The National Assembly has just passed the Law on Cadres and Civil Servants (amended) with an important new point: not equal in income, gradually linking salaries and bonuses of civil servants with work results and efficiency.
This is an adjustment to the treatment policy, also a step forward in management thinking, reflecting the determination to realize the principle of "make more, make less, make less" in the public sector.
For many years, the salary regime for Vietnamese cadres and civil servants has been built according to the scale of the scale, ensuring stability and uniformity.
However, this approach has shown clear limitations. Good and productive workers only receive the same salary as those who work moderately and lack a sense of responsibility, "go in the morning and go out at night and go home".
As a result, it creates a " venerable communist" mentality, eroding the motivation to strive, stifling the spirit of innovation and delaying the quality of the apparatus.
Therefore, legalizing the principle of income associated with job positions, work products and actual efficiency is very necessary in the context of the current streamlined and merged apparatus.
According to the new regulations, cadres and civil servants will receive salaries, bonuses and other income based on work results; receive additional payments if they do not use up their day off; and receive allowances if working in disadvantaged areas or toxic environments.
More importantly, civil servant evaluation no longer stops at emotional or periodic comments, but must be toiodized, transparent, public and the application of technology for monitoring and supervision throughout.
This change will create a more fair and transparent treatment level, promoting more substantial contributions. Good people will be recognized and rewarded appropriately; ineffective people will have corresponding income, forced to improve work quality or leave their positions.
When the assessment results are the basis for all decisions on mobilization, appointment, income increase or staff streamlining, that is when the mechanism of "paying according to real value" is operated.
Obviously, to streamline the payroll while still maintaining the quality of the team, to reform the administrative system in the direction of integrity, professionalism, and modernity, paying salaries according to capacity is inevitable.
Of course, to implement effectively, there needs to be a system of competent assessment that is sophisticated and fair enough, avoiding the situation of "running for achievements" or formal assessment.
The development of spending norms based on results and work efficiency also needs to be clear, avoiding each place applying a different approach, creating inconsistency.
Paying wages according to labor values is not a pure market thinking applied to the civil service apparatus, but a way to properly recognize the role, efforts and responsibilities of each person in the state system.
When civil servants understand that their efforts will be recognized by specific numbers, they will have more reasons to contribute, innovate and serve the people better.
