Research on human resouce management in unicef with a focus on management of expert and consultants in unicef viet nam

I assure that the data and research findings in this Thesis « Research on Human resource with a focus on management of experts and consultants in UNICEF Vietnam” are truthful and are my

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

KHOA QUẢN TRỊ VÀ KINH DOANH

-NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH THỦY

RESEARCH ON HUMAN RESOUCE MANAGEMENT IN UNICEF WITH A FOCUS ON MANAGEMENT OF EXPERT

AND CONSULTANTS IN UNICEF VIET NAM

NGHIÊN CỨU QUẢN TRỊ NGUỒN NHÂN LỰC TẠI UNICEF, TẬP TRUNG VÀO HOẠT ĐỘNG QUẢN LÝ CHUYÊN GIA, TƯ

VẤN Ở UNICEF VIỆT NAM

LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH

HÀ NỘI - 2020

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

KHOA QUẢN TRỊ VÀ KINH DOANH

-NGUYỄN THỊ BÍCH THỦY

NGHIÊN CỨU QUẢN TRỊ NGUỒN NHÂN LỰC TẠI UNICEF, TẬP TRUNG VÀO HOẠT ĐỘNG QUẢN LÝ CHUYÊN GIA, TƯ VẤN Ở UNICEF VIỆT NAM

RESEARCH ON HUMAN RESOUCE MANAGEMENT IN UNICEF WITH A FOCUS ON MANAGEMENT OF EXPERT AND

CONSULTANTS IN UNICEF VIET NAM

Chuyên ngành: Quản trị kinh doanh

Mã số: 60 34 01 02 LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH

NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS.TS NGUYỄN NGỌC THẮNG

HÀ NỘI - 2020

I assure that the data and research findings in this Thesis « Research on

Human resource with a focus on management of experts and consultants in UNICEF Vietnam” are truthful and are my own research findings.

Materials and data used in this Thesis were partially collected from functionalsections, departments, from specialists and staff who have been working withUNICEF Vietnam, and partially collected by the author through surveys with co-workers and desk review of publicized documents, etc Quotes were cited clearly

During the preparation of the Thesis “Research on Human resource with a focus

on management of experts and consultants in UNICEF Vietnam”, I received the

instruction, support, and encouragement of many individuals and collective groups

I would like to express my deepest acknowledgement to all individuals andcollective groups who facilitated and supported me during my research

I would like to thank the Hanoi School of Business and Management (HSB), HanoiNational University for facilitating me in all aspects during my learning andcompletion of this Thesis

I would like to express my sincere thank to the Instructing Lecture, Ass Prof.Nguyen Ngoc Thang for instructing and supporting me enthusiastically during mypreparation of this Thesis

Also I want to thank for the encouragement, supports from my friends and familyfor me to complete this Thesis

My sincere thanks go to all of your precious support

AUTHOR

Nguyen Thi Bich Thuy

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for topic selection 1

2 Research objectives 2

3 Object and scope of the research 2

4 Research Method: 3

5 Structure of the Thesis 3

CHAPTER 1: THEORIES ON HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 4

1.1 Some relevant definitions 4

1.1.1 Human resource 4

1.1.2 Human Resource Management (HRM) 5

1.1.3 Objectives, meaning of HR management 6

1.2 Basic contents of HR management 7

1.2.1 Recruitment 7

1.2.2 Training 19

1.2.3 Job delegation 21

1.2.4 Health care and protection for employees 22

1.2.5 Work motivation 23

1.3 Factors affecting HRM in an organization 25

1.3.1 External factors 25

1.3.2 Internal factors 27

2.1 Research process 29

2.2 Research design 30

2.2.1 Preliminary research 30

2.2.2 Official research 36

2.3 Sample designing 36

2.4 Data collection 39

2.4.1 Primary data 39

2.4.2 Secondary data 39

2.5 Data analysis method 39

3.1 Overview of UNICEF Vietnam 40

3.1.1 UNICEF Vietnam’s operation viewpoint 41

3.1.2 Organizational structure and function 42

3.2 Recruitment, use and assessment of experts 44

3.2.1 Recruitment process, assessment of performance of consultants, experts and benefits 44

3.2.2 Comments/assessment on the HRM over consultants/experts 45

3.3 Verifying the scale of HRM factors in UNICEF Vietnam 47

Characteristics of surveyed respondents 47

3.4 Descriptive statistics with factors of expert - HRM in UNICEF Vietnam 48

CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 52

4.1 Contribution by the research 52

4.1.1 Contribution in terms of theory 52

4.1.2 Contribution in terms of experiment 52

4.2 Viewpoint on expert management of UNICEF Vietnam 52

4.3 Some HRM solutions in UNICEF Vietnam 54

4.3.1 Improving quality of recruitment work 54

4.3.2 Solutions to improve quality of trainings, fostering professional skills 57

4.3.3 Solutions to improve quality of employee arrangement 59

4.3.4 Solutions on policies to assess work performance 60

4.3.4 Solutions to improve effectiveness of remuneration policy 60

4.3.5 Developing corporate culture 62

CONCLUSION 65

REFERENCES 66

1 Vietnamese materials 66

2 English materials 66

APPENDICES

ASEAN Economic Community

Competency-Based Performance AppraisalCompensation and Rewards

Children’s Rights and Business Principles

United Nations

Margin of errorRecruitment and SelectionTraining, Development & EducationWork Conditions

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Summarized HRM policies defined 31

Table 2.2: Scale to measure HRM policy 33

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Organizational structure of UNICEF Vietnam 43

Figure 3.2: Number of experts/consultants recruited 44

Figure 3.3: Statistical characteristics of respondents 48

Figure 3.4: Descriptive statistics on HRM factors 50

1 Rationale for topic selection

Human resource (HR) plays important role in the activities of enterprises ororganizations, therefore the good use of this resource to serve the businessdevelopment and social development is an important task in the management oforganizations and enterprises HR management requires understanding of manyaspects of human, with a viewpoint that human is the central element ofdevelopment HR management techniques aim at facilitating human to promotetheir full potential, at reducing resource waste and increasing the effectiveness ofthe organization Effective HR management is one of the biggest challenges to eachorganizations in the market economy Strong fluctuation in business environment,fierce competition and the need to meet increasing HR demand have put greatpressure on the managers in Vietnam, requiring them to have new thinking in HRmanagement

In the past years, UNICEF Office in Vietnam has highly appreciated of the role andimportance of HR to the existence and development of the organization, thus fromits establishment, HR management has always been the top priority of theorganization’s leaders As a development organization, UNICEF providescounseling and technical assistance for its partners being Government agencies,therefore, the organization need to develop a workforce of expert and consultantshaving good professional expertise and experience However, the HR management

is still facing some challenges and difficulties with regards to the expertmanagement With a wish to learn more about the situation of HR management inthe past time and propose solutions to complete HR management work, the author

decided to select the thesis topic “Research on Human resource with a focus on management of experts and consultants in UNICEF Vietnam” as the final paper

for my Master degree

HR is a crucial element to a development organization like UNICEF, and humanelement, especially experts, play key role to the success of UNICEF in its operation

in Vietnam However, there are three short comings in the management of experts inUNICEF i.e Recruitment, Use of and Compensation and Rewards for employees.

2 Research objectives

2.1 Overall objectives

This research aims at understanding, analyzing HR management work, andalso surveying, analyzing experts’ comments and assessments on HR managementwork in UNICEF, with a focus on the management of experts and consultants inUNICEF Vietnam Based on that, comments and assessments on the effectiveness

of HR management work in the organization could be made, together withrecommendations and solutions to complete and improve the quality of HRmanagement in UNICEF Vietnam

3 Object and scope of the research

3.1 Research object: Recruitment, using, retention, and motivation in HRM 3.2 Scope of the research:

Research location: HRM over experts and consultants in UNICEF Vietnam

- Surveyed persons: experts, consultants working in UNICEF Vietnam: assess

on the recruitment, use, retention and generating motivation in HR management inUNICEF Vietnam

- Reference to cases, solutions to complete the HR management in the

organizations, enterprises, etc

Research duration: Find out about data, information on HR management

issues (recruitment, use, retention, generating motivation) in UNICEF Vietnam inthe period 2016-2018 Data are for the period 2015-2019.

4 Research Method:

a Method of document research:

Collecting documents from various sources: Scientific articles, research topicsand other related documents Through general theoretical analysis, systematizingclassification and generalization of the theory from which to draw scientificconclusions is the theoretical basis for the topic

b Method of sociological survey by questionnaire:

Methods of survey by questionnaire: The questionnaire was built based on theoverview of documents to collect information and analyze the current situation ofhuman resource management of experts and consultants in Unicef Vietnam

c Mathematical statistical methods:

Using mathematical statistical methods to process data and test scales

Data analysis process:

- Descriptive statistics

- Assessing the reliability of the scale by Cronbach alpha reliability

coefficient

5 Structure of the Thesis

In addition to the introduction, conclusion, list of references, and attached

appendices, the structure of this Paper consists of four Chapters, including:

Chapter 1: Theories on human resource management

Chapter 2: Research methodology

Chapter 3: Research findings

Chapter 4: Conclusions and recommendations

CHAPTER 1: THEORIES ON HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

1.1 Some relevant definitions

1.1.1 Human resource

Human resource (HR) is the internal resource of each person, including visibleand potential resources HR is reflected by the work capacity, includes health,competence, psychology, level of efforts, creativity, or passion, etc

It has been proved in reality that human role in production is crucial, HR is thekey element among all production elements Without human, all other elementscannot be operated, and used in production

“Human resource” term appeared since 1980s when there was basic change inmanagement method which used human in the work economy Previously staff wasconsidered as those obeying tasks who were dependent, whose labor should beexploited at maximum level, at minimum cost, but since 1980, HR management(HRM) with new method has been more flexible and better facilitated laborers sothat they could promote their fullest potential accumulated through the work anddevelopment

There have been various different viewpoints on HR such as:

“HR is all the knowledge, skills, experience, competence and creativity ofhuman that relate to the development of each individual and of the whole country.”(World Development Indicators, 2000, WB)

“HR is human resource in generating physical and mental assets for thesociety, reflected as the certain quantity and quality at some certain time” according

to Mai Quoc Chanh (2008) “HR is a category used to show the potential strengths

of the population, the ability to mobilize in the process of producing physical andmental properties for the society, at present and in the future The strengths andability are reflected via the quantity and quality, and structure of population,especially the quantity and quality of people who are capable of joining the socialproduction.”

According to Pham Minh Hac (2001), “HR is the synergy of all work potential

of a country or a province, i.e workforce prepared (at different levels) to be ready

to take some job, i.e laborers having skills (or capacity in general), by meeting the

requirements of the labor structure shifting mechanism, and the economic structure

in the orientation of industrialization and modernization.”

The above viewpoints approach HR from macro perspective, and from theperspective of an organization or enterprise, there are different viewpoints on HR asfollows:

“HR of an enterprise is the workforce of the enterprise, is the number ofpeople in the list of the enterprise, paid by the enterprise” according to Bui VanNhon (2006)

Hence, from different perspectives, there could be different concepts of HR,yet these above mentioned concepts are similar in basic content: HR is the source toprovide labor to the society Human, as an element compositing the workforce takesthe leading position, is the basic resource and endless resource for development, HRcannot be viewed merely as either the quantity or the quality perspective, but HRmust be the combination of both quantity and quality; HR is not just the population

at working age but they are different human generations with potential and strengths

in renovating the nature and renovating the society

In each enterprise, HR is an important and unlackable resource that determinesthe success or failure of the enterprise Therefore, managers must care and fostertheir HR to assure their personnel’s quality and quantity, to ensure that theenterprise can develop not only at present but also in the future

1.1.2 Human Resource Management (HRM)

HRM is a system of philosophies, policies and functional activities to attract,train – develop and keep personnel of an organization to obtain the optimal resultsfor both the organization and its staff

According to Mathis & Jackson (2003), HRM is the design of formal system

in an organization to assure effective and efficient use of human talents to serve theorganization’s objectives

According to Felix Migro: “HRM is an art of selecting new staff and use of

old staff in a way that the production and work quality of each of them is at maximum level possible.”

“HRM is a system of philosophies, policies and functional activities to attract,train – develop and keep personnel of an organization to obtain the optimal resultsfor both the organization and its staff” according to Tran Kim Dung (2006).

As one of the basic functions of the organization management, HRM includesplanning, organization, direction and control of activities to attract, use and developpersonnel to achieve the organization’s objectives

HRM can be understood as the recruitment, selection, retention, development,use, encouraging and providing necessary condition for personnel, through theorganization, to attract, build, develop, use, assess, preserve and maintain a suitableworkforce to the organization’s requirements, both in quantity and quality

HRM is one among important and basic functions of management work, ashuman is the key part, the most important resource, and the center of development

of each company or enterprise If sale department is considered as the front-line andthe spearheaded department that generates all benefits and revenue to the enterprise,then human resource is considered as the firm back to help the enterprise develop.Therefore, the attraction, training, recruitment, assessment, arranging personnel ofsuitable competency and quality to suitable positions, and monitoring, directing,ensuring the compliance with the laws on labor and employment, etc are theleading tasks of managers

However, in nature, HRM is the management of human within anorganization, it’s how an organization treats its employees In other words, HRM isresponsible for bringing employees into the organization, helping employees dotheir job, remunerating them for their work, and addressing emerged issues

1.1.3 Objectives, meaning of HR management

* Objectives: HR management studies the issues on human management atmacro level with two basic objectives:

– Use effectively human resource to increase production and effectiveness of the organizations

– Meet increasing needs of employees, facilitate so that employees canpromote to their fullest potential all personal capacity, so that they are stimulated,encouraged the most in work place, and they are loyal, committed to theenterprise’s work (Tran Kim Dung, 2018)

* Meaning of research on HR management: In modern time, HR managementplays increasing important role for following reasons:

+ Due to the tougher competition in the market, in order for an organization tosurvive and develop, it must restructure itself to be small and neat, dynamic, in whichhuman element plays determinant role Therefore, finding the right persons, assigningthem to right tasks and positions is a concern of all kinds of organizations at this time.+ Advances in science and technology, together with the economicdevelopment, force managers to adapt Therefore, the recruitment, arrangement,training, appointing staff within each organization in an optimal way must be thehighest priority

+ Research on HR management will help managers learn how to communicatewith others, know how to make questions, know how to listen, to find a commonlanguage with their employees, and know how to be sensitive with their employees’needs, know how to assess employees correctly, know how to attract theiremployees to be enthusiastic at work and to avoid mistakes in the recruitment, use

of employees and to improve quality of work and effectiveness of the organization

1.2 Basic contents of HR management

Recruitment must meet following principles: recruitment must be based onwork requirements, must be objective, fair, and conducted based on the number ofstaff in need; there should also be analysis on the posts to recruit, the recruitmentrequirements and criteria

In order to have enough staff of good quality, the managers should payattention to this issue right from the recruitment phase This is an important phasethat affects greatly on the quality of the enterprise’s future human resource If thistask is well done, the enterprise shall recruit competent staff of good ethics, which isthe basic foundation for the development of quality human resource in theenterprise On the contrary, if recruitment is not well done, then the enterprisecannot select the competent and ethical staff, decreasing the quality of humanresource, or even leading to the personnel shortage or even personnel crisis,preventing the improvement of human resource’s quality, leading to more cost andtime needed.

Good recruitment is one among methods to increase human resource quality

In the recruitment process, attention should be paid to the followings:

- Recruitment should start from the need for personnel, based on thepositions to be recruited, and the job requirements, should avoid the redundancy orshortage of staff, avoid the recruitment of staff of poor quality or those who do not fitthe needs

- Recruitment process must be specifically developed and planned to assurethe implementation as planned Requirements, standards/criteria must be

clearly mentioned and publicly published for all candidates to know Theprocess must be objective and fair to avoid the recruitment of “familymembers” whose capacity and ethics are not good

1.2.1.2 Recruitment process

* Recruitment process

Figure 1.1 Recruitment process

HR planning

AlternativemeasureRecruitment

Conduct the recruitment

(Source: Bui Hoang Loi,2007)

HR planning is an activity conducted at year-end based on the productionand business plan for coming year of the organization, HR need is assessed andidentified to meet the work objectives and to make work plans to meet such need

The contents of the HR plan include: estimated number of staff needed withcertain skills to fulfill the planned tasks (HR demand); estimated number of staffwho will work for the organization (HR supply); selection of measure to balancehuman resource supply and demand in appropriate time in the future Based on that,decisions on recruitment and recruitment contents are made e.g positions to berecruited, number of staff in each position, technical requirements, etc

 Alternative measures (instead of recruitment)

Once an organization faces financial difficulties regarding the recruitment, following measures could be alternative solutions:

Sub-contract: In case of difficulties and the organization can’t recruit, then

the organization can hire another organization to do the job in the form ofsub-contract However, in order for this method to be effective, differentaspects should be thoroughly analyzed e.g work quality, cost and benefits ofdifferent parties During the sub-contract, attention should be paid to tasksrequiring high expertise so that each part of the task could be sub-contracted.Usually the sub-contractors are those who have high level of jobspecialization, therefore usually the costs for such tasks are low.

Overtime work: In production and business, in many cases an organization

must complete in a very limited time some tasks, and such organizationcannot recruit immediately new staff but usually they have to apply acommon measure that is overtime work Overtime work allows cost savingfor recruitment, increased productivity without additional laborers On theother hand, young staff usually like working overtime to have more income.Hiring laborers from manpower company: When applying alternativemethod, we need to care some following points:

- Laborers hired from other companies usually do not enjoy benefits andwelfare in such companies, therefore somehow they are not so excited, and actuallythis is a way of lowering the living standards of laborers, therefore, we must preventthe idea of “making full use of laborers”

- To improve the link between laborers and the tasks, and to limit the situations where laborers could lose benefits, we need to apply some regulations as below:

Temporary tasks: must regulate the time – number of days or hours

Employers must buy health insurance, contribute social insurance for

employees and must apply other regulations on benefits for the employees

Organizations offering leased employees must offer benefits to employees inaccordance with prevailing regimes

To have sufficient employees of good quality to fulfill the vacant positions, anorganization must consider and select, determine that in which position should theyrecruit someone internally, or externally, based on that, they can develop suitablerecruitment options There are two sources of recruitment: internal source fromwithin the organization and external source

Whether it is internal (promoting someone from lower position to higher position) or external source, the following consideration must be made:

Internal source including persons who are working for such organization With

current staff, when we recruit them to take higher positions, we create goodmotivation for all those who are working in the organization as when they knowthat they would have a chance for promotion, they would work with moremotivation, and they will work better, they have higher satisfaction at work, throughwhich their emotion and loyalty to the organization will be increased

- Advantages of internal source:

+ They are familiar with the work in the organization, they passed the test onloyalty The biggest advantage is to save time for them to get used to the work, and thework can be carried out without interruption, and it can minimize the wrong decision

in promotion and mobilization of staff

- Disadvantages of this source:

+ When promoting current staff in the organization, we have to be alert withthe establishment of “unsuccessful candidates” group who are not appointed Thesepeople will manifest that they do not obey, do not cooperate with leaders, etc Thiscould usually generate psychological conflicts e.g division in groups, or internalconflicts in the organization

+ With medium and small-sized organizations, if we rely only on internal sources then we cannot change the quality of laborers

+ When developing promotion policy within an organization, there should be along-term development program with a more comprehensive, broader view, and theremust be clear plans

+ Those who graduated from university, colleges, high schools or vocational schools (including those trained in Vietnam or overseas)

+ Those who are unemployed, who quit job

+ Those who are working in other organizations

- Advantages of this source:

+ These are persons equipped with advanced and systematic knowledge

+ They usually bring new viewpoints to the organization.

+ They are capable of changing the old style of the organization without being afraid of receiving reactions by other persons in the organization

- Disadvantages of this source:

+ It takes time to guide them, for them to get used to the work

+ If we usually recruit external candidates (especially in promotion, higherpositions), then it would generate the feeling of disappointment in the current staff,they think that they would not have a chance for promotion, which would lead todifficulties in implementing the objectives of the organization

+ If we recruit candidates who worked for our competitors, then we have tocare about the confidential of competitors, if not they would sue us because there is anidea that usually when employees move to work for a new employer, they reveal theirprevious employer’s business secrets

When we recruit from external source, we need to care about some risks as theskills of external candidates are just potential which may not be expressed, thereforethe recruited candidates may not meet the needs of the job immediately

 Recruitment methods

- Posting a recruitment notice on the position in need This notice will be sent

to all staff in the organization and provides information about the tasks and expertiserequirements of the post to be recruited

- Referral by the organization’s staff Through this channel, we can detectthose having suitable capacity to the job’s requirement, in a specific and fast way

- Using information in the “Portfolio of skills” that each organization usually makes

on each employee and stores it in the HR software In this portfolio, there are usually suchinformation as: available skills, educational/training level, work experience, professionalexperience and other factors on personal qualities of the employees

- Referral by an organization’s staff (similar to internal source)

- Posting recruitment advertisement on mass media e.g on T.V., radio,newspaper, magazines and other publications Advertisement contents shall be

dependent on the number and quality of employees to recruit, and the work nature.There could be advertisement campaigns with many combined means, or therecould be separate ads With this method, we should pay attention to the contents ofthe ads so that applicants quickly contact the organization recruiting.

- Use of brokers and employment-service center This method is being appliedcommonly in Vietnam, especially with enterprises or organizations having nospecialized staff in HRM Such centers are usually located in universities, colleges,vocational secondary school and mass organizations, as well as in the local/centrallabor management agencies (Ministry of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs,provincial Departments of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs, Trade Union, Lao Dongnewspaper, etc.)

- Job fair This is a new method being applied by many organizations Thismethod allows candidates to get into direct contact with many employers, offeringlarger options at large scale At the same time, both candidates and recruiters couldreceive more information, generating more accurate basis to make the best decisions

by both candidates and recruiters

* Selection process

Selection process includes many steps, each of which is considered to be afence to eliminate unqualified candidates Number of steps in selection process isnot fixed but rather it depends on the complexity of the job/tasks, on the nature ofwork To be selected, candidates must pass all steps in the recruitment and selectionprocess And each organization has its own ways of assessing a candidate Most oforganization will gradually eliminate unsuitable candidates in each step, so they donot have to track all candidates during recruitment process Meanwhile some otherorganizations let all candidates join all recruitment steps until they can recruit themost suitable candidates It depends on the organization’s financial resources forrecruitment, on the rate of applicants over the number of positions to be recruited,and the reliability of information gathered

When designing the steps and contents of each recruitment step, we need todesign in a way that can allow gaining the most typical and reliable information,based on that we can make decision on recruitment

Figure 1.2 Selection process

Welcome and 1st round of interview Screening of application dossiers

HR test

2nd Interview Health check and assessing candidate’s physical condition

Interview by line supervisor Verifying information gained during selection process

Visit the company/organization Recruitment decision

(Source: Nguyen Van Diem and Nguyen Ngoc Quan, 2012)

Detailed steps:

This is the first step in selection process, the first meeting between recruiter andcandidates This step is to establish the relationship between applicants andemployer, and also to identify if an individual has suitable qualities and capacity forthe job, based on that decisions are made on whether or not the relationship withthat candidate should be maintained In the interview, if candidates are detected not

to have suitable capacity for the job, they should be eliminated immediately,however in order to make such decisions, standards/criteria should be developed in

a careful way During interview, the subjective viewpoints of interviewers prevail,therefore arbitrary standards should not be used to eliminate candidates Especiallythe elements including age, sex, race, religion, ethnic group and congenital

disability should not be used to eliminate applicants Key reasons to eliminatecandidates in the first step should be: they cannot meet requirements on education,training, experience, required skills to do the job e.g lack of skills mentioned in thenotice, having insufficient certificates or degree, or the interview findings show thatthe person is too weak in expertise, or has low professional awareness/skills, etc.

 Step 2: Screening of applications

In all organizations, in order to have a job, candidates must submitapplication Application letter is an important content in the selection process.Application letter is usually designed by the organization in a certaintemplate, and applicants can fill in the template as requested by employers.Application templates are designed in a scientific and reasonable way, they can beconsidered as an important tool to select right applicants Application formprovides us with reliable information about a candidate’s past actions/behavior, aswell as their current skills, experience and knowledge, personal psychologicalcharacteristics, expectations, wishes and other special competence Applicationform is a base to support other selection methods e.g interviews Application formprovides name, previous workplaces, and other HR profile information

When designing application template, we should consider thoroughly neededinformation, information that must be gathered to assure comprehension, accuracy,and that applicant will provide exact information in need as requested

In addition, application templates also include open questions, to assesshandwriting, etc

Application templates, despite many advantages, have certain limits.Application letter is just an objective procedure, it cannot replace the in-personmeeting between an applicant and company’s representative On the other hand,application letter could only be used to ask for a limited number of issues, it cannotask about all experience of the applicant In the form, the applicant cannot explain

in detail the things s/he has done before With the form, applicant always mentionsher/his good points only The application form could only describe the currentsituation, but it does not help us answer the “how” and “why?” With applicationform, recruiters will have evidence to continue with next steps of selection or toterminate the recruitment with some candidates

 Step 3: HR test

HR test is to help recruiters understand psychological features, capacities,skills and other special competence of candidates when other HR informationcannot let us know accurately and sufficiently HR tests bring about objectiveresults on the psychological characteristics of a person e.g congenital capacity,hobbies, personality of each person These tests help understand specialcharacteristics of a person in implementing a job, especially typical jobs

Appropriate tests should be used during selection in order to forecast the workperformance of a person Therefore, the tests must be designed by those havinggood understanding of the job or those who study thoroughly the Terms ofReference of the job In fact, there are currently many types of tests, therefore it’snot easy to determine which type of test to use To assess different angles of acandidate, people can use the test/mock with future work that the person oncerecruited would do, or a sample test

In HR test, there are many types and many ways to classify They can classify

by group or individual, based on the structure, or the assessment result to classify.Usually HR tests are divided into: achievement test, talent and competency test,personality/hobby test, truth test, or bio-test

 Step 4: Selection interview (2 nd round interview)

Selection interview is the process of verbal communication (via questionsand answers) between recruiters and applicants This is one of the method

to gather information to make selection decision Interviews helpovercome the disadvantages that the screening of application form has orthey provide with further information that cannot be reflected throughcertificates or degrees

Objective of interviews:

- To obtain information about the applicants – because information obtainedfrom other selection tools may not be sufficient, nor clear Interviews provide chancesfor information to be gained clearer, to be explained in more detail

- To give prominence to the company – interviews help recruiters introducethe company, let applicants understand clearly the strengths of the company This isthe best way to advertise

- To provide applicants with the organization’s information Duringinterviews, company situation should be shared with applicants e.g the company’sobjectives, management apparatus, HR policies, promotion opportunities,

employment opportunities, etc

- To establish friendship relationship, improve communication skills Types

of interviews

- Structured interview: questions are carefully designed/prepared in advance

as per job requirements so that interviewers can ask interviewees

- Scenario interview: Interviewers request applicants to answer how they

would react, do, handle a job in an assumption scenario or real scenarios in life

- Targeted interview: The interviews based on specific tasks which requests

candidates to answer to meet predetermined objectives Questions are based on carefulanalysis of the job to identify objectives of each position Targeted interview is themethod with highest reliability and accuracy

- Uninstructed/unprepared interview: interviewers do not prepare questions in

advance, but rather let candidates to discuss freely about a task, and the interviewersonly provide direction to the discussions

- Stress interview: Interviewers make serious questions, interrogation, with

high intensity This kind of interview is to seek for candidates who can handle the taskwell in limited time It help us find suitable persons for the stressful positions e.g salesduring Tet/holiday occasions, or financial acquittal at quarter or year-end, etc

- Group interview: Is an interview where many candidates are interviewed at

the same time This kind of interview helps us collect many similar information of allcandidates, and we do not have to ask each candidate in person

- Council interview: Many interviewers interview one candidate This is

suitable for selecting candidate for important position that requires the agreement frommany people This can help us avoid the subjectivity when only one person interviews,

it creates the flexibility and show the reaction capacity of a candidate to manyinterviewers

For the interviews to be effective, some following issues should be

 Step 5: Health check and assessing physical condition of candidates

To ensure that candidates have good health to work long-term for theorganization, and to avoid unreasonable demand of the recruited candidates onhealth care, then another important step is health check and assessing thecandidate’s physical condition This step shall be done by health experts HRdepartment should provide standards on health condition for each position formedical expert to assess This step should be done in an objective way, avoid doing

in a careless way

 Step 6: Interview by line supervisor

To ensure agreement by the recruitment council and the line supervisor andthe one who uses the laborer, there should be interviews by the line supervisor toassess in a more specific way the candidates, this is an important step for thesepersons to assess professional capacity It helps us overcome the disagreementbetween recruitment department and the departments who use the laborers

 Step 7: Verifying information obtained during selection process (reference check).

To determine the reliability of information gained through selection process,

we have to verify such information There are many ways to verify information e.g.talking with the candidate’s previous organization, or the places granted them with

certificates/degrees Reference check is the accurate basis for recruiters to make final decisions.

 Step 8: Visit the company/organization

Applicants always have some expectation about the job, then if they aredisappointed with the job due to lack of information, it may generate disadvantagesfor them when they take the job Therefore, to facilitate applicants in makingdecision on whether they should work for the organization, the organization can letthe candidates visit the organization and listen to full explanation of the tasks thatthey would do if selected This helps employees know in pretty detail the job e.g.complexity, income, and satisfaction with the job

Thanks to that, applicant may know what they would do in the future, helpthem avoid being surprised when later there are things mismatching theirexpectation

 Step 9: Recruitment/selection decision

After conducting all above steps, and they could find suitable persons based onrecruitment requirements, then the selection council will make recruitment decision.This decision is made based on the subjective assessment after many eliminationsteps from interviews to tests Once the recruitment decision is made, then theemployer shall sign labor contract or labor agreement with successful candidate(s).Legal foundation for a labor contract is the Labor Code of Vietnam In the laborcontract, attention should be given to following provisions: probation time, wage,overtime work, insurance premium to be paid for the employee

1.2.2 Training

Training is an activity to help employees learn and practice necessary skills toimplement effectively their functions, tasks and powers This is an unlackablemeasure to improve quality of human resource The objective of training is toimprove technical expertise and competency, improve work attitude of employees,through which the organizations can use in an optimal way its’ available humanresource to achieve planned objectives at present and in the future

Training aims at improving human resource quality, to have more effectivehuman resource, with improved work quality In order to do that, the staff must

understand well their job, must grasp professional knowledge, skills; have certainlevel of experience and workmanship; have capacity to manage, handle withemerged issues, have suitable attitude and work style, etc Therefore, training is asuitable and effective method to help employees meet all above requirements.

Most of enterprises select trainings to improve their HR quality Throughtrainings, employees are equipped with technical knowledge and skills to betterfulfill their assigned tasks Trainings also help employees understand better theirjob, better grasp their expertise, handle better with emerged cases at work, they canwork voluntarily, have better work attitude, have higher adaptation capacity in thefuture And in turn, their work quality and effectiveness is improved This alsomeans that the HR quality is improved

Notes for enterprises when provide “trainings”: trainings must serve theimplementation of the enterprise’s objectives, must start from the training needs.Trainings must be linked to the use of personnel after training Training processmust not impact negatively the production and business and operation of theenterprise Training plans must be feasible, to assure training quality andeffectiveness

Enterprises could select training forms as below:

- Training new staff: When they start new job, most of employees are not

familiar with the job, therefore, this training will help them get used to the work;understand the organization, tasks, functions, characteristics of theproduction/business, and operation in the organization, understand the relationship inthe organization; help employees gain more needed knowledge, skills to fulfill theirassigned tasks

- On-the-job training: This kind of training helps employees overcome their

short-comings in knowledge and skills to better fulfill their tasks assigned And alsoemployees could grasp more knowledge and new skills due to changes in technologyand due to new requirement of the enterprise This kind of training is usually applied

in following cases:

+ On-the-job coaching

+ Training courses for employees

+ Sending employees to in-depth training courses to serve the work.

- Training for future work: this training serves future development objectives

of the enterprise or employees There are two main types:

+ Training to serve enterprise’s objective and development direction:employees will be provided with skills and knowledge that they must have in the future or at present in order for the enterprise to meet its planned objectives

+ Training to serve employee’s development objective: enterprise will trainemployees with necessary knowledge and skills so that in the future the employees cankeep more important positions which are suitable to their expectation

To arrange employees reasonably to improve HR quality in an enterprise,there are many methods such as:

- Employees are recruited to fulfill vacant positions: in this case, their

knowledge, skills and experience satisfy basic needs of these positions, therefore theycould be arranged to take the positions to be recruited

- Employees do the jobs not suitable to their professional expertise: if the

work quality and effectiveness of a person is not high, then the organization need toarrange that person to do other task suitable with his/her expertise and strengths Or ifthe work quality and effectiveness is not affected, then that person can keep doing thetask, but need training to improve work quality

- Internship or apprenticeship in the organization: an organization or

enterprise need to arrange students with appropriate work in the role of assistants tosome other positions, should assign them with tasks from simple to complicatedlevel for them to get used to the work Arranging work for students can bringbenefits to the training facilities, the students themselves and theorganization/enterprise also

1.2.4 Health care and protection for employees

During work, whether in manually or mechanically working condition, therecould be potential risks and harms e.g work accidents or occupational diseases thatemployees could face Therefore, health care and protection for employees,improved work condition, safety and work sanitation are one of key tasks inproduction development and in increasing work productivity

Employers must periodically organize health examination and treatment foremployees, and organize activities to improve health condition of employees e.g.physical and sport activities after work hours, sport contests, or retreat events,… inaddition, labor protection should also receive attention to minimize employees’health risk during work

Labor protection reflects the viewpoint of putting human as the motivation andalso the objective of development Labor protection has great impacts on the HRquality in the enterprise Good labor protection will decrease the number ofemployees taking sick leave, decrease the number of employees contractingoccupational disease or those having work accidents, which contributes actively tothe health care, life protection of employees, so that employees have sufficientphysical and mental condition to work In addition, if they work in a safe workcondition, if their health and lives are protected, they will love their workenvironment, they will feel attachment to the enterprise, and dedicate their best tothe development of the enterprise

To improve the HR quality via labor protection methods, an enterprise can:

- Guarantee the standards on: environment, work condition, labor protection,work safety and sanitation,… and periodically check on all these

- Develop and well implement labor protection in the enterprise to limit work

accidents, to reduce the possibility where employees contract occupational diseases.

- Periodically conduct overall health check for employees to detect and have timely measures when they contract occupational diseases

- Improve awareness of employees in labor protection via annual training onlabor protection, via propaganda in the enterprise, contests to learn about laborprotection – safety and sanitation, etc

so later they can receive more benefits

Material lever:

- Wage, salary: Wage and salary play important role to employees’ lives,

these are means for employees to satisfy their basic needs in life, are the mosteffective remuneration tool Wage paid to employees must be based on their finalwork results The better the work is the higher the wage they should receive, theyshould be paid for what they contribute accordingly

- Financial bonus and discipline: Bonus is the amount of money that an

enterprise pays to employee for their performance and contribution exceeding therequired level according to their functions/tasks Bonus could come from differentsources: bonus from salary fund, bonus from profits, bonus for typical activities.Bonus regime should be developed based on the objectives set out, and bonus criteriamust be clear with quantified criteria, the bonus amount should be big enough tostimulate employees to strive to achieve the bonus targets Granting and consideringgiving bonus should not be late so that employees will strive to gain more bonus

Disciplinary actions should only be applied in certain cases that impact on theorganization’s development to avoid negative impacts on the labor motivation caused by punishment

- Salary allowance: this is the additional salary/allowance based on the

seniority, position, based on work condition and complexity of the task, and whenliving conditions are unstable In many cases, this is a financial incentive to aim atachieving development objective of the organization

- Welfare: this is indirect payment in the form of supports/allowance for the

lives of employees to overcome difficulties, risks, and to ensure their lives, to improvetheir material and spiritual life, promoting them to work at higher production, higherquality and effectiveness There are two types of welfare: compulsory benefits (theorganization must follow legal regulations) and voluntary benefits including:

+ Insurance benefits (health insurance, life insurance, work incapable

insurance, income insurance, pension)

+ Payment paid during off-work time (annual leave, leave for personal

purpose, shift breaks, personal hygiene, tourism allowance, etc.)

+ Benefits to support employees due to flexible work hours (employees stillreceive full salary even their work duration in a week is less than regulations or theyare provided/supported with means of transportation to overcome difficultiesgenerated by the flexible work hours)

+ Welfare for employees in the forms of financial services (discounted price,lower price, credit association, buying shares of the company, financial support,social services, professional services, entertainment service, taking care of theelderly/children, housing services and transportation support)

Mental lever: Mental stimulation also plays big importance in stimulating

employees to work, sometimes it can replace material levers, to meet the increasingneeds and motivation of employees Mental stimulation in an enterprise could bedone through many ways such as:

- Showing respect to employees, respect their contributions to the enterprise.Having reasonable compliment form when they make efforts or when they accomplishtheir work well

- Honoring employees having outstanding achievements (honoring them inthe enterprise’s golden book, granting them with noble titles, offering them bonus infront of all other employees, etc.)

- Organizing movements or contests among individuals and groups.

- Encouraging, supporting employees in addressing difficulties and obstacles, praising them when they make good achievements

- Creating chances for employees to show their capacity and competency, encouraging them to confirm themselves

- Creating good environment in the collectives, creating environment foremployees to meet, exchange, to develop good relationship, and to have stronger bondwith the organization

- Caring about employees frequently, timely, e.g when they are sick, when their families have weddings, new babies, or deaths, etc

- Implementing welfare regimes/benefits for employees

Material levers and mental levers cannot be separated Once an employee is offeredmaterial stimulation, his/her spirit will also be promoted, they would gain higherperformance On contrary, once they receive spiritual stimulation, they will work in

a more comfortable mood, they gain higher achievement and receive higherpayment Therefore, these two levers should be combined to generate high workperformance

1.3 Factors affecting HRM in an organization

1.3.1 External factors

Political – legal environment: Labor laws relating to employment, use of

laborers,… are necessary element to be used as a legal foundation for an enterprise

to address well the relationship between employees, are a premise for the enterprise

to develop legal standards when they establish, strengthen and develop their HR Inaddition, the Government also plans on policies to create legal environment for thedevelopment of HR both in quality and quantity e.g education socialization policy,policies on renovating the education and training contents and methods, policies onhealth care for employees, policies on labor safety and sanitation Integration in theASEAN Economic Community (AEC) has brought about opportunities andchallenges to enterprises In order for enterprises to promote their full potential inthe international integration, each must develop its strong human resource toimprove its competition when integrating

Economic elements: include economic growth in general and economic growth

in each province in particular, income of residents, price, inflation, purchasingpower of money, supply – demand relation of goods, services of each individual,living standard and savings of different classes of people, etc These factors impactdirectly or indirectly on the HRM in an enterprise/organization

The development of education – training: The level of development of

education – training impacts largely on the quality of HR in an enterprise It doesnot only determine the level of education, technique, professional level,workmanship skills of employees but also impacts on health, longevity of peoplethrough other factors such as income, awareness, handling of socio-economicinformation, scientific information The higher the development level of education –training is, the larger the size of high quality human resource is, and the higher thework production is

The development of labor market: Open economic policy, globalization,

integration have promoted economic growth and generated many more jobs Theemployment structure has also changed, from agriculture to industry and services

In that context, labor market development, as an objective element, impacts on theincreased quality of HR in enterprises as labor/employment information iscomprehensive, and the job competition gets more and more fierce, it’s alsodifficult to attract laborers of high quality and quantity to meet the productionrequirements

Health care development: Health facility system once upgraded/invested

would help increase longevity and health of residents as well as of work force Ifreproductive health, child health, nutrition, disease prevention, etc could be caredabout, it would ensure that future generations will have healthy mental and physicalhealth, and Vietnamese stature will be improved This would impact largely on theimprovement of HR quality of the whole society as well as of each enterprise inparticular

Social, residential, natural environment include: tradition, customs, habits,

rituals, behavior, ideological and moral norms, climate and weather events, solidcondition, etc of each province, each group, each class of population and the

country These elements generate life style, culture, social environment of human ingeneral and of employees in particular It helps establish and change not onlyquantity but also the structure of human resource, change the philosophy andbusiness moral of an enterprise.

Development of science and technology: The more advanced science and

technology is, the shorter the distance from science/technology to production is.Business and production have continuously changed, and the enterprise’s economicstructure is also changed accordingly Non-stop development and advanced scienceand technology have generated modern technologies that require employees of highquality The application of new technology allows enterprise to select the policy onusing more or less employees, and it requires certain condition of laborers Thisdoes not only impact the scale but also the quality of human resource in theenterprise

1.3.2 Internal factors

Leaders’ viewpoints: Viewpoints, awareness of leaders in an enterprise of

HRM will impact on the policy, on investment in HR at different level In addition,HRM policies e.g policies on recruitment, training, staff arrangement,remuneration, salary, benefits, bonus, etc have direct impacts on the effectiveness

of HRM If these policies are well implemented, the enterprise will have strong HR

in both quality and quantity to serve its objectives and strategies

Development strategy: Based on development strategy and

business/production plans, an organization shall make plan on HR quality,including: needed knowledge, skills, assessment of current HR quality, comparisonand estimating the needed number of employees with good skills to meet therequirement of the job, based on that they can make training plan to improve thequality of HR, to finally meet business and production needs of the enterprise

Work environment: Work environment does not only include infrastructure,

technique, or equipment to serve the work, but also include relationship amongcolleagues, between senior and junior staff, working mood, style of each enterprise

A good Work environment will facilitate good conditions and opportunities foremployees to reflect their capacity, to develop themselves, to devote to maximum

level, to stay long in the enterprise In addition, competition also assures thefairness Healthy competition is an element to stimulate employees to develop.

Awareness of employees: In order to improve HRM work, firstly employees

themselves must be aware of their suitability to the job, they must know whatknowledge, skills, qualities they have and need more, based on that, they learn toimprove their own knowledge, expertise and skills In order to improve HR quality

in an enterprise, it can not rely only on the enterprise, but the employees themselvesmust wish to and have good attitude to learn, only in that case then the qualitywould be improved easily and in the most effective way

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHOD

Interview questions

Crollbach Anpha

Quantitative research

Descriptive

situation of HRM experts

-Conclusion &

Recommendations

The research topic is human resource management (HRM), to be specific,management of the expert/consultants of UNICEF The research findings will be abasis to propose feasible suitable solutions to improve effectiveness of HRM inUNICEF Vietnam Once the research objective was clear, the author developedrelevant theories including major contents of: basic issues on HR, HRM, HRMcontents, and factors affecting HRM Based on the previous researches, the author

synthetized and proposed a research model on this topic, and developed a researchmethod suitable to this topic.

To conduct the research, the author conducted research in two phasesincluding: qualitative and quantitative researches

Qualitative research: With desk review, the author reviewed scales in HRM.Then the author interviewed experts to find out the factors truly impacting HRM,especially HRM in UNICEF Vietnam, with a focus on management of experts inUNICEF After qualitative research, the author developed a scale and conductedquantitative research, which is the official research of the thesis The quantitativeresearch was conducted in several steps: testing the scale with the “CronbachAlpha” coefficient; descriptive statistics of the survey findings on real situation ofHRM Finally, solutions were provided to strengthen HRM work in UNICEFVietnam

2.2 Research design

2.2.1 Preliminary research

2.2.1.1 Desk review, in-depth interviews to develop measurement scale

To conduct preliminary research, the author used a technique of one-on-onediscussion This discussion technique is to get data through discussion of the twopersons: the researcher and the informant (Nguyen Dinh Tho, 2011) One-on-onediscussion helped researcher to clarify and dig deep the contents directly linked tothe factors impacting HRM Due to the technical characteristic of this research, thedirect discussion with experienced experts was truly necessary In-depth interviewwith experts helped the author have a more comprehensive overview of the realsituation of HRM (expert management) in UNICEF Vietnam In the research, theauthor selected interviewees including: HR manager, leaders, managerial staff incharge of recruitment, coordinators of activities of experts and consultants ofdifferent programs in UNICEF Vietnam Due to limited research condition, theauthor could only conducted in-depth interviews with seven persons includingexpats/experts, leaders, coordinators working in UNICEF Vietnam Duringinterviews, the author explained on each factor, provided definition of eachfactor/element as well as questions of interviewees on the group of HRM factors

To prepare for in-depth interviews, in addition to the objective of identifyingthe current situation of HRM factors in UNICEF Vietnam, the author alsoconducted in-depth interviews with the informants on the research measurementscale Regarding the development of research measurement scale, the authorinherited from previous researches including: Billy Whisnant & Odai Khasawneh

(2014), Mansor and Kenny (2015), Tran Thi Lam Phuong and Nguyen Ngoc Thuy

(2011), Lin (2007) However, these scales from previous researches are the scales tomeasure HRM over the direct workers or managers, leaders These scales are not sosuitable to the workforce being expat/experts (advisors) of non-governmentalorganizations In addition, each enterprise or organization shall have differentoperating lines, with different organizational model, especially there are bigdifferences between NGOs (like UNICEF) and governmental organizations orenterprises Therefore, the author made adjustments to make the scale suitable toHRM in UNICEF To assure objectivity of the factors selected and the adjustedscale, after identifying the factors of HRM in UNICEF Vietnam, the author used theprepared questionnaires to conduct pilot survey on the in-depth interviewees Thepurpose of the pilot interview was to identify and clarify unclear questions orquestions that could be understood in many ways Based on in-depth interviewfindings, the author adjusted the scale in the questionnaires before conductingofficial survey on large scale with large sample size

Table 2.1: Summarized HRM policies defined

HR policies Definitions and authors assessed

Recruitment and Proposed to be organized, with theoretical and practicalselection (RS) works, to look for employees, encourage them apply and

select them, for the purpose of harmonizing people e.g.value, benefits, expectation and capacity, with thecharacteristics and needs of the position and organization.Authors reviewed: Armstrong (2009); Bohlander and Snell(2009); Dessler (2002); Lievens and Chapman (2010);Mathis and Jackson (2003)

Involvement Proposed to be organized, with theoretical and practical

works, to generate a bond with its employees, contributes

to generating happiness for them at work, about therecognition, relationship, involvement and communication