Local firms lure talents with stocks
| 18:26' 06/06/2007 (GMT+7) | ||
One day in mid 2006, Luu Duc Khanh, strategic manager of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) in HCM City, received a call from Hanoi: “Khanh, do you want to work for us?”
After several months of thinking and some sleepless nights, Khanh decided to quit his job at HSBC to come to An Binh, a rural joint stock bank that had just been upgraded into an urban bank.
Khanh is one of the people creating the opposite wave in the human resources market in which high-ranking personnel leave foreign firms to work for local companies under the influence of the bustling stock market of Vietnam.
Foreign banks like HSBC, Citibank, Mizuho and some multinational companies have become unwilling training centres in the ‘stock fever’ of Vietnam. Many qualified personnel have left foreign firms. Headhunters said that foreign companies had everything to keep qualified employees, from high wages to active working environments and opportunities of promotion – but not stocks.
Seeking the difference
According to Luu Duc Khanh, going from HSBC to An Binh Bank is like going from sitting in a Mercedes running down a highway to being on a motorbike threading through a narrow road. However, with over 10 years of experience at HSBC, Khanh quickly understands what he should do to blow a new wind into An Binh in the position of General Director and a member of the bank’s management board.
“I really don’t pay attention to my current wage. The thing that ties me and An Binh is the volume of stocks that I’m holding. That’s my commitment to the bank. Working for the bank is working for myself,” Khanh said.
Nguyen Quoc Sy, former manager in charge of local companies of HSBC, had a more risky choice. His current office is a small room in an apartment block on Phung Khac Khoan street, District 1, HCM City, which is completely contrary to the luxurious building in HCM City’s heart where HSBC office is based. Sy is now Deputy General Director of the Western Rural Joint Stock Bank, which is based in Can Tho city.
Sy and his colleagues are working at full capacity to prepare for the day their bank becomes an urban bank, issues shares to increase capital and expands its operations in HCM City.
“Dinh Ngoc Son – General Director of the Western Rural Joint Stock Bank – is my veteran friend. He asked me to re-organise the structure, seek personnel, call for investment to develop the bank together, which I have not done before. It is a good opportunity for me to develop my ability, isn’t it?” said Sy.
Also leaving HSBC after ten years working there, Huynh Dai Thang, customer relations manager of the enterprise finance department, has become director of an IT company. Thang originally was an IT expert who worked as the technical manager of HSBC.
“I want to bring all of my knowledge of financial operations to build my own company. I’m now not a normal employee. With my capital contribution, the success of this company is my success as well. That’s the essential difference,” Thang said.
HSBC has also lost a deputy director of its Hanoi branch. At first, this woman was hunted by the Saigon Securities Trading Company but then she changed her mind to develop her own business.
What direction is the wind blowing?
The opposite end of the high-class human resources market is being formed. VIB Bank has just hired a new general director, Han Ngoc Vu, who was previously director of the Hanoi Branch of Citibank.
“I planned to work for a local bank several years ago. The development and professionalism of local banks is the foundation of my decision. I want to bring my experience from foreign banks to serve VIB Bank and I believe that I will have a favourable environment to entrust my devotion,” Vu said to the press.
He said that local and foreign banking systems were now running quite smoothly but the challenges at his old and new positions are different and the scopes of work are different as well.
According to human resources experts, the attractiveness of local companies is that they are ready to share their stocks to lure qualified personnel. More importantly, local firms give those personnel key positions which allow them to freely apply their creative ideas and visions, things that they can’t do in foreign firms.
“Foreign companies are at high level of professionalism. The one who is in charge of a field will only focus on his field. Meanwhile, if he becomes a leader at a local firm, he will have a broad view, develop strategies and have the right to make decisions that influence the development of the firm. This challenge is a factor that attracts them,” said a banker.
The banker also said that a business that wants to keep its talents must have three conditions in satisfactory order: income, working environment and promotion opportunity. The most important condition is that income must encourage employees, meaning income must be equal to labour, and stock proves its preeminence in this aspect. However, this kind of stock is not the everlasting gift.
This type of stock is often not allowed to be transferred in under three years. If the owner quits his job before this time, he has to return the stock to the company.
However, in some cases, stock can’t keep talents. A food processing firm on the stock market has said goodbye to its public relations manager. This man returned his stocks to work for a multinational group.
Asked why he didn’t wait for several months more to have his full three years to own the shares, he said that opportunity wouldn’t wait for him. He said he is still young and he wants to experience a working environment with challenges and opportunities that are near to what he studied in Australia.
How long will the opposite flow of brainpower exist? A human resources expert affirmed that it would continue but only for those who have worked for a long time in foreign firms and have hoarded enough experience and knowledge to take initiative to say goodbye. For young people, working for foreign firms is still their dream because they will have opportunities to develop a fast and keen working style.
(Source: Viet Nam Net) |
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