Human resources are the key factor determining a company’s sustainable development. Strong enterprises typically possess high-quality staffs who work proactively due to transparent and fair compensation policies. In recent years, support for struggling companies has mostly relied on manpower and financial assistance from stronger units, but this approach is only temporary and lacks sustainability. Once the supporting teams withdraw, improvements become difficult to maintain, and there is still no appropriate incentive mechanism for either the supporting units or the weaker businesses to sustain the progress achieved.
In 2026, a performance gap will emerge as companies that have just overcome the 2023–2024 crisis lack mechanisms to sustain their growth momentum. Even in well-performing enterprises, evaluation and compensation policies are still not systematically developed, relying mostly on ad-hoc decisions and labor-market pressure, while limited financial resources make it impossible to design broad-based incentive programs. A sustainable solution is to establish a clear task-assignment system and KPIs for key managers and all specialists, forming the foundation for performance-based compensation. For weaker enterprises, KPIs help identify deficiencies, guide targeted support from the Group, and the most important is create motivation for internal capabilities to develop and strengthen themselves.
This article will not discuss the theories behind building KPIs but will focus on introducing and suggesting a practical implementation method for enterprises in 2026.
Input for developing KPIs for key management staff
Currently, an enterprise’s annual business plan mainly focuses on overall indicators such as revenue, profit, dividends, workforce, average salary, and major investments, with some additional specific metrics in certain cases. This approach is simple and aligns with shareholder objectives but does not clearly assign responsibility to individual leaders or middle managers. The indicators are mostly lagging in nature, lacking early warning capability and failing to pinpoint areas where tasks are not completed. As a result, the plan reflects only the company-wide goals without clarifying the specific contributions expected from everyone.
After 3 years of operation of the Yarn and Garment Business Units, many leading indicators have been established, enabling these Units to assign monthly tasks to enterprises and specific groups of management staff. This forms an important foundation for building a KPI system for managers from the mid-level upward. The inputs for KPIs cannot be a single overarching goal for all management levels; instead, the company’s overall (lagging) indicators must be broken down into more specific tasks based on leading indicators. The responsibility for this target breakdown belongs to the direct supervisor and must be agreed upon with the management staff receiving the assignment.
The process of defining objectives for management levels
- The Board of Directors is the first unit to implement the tasks assigned by the General Meeting of Shareholders through directives to the CEO. These include annual and quarterly business performance targets, strategic orientations, identifying new growth drivers and investment directions, improving underperforming areas, and developing senior management personnel. These tasks are issued in written form annually and are reviewed and adjusted during quarterly meetings.
- The CEO translates these directives into specific objectives for members of the executive team and the departments under direct management. These objectives include annual and quarterly plans, further divided into monthly tasks. After reaching agreement with each member, the objectives are formalized in written documents and reviewed and adjusted during the executive team’s monthly meetings.
- Members of the executive team assign tasks to the heads of functional departments according to their delegated responsibilities, with the requirement to review progress with each task owner at least twice per month. The outcome is a set of quarterly and monthly task assignment documents between each executive member and their respective functional departments.
These task assignment documents also serve as a foundation for each level to prepare their work programs, which can then be cascaded to key specialists. They also provide the basis for designing one-on-one working sessions with direct supervisors, enabling bottom-up feedback and completing the evaluation and feedback process, as outlined in the article “Enhancing Workforce Performance through Multi-Dimensional Evaluation Tools and Internal Training Programs — Key Initiatives for 2026,” published in the October 2025 issue of the Vinatex Emagazine.
Template outline for a task assignment document
Every manager, when carrying out their responsibilities, must address all 4 areas of the balanced scorecard: Finance, Operations, Human Resources, and Market. Although each department has its own functions, all of them contribute in some way to these four dimensions. For example, the Finance–Accounting department supports the market dimension by analyzing customer profitability, product performance, and credit policies, thereby helping the Sales/Market department with customer positioning. In the operations area, they analyze cost structures by order to clarify internal efficiency. For the HR department, the financial aspect includes recruitment and training costs as well as training effectiveness (ROI), while the “market” dimension refers to the labor market, employment trends, and salary benchmarks.
With this approach, task assignment documents for managers should be designed like a balanced scorecard, helping them recognize the comprehensive and “balanced” nature of their work and avoid neglecting tasks they might assume are “not their responsibility.” Only when all departments share and shoulder responsibilities across business, operations, finance, and human resources can the company achieve sustainable development.
The role of the Parent Company and functional departments in the objective-setting process
The Parent Company’s first key output is the plan assigned to its subsidiaries, which is the result of market forecasting, assessment of each enterprise’s capabilities, and thorough discussion with its management. Developing this plan requires strong expertise, forecasting ability, evaluation skills, and persuasive capacity from the advisory departments in their respective fields: market forecasting (the Office of the Board of Directors and the Yarn & Garment Business Units), financial and interest rate forecasting (the Office of the Board of Directors and the Finance–Accounting Department), human resources and compensation (the Human Resources Management Department), as well as technology and investment (the Investment Development Department and the Business Units).
Along with developing annual targets, the Parent Company’s departments also monitor and supervise enterprises through an integrated data system and risk-management tools. Quantifying risk levels across 12 key dimensions helps identify corrective actions for each company and assign the appropriate functional departments to provide specialized support. Within the KPI system, department leaders always have two responsibilities: fulfilling the Parent Company’s tasks and serving as professional advisors and mentors to the enterprises—especially those that are underperforming or have a significant impact on the Group’s overall results.
Leaders of the Parent Company’s departments can no longer act merely as observers who detect issues and seek outsourced solutions or provide occasional training updates. They must become true “coaches” in their areas of expertise for the enterprises. Instead of compiling reports that companies themselves can already access through digitalization and AI, they need to understand issues deeply, provide accurate guidance, and help companies address risks early. Evaluation reports that simply repeat information everyone already knows will no longer count as KPIs in 2026. Department leaders will be recognized only when they create real added value through early advisory support, professional guidance, and proactive risk management.
An essential element — a compensation policy based on the added value of work
These plans can only be sustainable when they are tied to a compensation policy that is competitive, transparent, and fair, along with clear accountability from leadership toward their management teams.
Quarterly KPI-based compensation is the first step toward building an income culture aligned with the 3Ps model, helping managerial income become more competitive and eliminating the perception that wages in the textile and garment industry must be low. The Group must also establish a reward mechanism for strong enterprises that support weaker ones, based on measurable improvements reflected in financial results.
The year 2026 marks the beginning of the 5 years plan and the roadmap toward 2045, requiring enterprises to move beyond previous methods, even those that delivered significant achievements during 2020–2025. To create breakthroughs, companies must continuously renew their mindset and adopt innovative solutions. Daily improvement begins with strengthening the management of senior executives—those who drive motivation and provide leadership—and this will be the area that requires the highest priority for investment in the coming period.
