Answer:
- How are the welfare policies regulated in accordance with the law?
Normally, the enterprise’s welfare policies for the Employees are included in the CLA. For convenience in the establishment of these policies, the Employer may refer to some contents in the following table and revise the said contents to meet the specific policies of each enterprise and comply with the law:
| Regime | Entitlement level | Requirement | |
| Birthday celebration | VND500,000/Employee | ||
| Wedding celebration | VND1,000,000/wedding | Supplement the copy of the marriage registration certificate | |
| Celebration of birth-giving | VND1,000,000/child | Supplement the child’s birth certificate | |
| Funeral | VND1,000,000/Employee | Applicable to parents and in-law parents, spouses, biological children of Employees; and Supplement the copy of death certificate | |
| Hospital confinement due to illness or accidents | VND1,000,000/Employee/occurrence | At least 02 days; and Supplement the copy of the hospital discharge slip | |
| Souvenir gifts for any Employee when he or she resigns | VND500,000/Employee | Applicable to Employees who have worked for the company for at least full 3 years counting from the first working day. | |
| c) International women’s day 8/3 (including any Employee on probation) | VND500,000/female Employee and holding a small party | ||
| c) International children’s day 1/6 (including any Employee on probation) | VND500,000/child (under 12 years of age) | ||
| Annual tours (including any Employee on probation) | At least 1 tour/year | ||
| Note: AnyEmployee who has worked for the enterprise for at least a full year, counting from his or her first working day will be entitled to 100% of the employment benefits. Applicable to all other regimes and events (if any). Any Employee who has worked for the enterprise for less than 01 year, counting from his or her first working day will be entitled to 50% of the employment benefits. The entitlement level is applicable to all other regimes and events (if any). |
2. Is it possible to regulate the enterprise’s welfare policies in the Employee handbook?
In practice, an Employee handbook originated from foreign-invested enterprises in Vietnam, import in a way that is often made by the foreign enterprises. In common, the Employee handbook often includes all the information that enterprise which wishes to communicate to the Employees and want the Employees to understand and comply with the Employee handbook during the time the Employees have been working for the enterprise. For example:
- History, vision, mission, and core values of the enterprise;
- All the HR regimes and policies being applicable in the enterprise include work hours, recruitment, training, leave days, confidentiality undertakings, awards, and labour discipline etc.
- General code of conducts;
- Welfare regimes for the Employees; and
- Other rights and obligations of the parties etc.
Through the contents as above, it can be said that the Employee handbook includes the information partly collected from the ILR and CLA of the enterprise. However, while the ILR and the CLA of the enterprise are referred to as two documents that competent State agencies see as having legal validity, the Employee handbook does not have legal validity. Specifically, if a labour dispute arises, it will only be settled based on the ILR and the CLA of the enterprise. For any cases where a labour discipline needs to be applied or a labour dispute needs to be settled, the ILR will be used as a legal basis besides the relevant regulations of the labour law to handle such cases; or if the Employee handbook provides for the regimes lower than those stated in the CLA, in case of labour disputes the regulations in the CLA will prevail etc.
Moreover, only the regimes for the Employees as prescribed in the CLA are recognised as a deductible expense of the enterprise, and regulations in the Employee handbook will not be recognised as costs to be deducted from the CIT perspective.
For the above-mentioned reasons, the Employee handbook is just an internal document that an enterprise should have for the main purpose of serving corporate governance work and is not required to have from the legal perspective as opposed to the ILR and CLA of an enterprise. Therefore, the Employer should consider including the welfare policies into the CLA or both the CLA and the Employee handbook for consistency instead of only the Employee handbook to ensure their compliance and effectiveness of aforesaid benefit regimes according to the laws on tax and labour.
