Tet bonuses should be outlined in a regulation and workers should be paid 15 month’s worth of salary per year instead of a current 13 months according to an official.
Dr Nguyen Thi Lan Huong, Director of the Institute of Labour Science and Social Affairs
Dr Nguyen Thi Lan Huong, Director of the Institute of Labour Science and Social Affairs said Tet bonuses were the summation of a worker’s salary for the entire lunar year, yet currently most enterprises consider making such payments as if they were doing their workforce a favour.
In your opinion, how could workers become more proactive in estimating their Tet bonuses instead of passively depending on their bosses’ decision as currently?
Tet bonuses should become a part of culture like giving lucky money in the early lunar year. More importantly, such payments should be legalised. There should be a regulation that stipulates that workers benefit from 15-month payment policies instead of the current 13 months per year. Such policy has been applied in Singapore.
There are several inadequacies in the current Tet bonus policies. While some state-owned enterprises generously give Tet bonuses worth tens of millions of VND to their staff, many teachers don’t have any Tet bonus. Is it feasible to enforce a policy that office staff get paid for 15 months per year?
I do think that office staff deserve 15-months of payment per year. I’ve mentioned this issue during a recent meeting with Minister of Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs Pham Thi Hai Chuyen. However, it would be not easy to realise this proposal as the government currently applies a minimum wage for only 12 months per year. If the proposal is approved it would mean that the government would have to spend more.
Do you think that in order to improve Tet bonuses, it’s necessary that enterprises make more profits and the state budget increases as if not, a regulation on 15-month payment would be not effective?
In order to increase corporate profits and the state budget, workers should be encouraged to devote more to their work so as to increase their working capacity and productivity. I believe that the 15-month payment would greatly encourage workers to work harder for their companies. Such policies are expected to help workers feel secure at their work. The more a company shares with their workers the higher productivity they will get.
It is still not easy to legalise a Tet bonus. How can relations be improved between employers and their staff in the run-up to Tet?
In my viewpoint, the best way is to work out a collective labour agreement which says that a worker receives payment equivalent to three months of their salary on the occasion of the Tet holiday. This means that Tet bonuses would be obvious for all workers and they would no longer have to worry about the possibility of bonus cuts.
Initially, such policies should be piloted at some companies to see its efficiency before being more widely applied. Workers would be happier and more inspired at their work.
Currently some people are given Tet bonuses worth hundreds of millions or even billions of VND. What do you think about this?
I think they’re not really Tet bonuses. Tet bonuses often account for a maximum of 30% of a salary. When a company claims that they pay Tet bonuses in billions of VND, they just want to legalise their incomes to avoid taxes. Previously, only those who had made huge contributions to their companies were given such a bonus. However, nowadays almost all workers have benefited from Tet bonuses. In fact, such payments are more akin to their regular wages.
