Factors affecting the attraction of high-quality teaching staff at non-public universities in Ho Chi Minh city (Vietnam)

• 1.    Some basic concepts

  • -    Human resources of university lecturers: According to the Law on Education 2005 (Article 70), teachers (who are in charge of teaching in schools and other educational institutions) who teach at higher education institutions are called lecturers. Educational institutions that are so-called higher education institutions are regulated in Law on Higher Education 2012 [9] [10].

The human resource of university lecturers is a combination of factors in terms of quantity, quality, and structure of faculty development of universities both in the present and in the future to create long-term development [4]. From the above approach, it can be said that the human resources of lecturers are a combination of factors in terms of quantity, quality, and structure of faculty development both in the present and in the potential future of higher education institutions.

• -    Attracting human resources of lecturers: Attracting is to pull to or draw all the attention toward oneself. For example, an issue with strong attraction means that it holds people’s interest. Similarly, an attractive movement will be joined by a large number of people. Therefore, attracting is to draw by appeal to the natural interest of others. [3]. Attracting lecturers is recruiting lecturers to a higher education institution and making a difference in the policy on personnel at the training institution. Thanks to that, it will create appeal to retain current lecturers and draw more lecturers’ participation outside. Thus, attracting lecturers is a recruitment process that requires preparation and an investment of time and effort. Its essence is to create exciting things for many excellent and qualified lecturers to work in schools. Thanks to that, universities have more options. Hence, attracting certified lecturers is not merely recruitment but also guidelines and policies of higher education institutions.

• -    Non-public universities: are higher education institutions of the national education system established and invested in building material facilities by social organizations, socio-professional organizations, economic organizations, or individuals. Besides, they can ensure operating expenses with capital outside the state budget. They operate on the principle of voluntary capital contribution and financial autonomy. Their training activities are under the law. Finally, they balance their revenues and expenditures, comply with regulations on accounting regimes, and fulfill obligations to the state budget [8].

• 2.    Factors affecting the attraction of high-quality teaching staff

People always have needs and act according to them, so meeting their needs will govern and decide their actions. Therefore, to attract human resources in general, employers need to implement policies that meet the demands of first-class lecturers, as follow:

• -    Firstly, it’s about developing and promoting policies to attract human resources. These are the most vital factors affecting the maintenance and development of an organization’s human resources. It is necessary to develop policies, such as recruitment policy, salary policy, compensation, and science and technology policy. The benefits they bring are an important basis for creating competitive advantages among organizations regarding human resources. Besides, promoting these policies to the labor market has a significant impact.

Many organizations have good policies, but promoting those policies to people they would like to recruit is limited. As a result, potential candidates cannot or are challenging to get the needful information to apply for jobs. In short, developing policies and promoting them to attract potential candidates are two tasks that need to be completed simultaneously. Issuing attractive policies accompanying propagating sufficient information to the labor market will create a special motivation for employees, helping them gain information and participate in the organization.

• -    Secondly, it’s about recruiting and using high-quality lecturers. The recruitment of lecturers is considered an obligatory step in human resource management because it has a special meaning and determines the quality of lecturers in any educational institution. Choosing worthy, qualified, and specialized lecturers is a decisive factor in the smooth operation of the training institutions. If there is a shortage of human resources, there will be a lack of important people to operate efficiently. Therefore, to have a stable quality of human resources, recruitment needs to be changed. The most important thing is that a recruitment team must have actual competence, good qualities, and guaranteed professional skills. In addition, the recruitment must be based on job requirements and ensure a balance in the needs of the subjects and faculties. Using excellent lecturers is a process that includes arranging lecturers in suitable job positions to maximize the existing capacity and professional capabilities, rotating, promoting, evaluating, and rewarding. Thus, using the first-class faculty appropriately plays an indispensable role in effectively maintaining current human resources.

• -    Thirdly, it’s about compensation and work motivation. According to Blaskova et al. (2014), wages affect the recruitment and retention of employees, so it plays a significant role in personnel management [1]. Lecturers are often rewarded under quality-based performance appraisals. They tend to stick with schools if they know that their abilities, efforts, and contributions are recognized and appreciated. If schools fail to achieve the above, lecturers’ performance will deteriorate, and some may leave their jobs. Thus, pay is a crucial factor in determining work motivation. However, salary is known as one of the job outcomes and is often measured with low accuracy. Besides focusing on salary, bonus, and profit, other higher values that their work creates to support their lives, such as flexible work arrangements and reasonable working hours, are principal. These elements are considered the benefits beyond salary and the critical “spiritual rewards” that create satisfaction with salary.

• -    Fourthly, it’s creating the working environment and conditions. Recognition of the individual’s importance to the organization is the most indispensable factor influencing the commitment of accomplished teaching staff. For some instructors, personal priorities or situations will make the difference, making them determined to leave or continue to work. They will stick with an institution if the Head of that institution considers and cares about their career priorities (following each life stage), policies on health, recreation, location, family, the status of their spouses working in the same unit, and other personal needs. Besides, if they believe in a healthy and fair work environment, in which they are treated with their characteristics as members of a family and a cell of society, they will stick and devote more to that unit. Moreover, working conditions, environment, and facilities have a significant influence on each person’s consciousness. Specifically, working conditions strongly impact the process and work efficiency of high-quality teaching staff. Lastly, facilities and equipment for teaching also significantly affect the work efficiency of lecturers and schools.

• -    Lastly, it’s professional training and development. Industry 4.0 puts requirements on changes to improve labor resources’ quality and education (Vuong Hoai Minh et al., 2020), so training and people development are considered important parts of human resource management [7]. According to Vo Thi Bich Diem (2014), the team of lecturers and administrators is a decisive factor in education and training. It’s needful for all ministries and ministerial-level agencies to support education and training, especially providing funding to improve lecturers’ qualifications and re-train those who don’t meet standards [2]. Employers must assign lecturers challenging tasks in a high-performance environment and specify implementation methods and outputs they must achieve, which helps them reach their personal goals. Professional development is a function that can be used to create more challenges for first-rate teaching staff. This technique allows them to stick with the working place for a long time

• 3.    Solutions attracting high-quality lecturers at non-public universities in Ho Chi Minh City

and possess leadership potential if moving from the field they have reached desired aims to another they have no experience.

The above analysis shows that the development of talented teaching staff increases and changes in a positive direction in terms of quantity, quality, and structure. Therefore, it is imperative to give solutions that attract high-quality lecturers to fulfill education and training goals at non-public universities in Ho Chi Minh City.

• -    Firstly, it’s developing and promoting policies to attract high-quality lecturers. Higher education institutions shall develop pilot policies that emphasize scientists and first-class lecturers in association with the quantity and quality of output products. In particular, when formulating policies, it is indispensable to clearly define standards, lecturers, and scientists associated with international integration such as doctoral degrees, foreign language proficiency in teaching and scientific research, having international publication, and international cooperation.

Besides developing policies, universities need to promote policies to society. To complement this task effectively, they shall pay attention to the following points. To begin with, they need to change the mindset of the staff in charge of creating and implementing policies. Accordingly, it is imperative to consider the promotion and advertising activities affecting the success and effectiveness of the issued policies. In addition, they must make better use of their position and relationships to announce these policies more widely. Moreover, it is necessary to take advantage of scientific and technological achievements and the media to disseminate and transmit the issued policies. Lastly, non-public universities in Ho Chi Minh City can rely on the teaching staff working or have worked at the unit to promote their policies to attract human resources.

• -    Secondly, it’s completing the recruitment of excellent lecturers. Recruitment is a crucial step in building a team of accomplished lecturers who can achieve the goals of higher education institutions. To perform this task well, it is needful to complete the following major solutions:

+ First and foremost, schools shall assess the current status of the teaching staff before recruiting, allowing managers to have a better understanding of the team’s number, quality, and structure. Based on that information, they will determine the need for human resources in the upcoming period and conduct a recruitment process. In addition, following the recruitment process and principles strictly is important. Before recruiting, schools must build a plan, and the implementation process must follow that plan in terms of time and method. The recruiting process must be done through a recruitment board. Universities shall avoid the situation that the Head makes all decisions and shall follow the principles of democracy, openness, and fairness for all candidates.

+ Besides, schools shall enhance the capacity of the staff performing recruitment. To conduct recruitment seriously and select excellent people, the recruitment team must have the capacity and qualifications to organize in a specialized manner. At the same time, they must have good moral character and always put the school’s interests first. These factors play a key role in recruitment. Therefore, it is crucial to strengthen the quality of educational administrators to build a team of lecturers with high quality, good expertise, pure ethics, and dedication to the profession. Moreover, schools can fulfill this task in many different forms, such as recruitment interviews, entrance exams, and admission for each type of candidate. However, they shall depend on the actual conditions to choose the appropriate form of recruitment.

• -    Thirdly, it’s evaluating, rewarding, and disciplining high-quality teaching staff objectively, publicly, and transparently. Evaluating first-rate lecturers, helping us know their capacity, qualifications, and ethical qualities, is

known as the basis for arranging, employing, appointing, promoting, training, cultivating, and implementing policies. It’s also a complex and challenging activity. Therefore, managers shall know how to evaluate so that teachers can consider it a motivation to strive. Currently, assessing should be carried out on three main aspects: teaching, scientific research, and results of participation in social activities. To fully implement these contents, higher education institutions shall develop specific regulations on assessing lecturers. They must provide objective and scientific evaluation parameters to reflect the capacity and quality of good teaching staff. Besides, the criteria must be suitable for each object. The regulations should specify the form and method of conducting the assessment. Changing the evaluation form by majority vote with other evaluation forms is vital, ensuring comprehensive and multi-dimensional information about the evaluated people. The most effective form of assessment is to develop a self-assessment of the lecturers divided by points corresponding to specific contents, helping them see the fairness in the assessment work.

• -    Lastly, it’s increasing the efficiency of training activities and professional development for excellent teaching staff. Higher education institutions need to enhance the efficiency of training, cultivating, and professional development for accomplished lecturers. In the future, private universities shall actively strengthen exchanges and expand international and domestic cooperation in many fields to learn experiences. At the same time, they should create conditions for first-class lecturers to access advanced and modern education in the world. It is vital for non-public universities in Ho Chi Minh City to send high-quality lecturers to other countries for short-term and long-term study and training, helping them enhance skills and expertise and acquire new teaching methods. Thanks to that, they can select and apply the best method in Vietnam, especially in teaching at the unit they are working in.

• 4.    Conclusion

To sum up, attracting is to create exciting things for many excellent and high-quality lecturers to work and teach at higher education universities. This task is not only recruitment but also long-term guidelines and policies of private universities. To effectively attract accomplished lecturers, non-public universities in Ho Chi Minh City need to implement the above solutions synchronously. In particular, they shall focus on methods to improve the working environment and conditions and complete the salary policy and compensation for first-class lecturers.