Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra - Head of the Central Steering Committee for Salary Policy Reform, Social Insurance and Preferential Treatment for People with Meritorious Services recently signed Decision 124/QD-BCĐCCTLBHXH promulgating a plan to research and develop a Project on salary policy reform and social insurance to be submitted to the 5th Conference of the 14th Party Central Committee.
According to the plan, the Project on reforming salary and social insurance policies will be researched and developed to be submitted to the Central Government in March 2027.
Talking to Lao Dong Newspaper, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thuong Lang - Senior Lecturer at the Institute of International Trade and Economics (National Economics University) - said that it is necessary to take into account the actual fluctuations of the economy, especially inflation, to ensure the actual income of salary earners when reforming salaries.
Simplifying and combating wastefulness will help reduce budget pressure while still creating room for salary reform," Mr. Lang said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Doan Van Tinh - Deputy Head of the Faculty of Human Resource Management, Academy of Public Administration and Management, Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics - sees salary reform as operating a "racehorse". In which, job positions are "engines", efficiency assessment (KPIs) is "drivers" and autonomy mechanisms are "fuel".
He proposed establishing a priority order to fundamentally solve bottlenecks in salary reform.
The first priority is to quantify and concretize job positions. According to Mr. Tinh, salaries cannot be paid correctly if the value of work cannot be measured. Therefore, it is necessary to shift from general job descriptions to specific quantifications of volume, complexity and responsibility.
The new income structure needs to be made up of 3 factors: Basic salary, reflecting the value of the job position; salary according to capacity, reflecting the level of meeting the capacity framework of civil servants; and salary according to efficiency, reflecting output results in performing work. This is an important condition for accurately and fully calculating the value of labor.
The second solution is to grant real autonomy and apply a ordering mechanism. Mr. Tinh believes that it is necessary to boldly apply modern management thinking to public non-business units such as schools, hospitals, and research institutes.
The State needs to strongly shift from the'disbursement' mechanism to'ordering' public services. When financial and personnel autonomy is granted, the income of civil servants will be released from the base salary ceiling, progressing according to the productivity and quality of services they provide to society" - Mr. Tinh proposed.
The third solution is to eliminate the situation of "medianism" through the KPI tool. According to Mr. Tinh, salary reform will be difficult to achieve the goal if the mindset of "dividing the cake equally" is still maintained. Assessment needs to shift strongly from qualitative to quantitative through KPIs/OKRs.
The bonus fund is about 10% of the total salary fund, excluding allowances according to Resolution 27, which needs to be used as a lever to create motivation, focusing on rewarding those with outstanding achievements. The income gap between well-working people and people working at an average level needs to be large enough to create motivation for striving.
In summary, for civil servants not only to live on but also to legitimately get rich from their profession, we must accept a fairer game: Salary must be an accurate measure of contribution value, not the result of egalitarianism or seniority" - Dr. Doan Van Tinh shared.
