[Series Part 3 | Understand Vietnam’s Salary Market] How to Leverage Salary Benchmark Data: Practical Steps to Turn It into a Compensation Strategy

Today we bring you the final installment of our three-part special series, “Understand Vietnam’s Salary Market.”
Drawing on findings from ICONIC’s latest Vietnam Salary Report 2025 (Detailed Edition) published on October 2, we have explored “the current state of the market” and “how to read salary information correctly” every Thursday.
In Part 1 we discussed the “quiet tectonic shifts” in Vietnam’s salary market, and in Part 2 we explained “how to think about benchmarks without being swayed by the numbers.”

In this final article, building on the “company axis” discussed in Part 2, we’ll organize the overall process of how to read salary data and how to use it—moving from reading to using data, and into the practical phase of connecting it to your compensation strategy.
To face salary data, interpret it correctly, and apply it well to your own compensation strategy, there are three essential lenses to keep in mind. Below, we walk through these three points in order.

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Point 1 | Which market should you compare against?

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When looking at salary data, the first check is: which market are you comparing against?

For manufacturing workers, it is often more important to compare by location than by industry. Not in every case, but commuting distance and the ease of hiring locally tend to drive hiring and retention more than prior knowledge or specialized experience. That’s why comparisons on a relatively narrow geographic axis—such as the same industrial park or nearby areas—frequently reflect on-the-ground reality better.

By contrast, for back-office/office roles—for example, Accounting, HR, General Affairs, and IT Admin—career moves can cross industries, and company shuttles are often available. Looking at the market across industries over a broader geographic axis tends to reflect reality more accurately.

In short, your axis for pay comparison should be determined not by the hiring company’s industry view but by how the talent pool actually moves. If you only look at a narrow data slice and conclude “we’re around market,” you may miss gaps with wider, more mobile talent pools—and risk losing strong performers to outside offers.

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Point 2 | Which external job level should you map your role to?

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Next, decide which job level in market data you should map each of your internal roles to.

Take “Sales Manager” as an example. Simply lining up “Sales Manager vs. Sales Manager” isn’t always appropriate. Even with the same title, the level of responsibility often varies by company.

In some cases, an employee may hold the title “Manager” but actually perform at a senior-staff level. If you compare such a role to the market’s “Manager,” you’ll naturally get “we pay low,” which can trigger number-driven pay negotiations and low satisfaction on both sides.

To avoid this, map roles by responsibility level, not title. Use “how much of a generally expected manager scope is fulfilled” as the reference, identify the specific areas where further growth is needed to reach the common standard, and connect that to a conversation where growth in role is linked with growth in compensation. This is a sound and constructive practice in day-to-day management.

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Point 3 | Reading the statistics correctly: P25 / P50 / P75

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Salary datasets commonly use percentile values such as P25, P50, and P75 to indicate positions within the overall distribution:

• P50: the most standard level (median)
  
  
• P75: a higher level (top 25%)
  
  
• P25: a restrained level (bottom 25%)
  
  

A key point: matching P50 does not automatically give you competitiveness. P50 means you stand in the same spot as a typical company. If you want an edge in hiring and retention, you’ll need to aim above P50 in a planned way.

Recently, more companies also make intentional use of levels very close to the upper/lower ends, such as P90 and P10—a particularly effective approach for SMEs.

For example, even if a role sits near P10, below the usual P25–P75 “bulk zone,” there’s not always a need to lift it up to P25 if the headcount is small and the current team is stably retained. Conversely, for a critical role with only one slot in the company—say, a Head-of-Department—intentionally lifting it toward P90 to strongly prevent turnover can be perfectly rational.

Large companies often find agile adjustment difficult, since raising one level can ripple across dozens or hundreds of employees. SMEs, however, can implement flexible, selective adjustments more quickly and turn that agility into a strength in compensation strategy.

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From reading to using salary data

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With the company axis defined in Part 2, if you now look at data through the three lenses below—

• Identifying which market segment to compare against
  
  
• Mapping internal roles to the right external job levels
  
  
• Understanding percentiles and setting target levels strategically
  
  

—you will avoid being distracted by strings of numbers and instead clarify “where we stand” and “where we aim to be.”

We hope this three-part series helps you treat Vietnam’s salary market not just as “numbers,” but as a strategy, leading to more confident HR decisions.
Thank you for reading.

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Resources & Seminar

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If you want to capture Vietnam’s salary levels accurately and use them for effective benchmarking, please check the latest data by industry × job family × level in the Vietnam Salary Statistics Report 2025 (Detailed Edition).