Stemming from severe legal consequences of unilateral terminations of labour contracts, the State was keen on ensuring regulation over these rights of both, the employers and the employees. Vietnamese Labour Law , especially the trial practice, is still being developed and applied in faith of protecting the weaker party in the labour relationship ( usually the employee.) However, the Labour Code (2019) has been promulgated with numerous additional provisions to better protect the interests of the employer, who has the right to unilaterally terminate the labour contract in order to balance with the interests of the employee, especially when the employee is continuously not fulfilling the signed labour contractual obligations.
Determination of an employee who repeatedly fails to complete the work as a basis for exercising the right to unilaterally terminate the labor contract must be based on the criteria mentioned in the evaluation regulation of employees’ duty fulfillment (the “Evaluation Regulation”) promulgated by the enterprise. However, many enterprises still face many difficulties and obstacles in developing, promulgating and applying this regulation because it has not been disseminated and framed by specific instructions.
This article will provide the enterprises with some notes for building, promulgating and applying them effectively to ensure their legitimate interests.
1. Notable factors when developing the Evaluation Regulation
The enterprise should keep in mind the following points in the process of developing the Evaluation Regulation:
First
Although the Evaluation Regulation is not bound in terms of form and content according to the Labor Law, it is established on the criteria that the enterprise expects the employee to achieve corresponding to the job position occupied by the employee.
However, the Evaluation Regulation should be consistent with the legal provisions[1]. Indeed, Internal Labor Regulations and, the Collective Labor Agreement are documents that directly regulate the behavior, activities and work performance of employees but also can be used as legal employee-management tools of the enterprise.The Internal Labor Regulations must refer to the Evaluation Regulation as an integral and indispensable part of the Internal Labor Regulations. Moreover, along the developing appropriate internal employee management documents being consistent with other rules previously issued by the enterprise and without any conflicting terms, the content of the Evaluation Regulation should be consistent with business development plan and orientation of the enterprise.
Second
For a group of jobs with quantifiable characteristics such as selling, production activities, or managing customers, enterprises should concretize the criteria for assessing the level of work completion of the employee in specific numbers and proportions for each position and title held by the employees. However, the aforementioned method will generate further difficulties for the enterprise when evaluating employees doing jobs with qualitative characteristics such as accounting, legal, design, or art.
At that time, the enterprise should consider job performance, processing time, workload or creativity, customer feedback/evaluation for employees, as well as any other factors . These evaluation criteria should be summarized in the process of the actual operation of the enterprise to reflect the level of work completion of the employees more
Third
“The frequency of no fulfilling duties” is a factor that needs to be focused on and clarified in the regulation for evaluating employees’ fulfillment of duties. If the employee has not achieved and fulfilled the assigned duties, depending on frequency and duration, it can be regarded as a repeated failure to perform the jobwhich raises issues that need to be clarified. If these issues are unclear and not specific, the regulation will be difficult to apply for disputes with employees who regularly fail to complete the work.
The enterprises are recommended to identify such employees to take any action but it should only be considered if the employee fails to meet the performance standard, at least for the second time within a reasonable limit period.
Last
For all positions, each different job title should have its own criteria and level of evaluation to ensure objectivity standards whilst working. Furthermore, during the process of developing these criteria, the enterprise should collect and consult opinions and suggestions of the managers, employees and their representative organizations of (including internal trade unions or a representative organization of employees at the enterprise) to have an objective, multi-dimensional assessment and reach the consensus of the employees in the process of application and implementation.
2. Some notes when promulgating the Evaluation Regulation
To apply the right to unilaterally terminate the labour contract because the employee repeatedly fails to complete the work, developing a clear and specific regulation for evaluating employees’ fulfillment of duties, the enterprise must promulgate and publicly apply these criteria in line with specific procedures.
One step of the procedure that the enterprise must perform is to consult the employees’ internal representative organizations for the fulfillment of duties draft of assessment regulation before promulgating it for application. The consultation procedure with internal employee representative organizations is carried out through dialogue at the workplace. Participants involved in the workplace dialogue will include representatives of the enterprise, employees or representative organizations of employees. Usually, internal representative organizations of employees involved in the dialogue are internal labour unions. If the enterprise has not yet established internal trade unions, the immediate superior labour unions (also known as the district labour confederation) will act as a substitute.
The enterprise is responsible for sending a written proposal and the draft of the Evaluation Regulation to the representative organization of the employees for consultation. At that time, the representative organization will hold a legal dialogue to summon worker opinions on the draft and aggregate it in writing to be send to the enterprise. However, for the enterprises that have not yet established internal labour unions, the enterprise will collect opinions or record confirmations from the employees directly to propose immediate superior trade union to consider and approve the draft Evaluation Regulation. After receiving the employees’ consent and the approval of the representative organization of the employees, the enterprise shall publish the Evaluation Regulation and notify it each department of the enterprise for public and uniform application.
Thus, it can be seen that the development of the Evaluation Regulation is necessary and this Regulation plays an essential role for the enterprise in the right to unilaterally terminate a labour contract concluded with anemployee who regularly fails to complete the work. Especially in the context of the current changes and difficult-to-control working environment, terminating the labor relationship with employees who cannot work effectively and, do not devote their efforts to the enterprise is a solution optimized for cost and personnel. In addition, the proper recognition of the roles, functions and objectives of the Evaluation Regulation shall allowthe enterprise to take appropriate orientations and actions to build a complete employee management system.
[1] and concurrently with the provisions of the Internal Labor Regulations, the Collective Labor Agreement (if any)
