
◦ Evaluation by immediate superior
 Focus on character traits and compliance
with general principles rather than job-
specific targets
 Emphasis on avoiding noncompliance
 Delegate more responsibility to agencies
 Use job descriptions as baseline
 Strengthen communication and
accountability through negotiated
‘development contracts’
 Link individual, group and agency
performance
 Streamline responses to poor
performance via a clear and formal
process
 Focus on positive incentives for good
performance
 Develop relevant performance
indicators
 Address goal displacement and gaming
strategies
 Manage expectations about a feasible
pace of change
 Design tools and procedures that work
in the Vietnamese context
 Pay is based on a salary scale anchored on
minimum wage, with coefficients
 Salary scale is relatively compressed
 Many civil servants supplement income
with other sources
 Civil servants receive non-wage benefits
and incentives worth more than their
salary
Minimum Wage Increases and Inflation Rates (1994-2003)

Source: Government of Vietnam General Statistics Office (2003) in “Sequencing Civil Service
Pay Reforms in Vietnam: Transition or Leapfrog?”. Martin Painter, 2006.
 Study possibility of wage decompression
 Continue sustainable and practicable
wage increases, especially for
professional and administrative workers
 Enhance quality of the work environment
 Establish mentoring programs
 Emphasize non-financial incentives
 Establish group incentives
 Carrying out wage reform taking into
consideration size of government wage
bill
 Implementing decompression
 Efficiency measures (e.g. rightsizing)
 Overcoming resistance to change
 Addressing misperception / lack of
information about the wage gap
 Sorting out legitimate vs. illegitimate
sources of income
 Moving towards a more position-based
civil service would support PFM reform in
particular, and the PAR MP in general, by:
◦ attracting the right people for the right jobs
◦ monitoring employees with improved
performance management measures
◦ having higher levels of retention with
attractive compensation packages