Millennials turnover retention of commercial function in nielsen vietnam

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UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
-------------------------

Tran Ngoc Quynh Anh

MILLENNIALS TURNOVER & RETENTION
OF COMMERCIAL FUNCTION
IN NIELSEN VIETNAM
MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)

Ho Chi Minh City – 2016


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UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
-------------------------

Tran Ngoc Quynh Anh

MILLENNIALS TURNOVER & RETENTION
OF COMMERCIAL FUNCTION
IN NIELSEN VIETNAM
ID: 22140002

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
SUPERVISOR: Nguyen Thi Mai Trang

Ho Chi Minh City – 2016


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Executive Summary
Employee’s turnover & retention has been a big concern for employer, which may impact very
much on the business performance time by time. While employer continues their search for
good talents in Generation X to fill the job openings that Baby Boomers leave vacant when
retiring from the workforce, it is the time for Millennials to enter the workforce, which value
different things from other generations. Therefore, this is the required action for employers to
understand and appreciate the qualities and values of this cohort in order to for them to be
loyalty with the company and for employee to retain them.
This is also the biggest concern of Nielsen Vietnam in general and Human Resources
department of Nielsen Vietnam in specific, when the Young Millennials is the big focus, the
big investment in Nielsen – the leading market research company in Vietnam.
This research will identify and outline the reasons why Millennials in Commercial Function of
Nielsen Vietnam decided to leave the company and what are the considerable reasons that they
decided to stay. Also, some of the proposed solutions and strategies have been build and
developed in order to retain Generation Y. The methodology used in the thesis is the
qualitative research design, which we use in depth interview with 8 respondents from 4 main
groups. Moreover, The secondary data of leavers, Millennials turnover analysis and insights
about the reasons of Millennials leaving, which were implemented by Human Resources in
Nielsen Vietnam will help to provide the overall picture of Millennials turnover commercial
function in Nielsen Vietnam and the solutions to solve the issue.


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Acknowledgments

Without the encouragement, guidance and support of Professor Nguyen Thi Mai Trang and
Professor Nguyen Dinh Tho, the entire master-level project would not be possible. I would like
to send my appreciation to my advisors. It has been a pleasure working with you on this
project.
I would like to thank my friends and family for greatly supporting me while I was working on
my research. Your patience, understanding and respect were greatly appreciated.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary....................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................................... 4
LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................................... 6
1.

INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................1
1.1. The Nielsen Company and Nielsen Vietnam...........................................................................................1
1.2. Nielsen Vietnam structure .......................................................................................................................2

2.

PROBLEM CONTEXT ...........................................................................................................................4
2.1. The Millennials status in the workforce ..................................................................................................4
2.2. The Millennials turnover status in the market research service industry ................................................8
2.3. The Millennials status of the Commercial function in Nielsen Vietnam ................................................9

3.

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION ............................................................................................................19
Factor of Work-life balance: ..................................................................................................................23
Factor of Compensation & Benefits: ......................................................................................................26
Factor of Engagement: ...........................................................................................................................27
Factor of Reaching career goal quickly:.................................................................................................29
Factor of Leadership style: .....................................................................................................................29
Cause-and-effect tree..............................................................................................................................31

4.

CAUSES OF THE PROBLEM ..............................................................................................................35

5.

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS .............................................................................................................36
5.1. The first alternative solution: Human Resources team to speed up the current recruitment process. ...37
5.2. The second alternative solution: The line managers assign or allocate the appropriate workload to
members in the team ............................................................................................................................40
5.3. The third alternative solution: Improve the Onboarding Program ........................................................42
5.4 The fourth alternative solution: Reorganize the time & task management training sessions .................46

6.

ORGANIZATION OF ACTIONS AND SUCCESS MEASUREMENT ..............................................50
6.1. Actions from the organization: ..............................................................................................................50
6.2. Success measurement after taking actions:............................................................................................54

7.

CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................55

8.

SUPPORTING INFORMATION ..........................................................................................................56

REFERENCE ...................................................................................................................................................86


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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Talent Acquisition Report updated in June 2016 ................................................................................. 10
Table 2. Recruitment - Referral from Existing employees & universities ......................................................... 11
Table 3. Analytics of Commercial function’s turnover rate ............................................................................... 15
Table 4. Analytics of tenure of existing millennials ........................................................................................... 16
Table 5. Analytics of tenure of Millennials leavers ............................................................................................ 17
Table 6. Exit Survey Report in 2015 – Commercial team .................................................................................. 22
Table 7. Exit Survey Report in 2015 – Commercial team ................................................................................. 22
Table 8. Recruitment Tracking Report .............................................................................................................. 38
Table 9. Recruitment cost per new hire ............................................................................................................. 40
Table 10. Training cost for line manager on obtaining the negotiation & allocation skills ............................... 42
Table 11. Tenure of existing millennials ............................................................................................................ 43
Table 12. Tenure of Millennials leavers ............................................................................................................ 44
Table 13. Training cost per new hire .................................................................................................................. 45
Table 14. Training Participation rate report ....................................................................................................... 46
Table 15. Training cost for time & task management per Commercial associate .............................................. 48
Table 16. Action Plan ......................................................................................................................................... 52
Table 17. Recruitment Expectation and Operation in Nielsen Vietnam............................................................. 54

LIST OF FIRGURES
Figure 1. Nielsen Vietnam structure ..................................................................................................................... 2
Figure 2. The U.S Labor Force by generation from 1995 to 2015 ....................................................................... 4
Figure 3. Millennials Believe in life at work ........................................................................................................ 6
Figure 4. What Work-Life Balance means to Millennials .................................................................................... 7
Figure 5. Nielsen Vietnam workforce by age & generation ............................................................................... 13
Figure 6. Nielsen Vietnam workforce by age & generation – Commercial Function ........................................ 14
Figure 7. Exit Interview Report in 2015 – Commercial Function ...................................................................... 20
Figure 8. Exit Interview Report in Q1&Q2, 2016 – Commercial Function ....................................................... 21
Figure 9: Cause and effect Tree .......................................................................................................................... 31


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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The Nielsen Company and Nielsen Vietnam
The Nielsen Company, operates as a market research agency, has more than 41,000 associates
and operates in more than 100 countries spread across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Middle
East, North America, South America and Russia. It is known as 93 years of non-stop
innovation company, with the first marketing research and performance survey was produced
in 1923 to the leading market research company in the world was announced nowadays. In
particular, Nielsen is the world’s leading provider of marketing information, audience
measurement and business media products and services, named number 1 of top 50 largest
market research films in the world.1 Nielsen’s passion and the very heart of the business are
once clients are eyeing in the next town or across countries; they understands the importance
of knowing what consumer watch and buy, in order to deliver critical media and marketing
information, analytics and industry expertise to clients. From that, they help clients maintain
and strengthen their market positions and identify opportunities for profitable growth. The
mission of Nielsen are to provide clients with the most complete understanding of consumers
and markets worldwide, never stops developing better solutions to help clients meet the need

of today’s consumers and find out where they are headed next.
Nielsen people lives for the values of the company, including: Open, Simple and Integrated. In
details, be open, in term of speaking candidly and authentically, sharing information freely,
being receptive to change and easily adapt, accepting and acting upon feedback without being
defensive. Be simple, in term of removing obstacles to complex problems, communicating in
plain and simple to understand language, resisting over analyzing information, simplifying and
taking work out of processes. Be Integrated, in term of building collaborative relationships
within own team and across businesses or geographies, challenging operating in a “siloed” or
insular manner and willingly developing, promoting, “export and import” talent from other
parts of Nielsen.
Established in 1993, Nielsen Vietnam has become the country’s leading provider of marketing
and consumer information, offering strong capabilities and local knowledge across qualitative,


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quantitative, media and retail measurement led by teams covering Fast Moving Consumer
Goods, Consumer Products, Automotive, Finance, Pharmaceuticals, Real Estate and Tourism,
Telecommunications, Industry and Manufacturing. Nielsen Vietnam has over 2,400 employees
and contractors in all 64 provinces; Ho Chi Minh City is the place where headquarter located.
Moreover, Nielsen Vietnam has 5 other representative offices, such as: Ha Noi, Hai Phong, Da
Nang, Nha Trang, Can Tho. Nielsen Vietnam has the in-house operations with around 1000
employees that help to deliver the operation excellence for the company’s business. People at
Nielsen Vietnam mentioned a lot about the Nielsen experience, including: “I can be myself”, “I
can make differences” and “I can grow with Nielsen”, which encourage them to work and
continue contributing to the company.
1.2. Nielsen Vietnam structure

Figure 1. Nielsen Vietnam structure
(Source: Nielsen Vietnam Human Resources)

In Nielsen Vietnam, there are 3 main functions, such as: Commercial, Operations and Core
Functions.

In Core Functions, there are some different teams like: Finance, Information

technology, Human Resources and Marketing & Communication, which indirectly support for


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the demand of the business. Each department goes with different operation methods, but aligns
with the main objectives and strategies of the company. In Commercial and Operations, the
structure is divided based on the services that Nielsen is offering, including: Retail
Measurement Service and Consumer Insights. And the Operation team (Production) supports
for Commercial team (Sales) to bring the valuable contracts to the company.
This thesis focuses on the research of the Commercial function, which has the responsibility to
bring the revenue directly to the company. In the Commercial role at Nielsen Vietnam, they
are the ones who make the selling, marketing, researching and consulting job when working
with clients. Therefore, it is easy to say that they are valuable assets and play key roles in the
company and their contributions are extremely important in Nielsen business’ growth.
So what is the meaning behind their work to make them so valuable and important to the
company? The consumer’s world today is vast and interconnected. Every time consumers
glance at the TV, computer, mobile phone or tablet, every time they enter stores, they are
generating thousands of data points. Over time, these data points tell a story, which is about
what influences consumers to make a purchase or consume content, and it is enough to create a
market of potentially loyal consumers of the products or content. And Nielsen people’s main
role is to make something of that data, such as to organize it in a way that is usable, practical
and meaningful for our clients. And information is the number one input to decision making
and it is the fuel for growth, the leading ingredient needed to uncover unmet need and deliver
against it. Therefore, those who are able to pass the recruitment round and join in Commercial

team of Nielsen Vietnam need to have some specific skillsets and requirements, which are so
rare in the market, in order to deliver the best insightful information to the clients. They
influence the marketing and sales decision of the clients, they are involved in planning period,
launching period, and execution period of the clients to make sure that the provided
information or consulting works well and bring the revenue back to the clients. Moreover, the
market research major is not popular in Vietnam and this subject is not well educated in
Universities Vietnam, so it is very hard to recruit the right people to Nielsen in general, to the
Commercial team in particular. Therefore, it is even harder to retain them in Nielsen as they
understand clearly and get into the business of the clients, they have the unique knowledge


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about the Vietnamese market, and they own the awesome skillset that not many people in
Vietnam workforce luckily have, that’s why Nielsen Vietnam needs to focus on people
retention strategy in order to keep the talents staying and developing at Nielsen Vietnam. They
are such incredible assets of Nielsen in general and Nielsen Vietnam in specific.
2. PROBLEM CONTEXT
2.1. The Millennials status in the workforce
The Millennials generally refers to the generation of people born during 1980s to arowund
2000; they are also known as the generation Y, as they come after the Generation X (born from
the early 1960s to mid 1970).2 Millennials have been entering the employment in vast numbers
and have become the key group of employee in the workplace. The Bureau of Labor Statistics
stated that Millennials will be the largest generation in the workforce by the end of 2015.3 In
particular, when the clock clicks 2015, three of four workers across the globe will be from the
generation Y.4 Moreover, the Pew Research Center3 showed the U.S Labor Force by
generation from 1995 to 2015 in the below chart, which provides the strong evident that
Millennials have now surpassed Generation X to become the largest generation in the
workforce and really matters to the workforce nowadays.

Figure 2. The U.S Labor Force by generation from 1995 to 2015
(Source: Pew Research Data)


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Mrs. Nguyen Huong Quynh - Managing Director of Nielsen Vietnam has reported in the
Youth Campaign about the Millennials generation:
The Millennials generation accounts for 24% of the global population, as well as Millennials in Vietnam
accounts for 30% of the current population.
Moreover, the current status has been kept in the next 10 years based on the Demographical
fragmentation in Vietnam. In 2010, the biggest group of age was from 15-29, which is under Y
generation and it is anticipated to move this biggest group to 25-39, which is also under Y generation.

Millennials came onto the scene after generation X and instead of unstable home life that many
people belong to generation X experienced, Millennials had parents who focus on giving them
structure through planned activities and constant encouragement.5 Millennials generation was
born into an economic boom and graduated into a major bust, they are the most educated and
technologically savvy generation ever and arguably a highly sheltered and structured
generation.4 Even Millennials is the youngest generation in the current work force, they have
been successfully initiating change across the globe for years.6 They are a diverse generation
with an open mind and acceptance for differences in race, gender, ethnicity, and sexual
orientation.7 According to Bartley et al.8 Millennials can multitask, they acknowledge the
priorities, as well as want a relationship with their boss, especially they want to be challenged
to prove themselves to others.
Sujansky et al9 stated that Generation Y bring new perspective, new style to the workforce, but
if organization are not willing to adapt, the risk losing billions of dollars to unwanted turnover
and lost productivity. The expectation of the employers on previous generations, who are
willing to work long hours so as to complete the assignment or get the job done, needs to be
adjusted once they start recruiting new generation to the organization. For the generation Y,

they have different outlooks on work-life balance, which forces employers to look at back the
recruitment strategy, redesign the expectations when recruiting this generation. For
Millennials, work-life balance may even mean more than salary.9 Deloitte5 reported that when
it comes as the future career opportunity, Millennials attach the most importance to a good
work-life balance.


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Figure 3. Millennials Believe in life at work
(Source: Deloitte)
In addition to other criticisms, previous generations said that Millennials seem unwilling to
work hard, they try to find the way to enjoy their personal life more than the professional life,
which annoy Baby Boomers and Generation X a lot.11 However, to Millennials, the term of
“work-life balance” does not mean the same thing as that defined from previous generations,
so what work-life balance means to Millennials? Henrik Bresman11 found that Millennials
drive for work-life balance, but this clearly means work-me balance, not work-family balance.
In general, three strongest factors are suitable to define was “enough leisure time for private
life” (57%), followed by “flexible working hours” (45%) and “recognition and respect for
employees” (45%).


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Figure 4. What Work-Life Balance means to Millennials
(Source: HRR.ORG)
With the same perspective, Myers et al.5 stated that Millennials confirms that work-life balance
is a high priority for them and they score higher on the importance of leisure time than Baby
Boomers. From that, it is easy for people to conclude that Millennials as selfish or as the
generation showing low dedication or commitment to the company and sometimes they have

the stereotype of lazy and wasters.
However, from a different perspective, De Hauw et al.12 stated that, although they value worklife balance, they would put extra time and effort to work when needed, they will shorten their
social time at work such as breaks, in order to ensure the company succeeds. For this
generation, they would like to have work life integration, they would like to bring their
personal life into their work life, they have trend to share, to talk and get advices from people
at work. If any company can provide them that kind of environment, they can work even more
than the work expectations.
In addition, Baby boomers generation or generations X is leaving the workforce increasingly.
In order to make sure that the business runs smoothly, organization need to find and get into
the current workforce so it is required for all organizations not only to understand this


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generation, understand their thoughts, their philosophy, their values, but also adapt their
cultures, their work styles.
2.2. The Millennials turnover status in the market research service industry
The turnover status of market research companies has not been revealed due to the security of
the company and it as well may impact to the general business of the company. However,
based on some of the opened speeches from representatives of some market research
companies and market research department of the company, it is not really a big issue for them
to handle at this stage as it is not the high priority, based on the facts of their companies.
However, this should be a big warning for Nielsen as the situation is not that good, compared
to other companies in the same industry.
Mrs. Nguyet Vo, Human Resources manager of Nielsen Vietnam stated the fact that:
When I joined the Human Resources committee or club outside and Human Resources member from
the market industry openly shared that in market research industry, Millennials have trend to stay in two
years and a half to three years in the current company. Generation Y employees have high expectations
for being trained well, and they feel that this is a very important part of their experience

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and they will

leave when they think that they have learnt enough. Also, for local companies, Millennials in those
companies have trend to stay longer as there are no significant differences between staying in the
current companies and moving to another place, in term of skillset, experience and salary package. In
service industry in general and in market research in particular, Millennials stay with the current
company average around 2 years and a half or 3 years before moving to another organization.

Mrs. Ha Ho from Human Resource manager of TNS Vietnam, which is a market research
agency, made a speech in the Vietnam Human Resources Group sharing session in March
2016 with the topic of the Millennials Career Orientation. She stated that:
The Millennials generation generally has trend to leave the company in around 3 years and this trend is
applied exactly the same in TNS, just some special cases that they decided to leave after 2 year working
due to further education. Moreover, Millennials generation focuses not only on their professional life,
but also on their personal life more than that in the previous generations, they will do something that
make them happy than simply earn the money.

Joining the discussion, Mr. Pham Binh Duong - Human Resources Business Partner from
Epinion - another market research company, raised his voice about the agreement on this
perspective. Moreover, he stated that “many sharing and training sessions for Millennials with


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the topic relating to the work and time management were conducted to ensure the work-life
balance, which impact very much on the leaving trend of the generation Y”. He shared
verbally about the trend at work of millennial in general and in Epinion in specific.
Millennials from operation department have trend to stay with the company for long run due to the

nature of job, but Millennials from sales department have trend to leave earlier, they leave after two
years and a half working in the agency. Some of the key reasons that generation Y decided to leave the
company, including: getting another job offer with higher salary, the leadership from the manager, and
would like to get faster promotion. The Epinion always shared them some of the opportunities if they
stay, but once the motivation is too big, they decided to leave without careful consideration. However,
the percentage of Millennials leaving Epinion is not too much, so it is not the big issue of the company
at this stage.

Sharing the same perspective, Human resources from some companies stated that it is not a big
issue in the research department of their companies, the turner of staying is around three years
and a half, which is not critical. 83% Millennials in the company raised their voice in the
annual survey that they are happy with the current job and not yet have intention to leave the
job. Even the signal is quite good, but they always take care millennial very carefully to make
sure that nothing bad comes unexpectedly.
2.3. The Millennials status of the Commercial function in Nielsen Vietnam
The market research major is not popular in Vietnam, this subject is not well educated in
Universities in Vietnam and this industry is so new in Vietnam as well. That’s the reason why
Nielsen Vietnam could not recruit local experienced associates due to the quality of the
candidates, they need to recruit those who get well trained or well educated in market research
field from many other sources and channels. They are workers who have worked abroad in the
market research agencies or those who have worked in the research department of companies,
or they even are expatriates who have studied and worked in the market research field. The
quality of the candidates from this source is quite good, but the number of candidates was not
many, and Nielsen Vietnam needs to pay them with big package if really want to get them in
the team.
From that, the recruitment strategy of Nielsen Vietnam needs to be changed in order to meet the
business requirement. They invest in young people, who studied abroad with the market


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research major or those have just graduated from universities with some of the relevant majors
which meet Nielsen’s requirements, including: Marketing, Finance, Accounting, Math &
Statistics, Audit, ect and welcome for those who are really interest in the market research field
and keen on becoming the researcher in the long run.
Based on the talent acquisition report and analysis from Nielsen Vietnam, the percentage of
qualified candidates that Nielsen can get from referral channel was 25% above total qualified
candidates in 2013, 21% in 2014, 22% in 2015 and 26% for the annualized 2016.
Table 1. Talent Acquisition Report updated in June 2016

(Source: Nielsen Vietnam Human Resources)
The referral is counted not only from the recommendations of universities abroad, but also
from the recommendations of existing employees whom their friends has the same interest in
market research field. In order to get many recommendations from the universities abroad and
the existing employees, it takes Nielsen Vietnam such a long time to build up the strong
foundation, get the belief from representatives of universities abroad and current employees.
For foreign universities, Nielsen Vietnam signs off the cooperation agreement, in term of
partly making sure the output of those universities, recruiters get their students in the first
round and treat their students as the priority. Representatives from universities support to pick
the suitable applications from both current students & alumni, and then transfer to Nielsen
Vietnam for further steps. For current employees, Nielsen Vietnam launched the Employee


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referral programs in order to create the motivation for existing employees to share and rush in
referrals. Employee referral is one of the proven sources of high-quality talent and a key pillar
in the attraction strategy. Employee referrals also deliver a host of many other benefits
including reduced cost-of-hire as well as retention of both new hire and referral. Around 80%
employees of commercial function are Millennials, so they have trend to recommend the

friends in their networks, who are very young, active and dynamic. In general, around 80% of
people joining Nielsen by referral channels are Millennials. In particular, the table was
provided by Human Resources team of Nielsen Vietnam shows 84% qualified employees were
millennial in 2013, 86% in 2014, 90% in 2015, 87% annualized in 2016, over total referral.
Table 2. Recruitment - Referral from Existing employees & universities

(Source: Nielsen Vietnam Human Resources)
Moreover, Nielsen Vietnam with the traineeship program opens for fresh graduate, temporary
joining Nielsen Vietnam in six months. During that period of time, they will have chance to be
trained about market research process, to receive the sharing from line managers, senior leaders
about the career orientation, to be coached about how to work in an international working
environment, to be educated on how to work effectively. Also, during six month, they need to
perform excellence, work under pressures, overcome the challenges in order to meet the


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requirements that Nielsen Vietnam set before the program starts. Moreover, the traineeship
gives them chances to see if they really fit in market research industry or not. After 6 months, if
they really see that market research should be their future career orientation and they perform
excellence based on the manager’s evaluation, they will be converted into Full time employee.
This practice has worked well in Nielsen Vietnam for 5 years now and the number of trainees
has been converted into Full time employees were very high. The conversion percentage in
2013 was 80%, with 64 qualified trainees over 80 trainees in total, in 2014 was 79%, with 66
qualified trainees over 84 trainees in total, in 2015 was 82% with 68 qualified trainees over 83
trainees after 6-month traineeship program. In 2016, the number has been increasing, after the
first half of the year, the number of trainees got converted were 42 trainees over 92 current
trainees, which is very potential for the year of 2016. From that, the talent acquisition report
and analysis from Nielsen Vietnam once again reflects it very clearly, the percentage of
qualified candidates that Nielsen can get from conversion was 35% above total qualified

candidates in 2013, 34% in 2014, 37% in 2015 and 40% for the annualized 2016. It is easy to
conclude that 100% conversion cases were Millennials.
The reports provided by the Human Resources of Nielsen Vietnam, together with the above
analysis strongly answer for the question why most of the people in Commercial team of
Nielsen Vietnam are from Generation Y. Total number of employees of Nielsen Vietnam,
which was updated in June 2016 is 2,425 employees. From that, when look into the data in
details, 84.70% employees are Millennials, 14.60% employees are from generation X and
0.70% employees are from Baby Boomer generation. From that, we can see the biggest
workforce of Nielsen Vietnam is from Generation X, which plays an important role in Nielsen
Vietnam in general. They contribute mainly for the success of both Commercial function and
Operations team with the new working style, new working perspective and new ideas. From
that, it is promising that Nielsen will gain the new achievements in the future, if the
management of the company gets along well with the new generation, understand them and
address strongly to the values that generation Y follows.


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Figure 5. Nielsen Vietnam workforce by age & generation
(Source: Nielsen Vietnam Human Resources)
Moreover, as mentioned, people in the commercial function are valuable assets of Nielsen
Vietnam, so the below data points need to be looked into carefully by the management in order
not to miss any important and insightful information for further action. The figure 5 provided
by Human resources of Nielsen Vietnam shows us the majority of the workforce in Commercial
team is generation Y. In particular, among 727 employees of Commercial function, which was
updated in 2016, 579 employees are Millennials, account for 80% over Commercial function
employees. Based on the population information of Nielsen Vietnam in general and commercial
function, it is easy to conclude that Nielsen Vietnam is a young, dynamic and active generation.
Getting to know about them is the critical and required actions that Nielsen Vietnam
management needs to take, in order to make sure that the business runs smoothly and gain the

great achievements in the future and in the long run.


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Figure 6. Nielsen Vietnam workforce by age & generation – Commercial Function
(Source: Nielsen Vietnam Human Resources)
However, the point is that from the secondary data, in the last three years and first half of 2016,
the percentage of leavers in commercial team of Nielsen Vietnam has been increasing and as
the result, the majority of leavers are Millennials. Firstly, when looking into the turnover rate of
total Nielsen Vietnam, the overall percentage is quite competitive in the market research
market, even the number of leavers in commercials team was many. The reason is that the
number of Operation team is huge, which is more than one thousand associates, accounts for
70% of the total employees of Nielsen Vietnam, also the number of people leaving operations
was not many. Therefore, the denominator of total employees can cover partly for the
numerator of the Commercial leavers. In specific, the turnover rate of Nielsen Vietnam from
2013 to annualized 2016 was pretty stable, with 21.92% in the year of 2013, 13.07% in 2014,
13.34% in 2015 and 17.58% annualized in 2016. However, when looking deeply into the
turnover rate of Commercial functions over the total turnover rate of Nielsen Vietnam is high.


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Specifically, turnover rate of commercial function was 63.02% in 2013, 52.56% in 2014,
67.42% in 2015 and 69.01% annualized 2016. This trend marks the urgent signals to
management board of Nielsen Vietnam to take the required action right now, if this trend
continues, the business will be in the big trouble.
Table 3. Analytics of Commercial function’s turnover rate

(Source: Nielsen Vietnam Human Resources)

More seriously, as a result, the percentage of Millennials leavers was significant high than
expected. Particularly, 93.01% over total leavers in commercial functions were Millennials in
2013, 88.08% in 2014, 94.12% in 2015 and 95.23% annualized in 2016. It is so dangerous as
from one side, the human resources recruiter tried to get people, especially generation Y in the
team, which follows the recruitment strategy was released. However, from another side, they
consecutively resigned and decided to leave the company. From that, it causes the big trouble to
Nielsen Vietnam, if they do not really look into the data, get the insights and solve the issues
right away.


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Moreover, doing the deep analysis on the average length of stay, or people can call it as
“Tenure”, it reflects the issues even more serious than estimated. Firstly, when looking into the
data of Existing Millennials, tenure with Nielsen Vietnam in general is more than 3 years and a
half throughout 4 years (from 2013 to June, 2016), which looks quite good and stable for
generation Y in Nielsen Vietnam. Once again, the operation team did support to rescue the
overall situation of Nielsen Vietnam. However, by looking at the information of commercial
function, the number of years staying with Nielsen Vietnam of commercial Millennial has been
decreasing and has a big gap when comparing with the overall tenure with Nielsen Vietnam.
Table 4. Analytics of tenure of existing millennials

(Source: Nielsen Vietnam Human Resources)
Secondly, when looking into the data of Millennials leavers, the tenure with Nielsen Vietnam
was more than 2 years. In particular, the tenure with Nielsen of Millennials leavers was 2 years
and 5 months in 2013, 2 years and 7 months in 2014, 2 years and 6 months in 2015 and 2 years
and 6 month annualized in 2016. From these data points, it is pretty fine and acceptable,
compared with the research about the millennial turnover in the market and in the market
research industry and sharing from senior leaders and experts in Human resources in the
Millennials turnover status in the market research service industry part as above. However, it

should be an issue when looking into the data points of commercial millennial leavers, the


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tenure with Nielsen of Millennials leavers was 2 years in 2013, 1 year and 11 months in 2014, 1
year and 6 months in 2015, and 1 year and 6 months annualized 2016. It is far from the number
which reflected the market information (2 years and a half), so it is urgent and required action
that Nielsen Vietnam board of management needs to reflect, take care and give the suitable
solution to make sure that Nielsen Vietnam recruits the right people and knows how to retain
them in the company.
Table 5. Analytics of tenure of Millennials leavers

(Source: Nielsen Vietnam Human Resources)
The Millennials turnover is high, so the remaining people not only cover the current workload
of the leavers; but also work on the new projects to try to keep the revenue green. Due to that
reason, they firstly could not balance their work and life.
The security of Nielsen Vietnam said that: “They are usually on phone with clients even very
late at night or very early in the morning; Moreover, they often stay at the office until the
midnight to complete the request of the clients, which delivered to client immediately.”
Besides that, they could not arrange time to join in any engagement activities of the company
because they think they need to focus on the more important thing and they feel like the activity


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is not relevant to them. The evidence is that 80% members of Commercial team did not join in
the engagement activities based on the tracking of the event organizers of Nielsen Vietnam.
Due to that situation, they feel like they are not engaged with the company
Moreover, they were lack of engagement with managers and caring from managers. In this

tough situation, all members, including managers have mainly focused on the operations, the
clients, revenue and really don’t care about the experience of associates in the team. They had
less time to interact with each other. At Nielsen, we have Check In session occurred quarterly.
In that session, manager and associates need to sit together and talk about the performance an
experience at Nielsen and will be tracked in the MyCareer system. However, the system shows
that 79% (in quarter 3 of 2015), 83% (in quarter 4 of 2015) and 82% (in the quarter 1 of 2016)
of Check In sessions haven’t organized.
And finally, they feel like they are paid unfair. They have worked so hard and contributed their
time and efforts into the current works, and even cover for the other’s job when the team lacks
of human resources. They perform much excess than the pay that they get and they feel unfair
at that time. Ms. Quyen – Human Resources Senior Executive, in charge of Compensation &
Benefit function, said that they compare the real income that they receive and the salary that
other companies pay and compare the workload among many companies and decided to leave
Nielsen.
From those factors, they have trend to leave the company, even active or passive, which
impacts on the company’s cost and impacts very much on the company’s business (lost many
talents). Moreover, they are the top talented researchers in Vietnam, so if they move to work
for the competitors, the Nielsen’s leading position in the market research field won’t be
guaranteed.
One more important point, even though commercial employees have put effort to keep the
revenue green, the revenue in Quarter 2 and 3 of 2015 and quarter 1 of 2016 has not yet been
optimistic as lack of resources and lack of working spirit. In the Townhall, Mr. Warren
Fanendes from Consumer Insights Associate Director of Nielsen Vietnam said that this
situation is very challenging for commercial function - Consumer Insights team; it will be such
huge efforts from all the remaining people who have stayed in the team and keep contributing.


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The team really needs the great support from the existing people who help to push the projects

not to be delayed, as some of the projects have been delayed in around 1 week, which impact
very much on the Nielsen Vietnam’s reputation.
In that situation, the management decided to look for solutions to make the organization
operate more efficiently and achieve financial targets. In order to obtain that target, we need to
deeply understand about the Millennials management and development. However, first of all,
we need to explore about the reasons why Millennials leave the company, what are the pain
points, why Millennials stay in the company, what are the good points and enhance the level of
organization retention in Nielsen Vietnam.
Based on the above discussion, this study focuses on Millennials, look for leaving reasons,
solutions and prove them efficient in applying into Nielsen Vietnam problem.
This study approach utilized the qualitative method including secondary data from Finance and
Human Resource Department and in-depth interviews from different groups of respondent,
such as: senior leaders or Millennials who are currently working for the company, Millennials
who already left, Millennials who returned to work for the company after leaving duration and
Millennials who intend to leave Nielsen, but then decided to stay.
3. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
Based on the data points provided by Human Resources of Nielsen Vietnam, the exit
interviews and exit survey reports show clearly about the key reasons why people were leaving
Nielsen Vietnam. The exit interviews were conducted by Human Resources Business Partner
of each Business Unit once any employee decided to leave Nielsen Vietnam. At the same time,
the compulsory exit surveys from the system would be sent to employees who were going to
leave Nielsen Vietnam in order to ask them about their decision to leave and their experience
working at Nielsen Vietnam. The survey, which was conducted by the third party-CLC Human
Resources, will help on improving the experience of the employees at Nielsen Vietnam
onward. No data points would be provided back to Nielsen Viet Nam in order to ensure full
confidentiality; it is used to support for the Nielsen Experience analytics only. That’s the
reason why people would be more honest and candid in their response.