Hybrid Work in Vietnam 2026: What Employees Actually Expect and Where Employers Are Getting It Wrong

By Valerie Ong, Regional Marketing Manager, Reeracoen Group  |  18 June 2026

Vietnam’s fuel crisis in March 2026 — which prompted the Ministry of Industry and Trade to recommend remote work across the country — accelerated a conversation that was already happening. Hybrid and flexible work is no longer a pandemic-era novelty in Vietnam; it is a standard expectation among professional employees, and a meaningful factor in both hiring and retention decisions.

Reeracoen’s Beyond the Paycheque 2026 study found that flexible work arrangements are now a top-three priority for Vietnamese professionals when evaluating job offers — ahead of job title and company brand. Yet 54% of those same professionals describe their current employer’s flexible work policy as either non-existent, inconsistently applied, or merely performative. This gap is a talent risk that most FDI employers have not yet fully addressed.

What Vietnamese Professionals Actually Expect in 2026

Source: Reeracoen Beyond the Paycheque 2026 — Employee Sentiment Study. n=1,240 Vietnamese professionals in FDI and multinational companies.

Where Most Employers Are Getting It Wrong

Policy by Exception Rather Than By Design

The most common flexible work failure in Vietnam’s FDI sector is not refusing flexibility — it is providing it inconsistently. When flexibility depends on having a good relationship with your manager, being in the right team, or knowing how to ask informally, it creates a two-tier workforce. Employees who do not get flexibility feel it as discrimination. Employees who do get it feel it as precarious. Neither outcome builds retention.

Treating Hybrid as a Benefit Rather Than a Work Model

Organisations that treat hybrid work as a perk — something they ‘allow’ rather than something they design for — inevitably create friction. Hybrid work requires deliberate design: which days are in-office for collaboration, which days are remote for focused work, how performance is measured when people are not visible, and how careers advance for people who are not physically present as often. Without this design, hybrid defaults to presenteeism for career-conscious employees and resentment for those who need genuine flexibility.

No Accountability for After-Hours Communication

Reeracoen’s survey found that 64% of Vietnamese professionals say they receive work messages outside contracted hours regularly, and that 71% of those feel they are expected to respond. This is particularly acute in Japanese and Korean FDI environments where the home-country work culture bleeds into Vietnam operations. The damage is cumulative and disproportionately affects employees with family responsibilities — which means it disproportionately drives female attrition.

What a Good Hybrid Policy Looks Like

The most effective hybrid work frameworks Reeracoen observes in Vietnam’s FDI sector share four elements:

• A clear default (e.g., 3 in-office / 2 WFH for most roles, or 4 in-office / 1 WFH for roles with high collaboration needs) that applies consistently across a team, not case-by-case.

• Defined in-office anchor days — typically Tuesday to Thursday — so that in-person collaboration is genuinely valuable rather than fragmented.

• Manager accountability: flexibility requests handled within 48 hours, ad hoc WFH requests approved for legitimate reasons without interrogation.

• An explicit norm around after-hours communication: urgent matters only after contracted hours; a defined channel for genuine emergencies; no expectation of response to non-urgent messages until the next working day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are there legal requirements for flexible work in Vietnam?

Vietnam’s Labour Code 2019 permits flexible working arrangements by mutual agreement between employer and employee but does not mandate them. The legal framework for remote work was strengthened through Decree 145/2020/ND-CP. Employers should ensure any flexible work arrangement is documented in the labour contract or a supplementary agreement, and that it complies with working hour limits and rest period requirements.

How do we measure performance for hybrid employees?

By output and defined objectives, not by hours visible. This requires moving from implicit activity-based measurement (‘they were at their desk all day’) to explicit outcome-based measurement (‘they delivered X by Y date at Z quality standard’). This is a management skill, not just a policy decision — and managers who have not been trained in output-based management need support in making the transition.

We are a Japanese FDI company with strong expectations of office presence. How do we balance this with local market expectations?

This is one of the most common conversations Reeracoen has with Japanese FDI employers in Vietnam. The most successful approach: distinguish between cultural values (teamwork, respect, accountability) and specific practices (physical presence at specific times). The values can be preserved; the practice of requiring five-day office presence for all roles, regardless of function or seniority, is creating measurable attrition in Vietnam’s current market. A tiered approach — senior roles have more flexibility; roles with high collaboration needs have clear anchor days — is often a workable middle ground.

Related Articles

You may also find these useful:

• Labour Day 2026: What Vietnam’s Workforce Data Tells Employers About Retention

• Beyond Maternity Leave: How Vietnamese Employers Can Build Inclusive Workplaces

• Vietnam’s Remote Work Push: A Practical Guide for Employers (March 2026)

About the Author

References

1. Reeracoen Employer Hiring Study 2026
2. Vietnam Labour Code 2019 and Decree 145/2020/ND-CP on remote working

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