Ya, probably I am not the right person to write about this topic. However, my more than 10 years of working experience in Malaysia and my passion for business management and administration have encouraged me to write the working scenario that I observed in one of the multinational companies in Vietnam. I was exposed to the local Vietnamese working environment. As a wife to someone important in a company, once in a while, I had a chance to indirectly contribute my idea to the development of the company with my husband over casual conversation or helping him in his staff engagement program. I managed to organize 3 casual staff engagement programs with the objective of encouraging staff to communicate with foreigners and speak the casual English language. And it's for free.
From the 3 programs that I conducted for the admin, finance, sales, and parts departments, I found that most of the local staff lacked event management and coordinating skills. I remember in the first event, I had prepared the module, and only one staff from HR & admin was helping me to call the participants. She had distributed the invitation, yet no proper itinerary was developed. So I just ran the kind of impromptu cooking session using my self-communication skills to deliver the program without a proper itinerary. Hence, it has encouraged some of the staff to try to speak English and communicate with me. Even though, some have given less cooperation as cooking was not of interest (most of them were from sales).
The 2nd program was on make-up techniques where I invited my close friend to conduct free make-up techniques demo sessions for the admin, finance, and parts department. By this time, the respective staffs were more independent as they managed to come up with the itinerary and some fun activities for the participants. Hence, they lacked attention to the guests who had given teaching for free. I expected the respective staff to give a token to the guest (my friend), hence the guest was only invited to join the company's party. Nevertheless, it was not a big deal as my friend did not expect anything from what she had given on that day. Thank you so much for that my friend (you know who you are).
The 3rd program was on make-up techniques demo for the sales team in the other office building. This time the boss was trying hard to prove and show that his selected staff who handled the activity was a very reliable and good performer. Hence, the boss created a group messenger just to assist his appointed respective staff by including me as an advisor in a group to advise the group on what they were supposed to do which the first group had not received. I was a bit annoyed. I found some biased practices where there was favoritism occurred when the boss has more favor with this respective staff (appointed coordinator) as compared to the earlier group coordinator. This can be seen when the 1st and the 2nd groups of coordinators were left working by themselves in order to coordinate the event without close guidance from the respective boss. However, the 3rd group coordinated by the sales group was closely guided by the boss. This can be seen when the boss personally has created a messenger group that includes the appointed coordinator, the boss himself, and me. Hence, the coordinator without any respect has added another favorite associate to the group messenger without identifying a specific task for her. Another, query for me was, when I asked the appointed coordinator what she had done for the preparation for the event, she seemed clueless., and when I taught her about what she was supposed to do, the boss got upset with me and told me that I supposed not to give instruction to her ( I just guiding her on what she supposed to do and not instructing he at all). Hence, the boss, guided the selected coordinator to do what she needed to do. It was weird when in the previous 2 sessions, the coordinators were left unguided and did the coordination by themself (the boss told me that he wanted them to learn by themself). Why must have discrimination in guiding your staff?
Next, a day before the 3rd event, I came for an inspection and this lady who claimed she had studied English and received English certification couldn't even understand the instructions from her bosses who had listed 10 tasks for her to do and to understand my simple English. Hence, her boss claimed that she was very good at English. I still remember when I asked her about the itinerary, she was blurred, clueless, and didn't understand what the itinerary was. To cover her weaknesses, the boss invited both of us into his room and got us to use Google Translate to translate what I said into Vietnamese. I also remembered that the boss had asked her to show me 10 places in the whole office area to identify which part of the office area would be suitable to be the venue for the event. , yet she only brought me to 2 sites that were the office pantry and one of the meeting rooms. When I asked her where did she plan to have the event, she said either at the pantry or work-station area where people are working. For me, it was such common sense. When you want to conduct training, you should have a venue that has a training ambiance with learning facilities, not a pantry or workstation. A pantry and workstation are two very unsuitable places to conduct training, seminars, or teaching. I don't understand where she put her common sense.
Next, I asked her whether she had sent the invitation to the speaker and participants, and yet she had not done anything about it until I had to help her type the invitation to the guest (my friend who delivered the talks for the make-up session). Nevertheless, with the advice from the boss, she managed to arrange gifts to be given to the guests but no activities for the staff. I was pissed off as, during the event, she (the respective staff appointed by the boss) was not acknowledged my help and acted like she was the one who handled everything. Luckily it was me who assisted her, if another outsider it would be shameful to the boss as well as to the company. Hence, I just took it easy as I knew her boss very well and I didn't want her boss to feel ashamed of her lack of quality in managing a very simple event.
Another example that I can share here (based on my own experience), was when the admin staff fulfilled her task to purchase a covered dustbin by the same boss, however, the quality was not meeting her boss's expectations. As a staff, she thought she wanted to keep the cost safe for the company, yet this admin staff was scolded in front of me just because of a simple unmet expectation. However, in another situation, the sales admin, who only managed to perform two tasks out of 10 tasks given in front of me did not receive any complaint from the said boss for any of her single underperformed tasks. Wasn't it so biased? It was just clear favoritism that was happening in front of me, yet I couldn't do anything because I was just an outsider.
Besides, from the experience I had with them, I also got to know that there was a lady who had been hired as a salesperson nearly half a year ago (June or July employment started), yet did not manage to make any single sales and has received closed attention from the same boss. While there was another new staff who had been hired in August has managed to make few sales, yet did not receive good attention from the same boss. The lady who did not perform of course has more physical attraction from other sales staff, and thus the boss has created another task to make her relevant in the company. Such, an unfair working environment 😓😓.
Another favoritism that I observed in this management was, that the boss had a special assistant so called, a business development executive, which she has to prepare business proposals and do market research. Hence, this lady was unable to do a simple proposal, hence the boss had to train her personally. In my opinion, when you are hiring someone, you should hire a capable person according to the position's requirements. This will help the company to save the cost. The training may be needed for the improvement process when there are changes in the industry. Why must the boss who is in the highest ranking have to train her personally and have to sit side, face to face in the boss's room just to train her while other staff are not?. Doesn't the highest-ranking boss only macro manage and focus on strategic planning and company policy in managing the business? rather than micro-manage to the individual that he favored? Isn't a good leader the one who should care about all staff's career development?
I also found that there was a staff who could speak English well and voluntarily taught other local staff who couldn't understand English for free at the office. She was so enthusiastic in performing her task and a very positive person. She always did more than she should. She did work hard to prove she can do work well. At one point in time, the boss gave her the task of surveying an electronic safety box. She then positively asked me whether I knew anywhere in HCMC she could survey the pricing of the safety box, as she knew I lived in HCMC and knew well where to get the safety box. It is very limited for her to just survey in Binh Duong where she lives and works. For her, to be more efficient, she should widen her research to get a better option. To go to HCMC was very distance for her to go alone. Therefore, she arranged with the boss's driver to go to HCMC when the driver picked up the boss in the morning. However, the boss was not happy with her and told me that she was stupid to make such an arrangement. I was surprised, as I would look at her positive action in delivering her task. However, it was not what the boss wanted. Hence, the very kind staff did not receive any reward or even a compliment from the boss. I believe her enthusiasm for her work has trapped her. I heard that she was moved to the sales admin as one of the staff was on maternity leave. As an enthusiastic staff, I believe she will do whatever her superior (the sales manager) has asked her to do. As an admin staff, do you think she has a choice of not doing what her superior asked her to do?. I believe, her superior had asked her for a company stamp and innocently she gave the company stamp to her superior without the consent of the boss. And the stamp was misused by the superior. That incident made the boss upset and instructed the HR manager to fire her indirectly. In my opinion, the boss should have done an investigation and not just be listening to certain staff that he called his spy.
Back to the 3 scenarios, I found that the positive sides of the working environment in Vietnam have opened up more opportunities for female workers to participate in the job market in Vietnam. However, most of the human resources especially these female workers who had been hired in the company mostly used their physical attraction to be hired with a lack of skills. For example, the underperforming sales lady that I mentioned earlier has no qualification in business, sales, or marketing but she was recommended by a friend to the lady that the boss favors because she has English certification (yet can't understand English😏), and has a physical attraction, therefore the mentioned sales lady was hired. For me, both the sales admin and the sales lady that the boss favored and received more attention from this particular boss were just empty cans. If the sales lady was hired to become the spy of someone who speaks English, I wonder what she can do if she can't even speak good English. How can she deliver the correct info to the native English-speaking boss when the boss does not understand Vietnamese? So irrelevant right?. I wonder why the boss has to keep her if she did not deliver what she was supposed to and expected to do?
In management, a great leader is someone who will be able to manipulate the talent skills through words of encouragement, vision, and mission. A great leader, will not allow the empty cans to rule him or manipulate him to compromise their lack of skill. A great leader will not practice favoritism, hence embracing the real talent. He should not embrace the empty cans that later will contribute hassle and problem to him by recreating job descriptions, or redesignating tasks just for those empty can be relevant in the company). A good leader should leverage his attention to all staff's career development and not just to a certain staff that he favors.