Key insights
- Masan High-Tech Materials kept all 1,300 jobs when its own financial models recommended shutdown.
- Women hold 28.8% of roles at Masan High-Tech Materials, against a global mining average of about 15%.
- Those 1,300 employees filed close to 4,000 improvement ideas in 2025, worth more than USD 6.3 million.
For a year, the Nui Phao mine in Thai Nguyen sat quiet. Mining licence delays had choked ore supply, the financial models pointed to a shutdown, and Masan High-Tech Materials kept all 1,300 of its people employed anyway.
In that same year, those people submitted close to 4,000 improvement ideas, worth more than USD 6.3 million in savings and value created. Roughly three ideas each, in a year most workforces would have spent polishing their CVs.
Why did Masan High-Tech Materials keep operating when a shutdown was easier?
Leadership decided 1,300 jobs were worth more than the protection a suspension would have bought, and carried the cost on the company’s own balance sheet.
In early 2025, licence delays restricted ore supply at the polymetallic mine 80 kilometres north of Hanoi. Production forecasts wobbled. On paper, suspending operations to protect short-term survival was the defensible call.
Running below optimal capacity meant recalibrating processes, managing a fragile recovery and coordinating supply chain, processing, maintenance, finance and HR on very thin margins. Revenue landed near USD 300 million, the company returned to profit after consecutive loss years, and in March 2026 the blasting resumed.
How do you build employee trust with a frontline workforce?
You listen on the record, name a date, and come back with numbers.
At 2pm on 10 April 2025, the Maintenance department sat down with leadership for an urgent labour dialogue. The concerns were ordinary and legitimate: rising living costs, a request for transparent skill-based pay grading modelled on government technical grades, and productivity-linked bonuses. Leadership committed to respond within a month.
They came back on 6 May with four changes.
| Lever | Change announced 6 May 2025 |
|---|---|
| Attendance bonus | Doubled |
| Transport allowance | Increased by more than 30% |
| Productivity bonus | Introduced for Maintenance roles |
| Skill grading | Adjustments for more than half the department, granted outside the normal review cycle |
A month is a short deadline for a pay review. It is also the difference between a listening exercise and a decision.
Does employee trust show up in the numbers?
It does. In its 2025 Trust Index™ Survey, Masan High-Tech Materials recorded 92% overall agreement, two points up on 2024, with justice at 94%, communication and leadership behaviour both at 93%, and 96% of employees agreeing people are treated fairly regardless of gender.
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92%
Overall Trust Index agreement
Share of Masan High-Tech Materials employees rating it a great place to work in the 2025 survey, up two points on 2024.
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94%
Justice
The company’s strongest dimension in the 2025 Trust Index Survey.
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93%
Communication and leadership behaviour
Both dimensions scored 93% in the 2025 Trust Index Survey.
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96%
Fair treatment regardless of gender
Share of employees agreeing people are treated fairly regardless of gender.
Masan High-Tech Materials has earned Great Place To Work® Certification™ three years running and was named to Best Workplaces™ in Vietnam 2026 in the Large category.
That gender figure carries weight in an industry where ILO modelled estimates, cited in the Women and the Mine of the Future global report, put some 21.4 million people in mining worldwide with about 85% of them men, leaving women at close to 15%. Women hold 28.8% of roles at Masan High-Tech Materials and 30% of its management positions, up from 20% in 2020.
Women as a share of the workforce
Global mining industry
Masan High-Tech Materials
Masan High-Tech Materials employs women at close to twice the global mining rate. Both bars are scaled against a 30% ceiling, the company’s stated 2030 target for women across its workforce.
Career movement backs it up. The company recorded 216 promotions and internal transfers in 2025, filled 82.9% of management roles at Rank 4A and above from within, and averaged 47 training hours per employee, a 51% jump on the year before.
| Signal | 2025 result |
|---|---|
| Promotions and internal transfers | 216 |
| Management roles at Rank 4A and above filled internally | 82.9% |
| Average training hours per employee | 47 hours, up 51% on 2024 |
What people managers can learn from this
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Put a deadline on listening
A dialogue with no response date is a suggestion box with better lighting.
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Make ideas structural
One idea per employee per month gave people a habit and gave managers a queue to work through. The CEO set a 3,000-idea target for 2025. The workforce filed nearly 4,000.
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Localise leadership on purpose
Expatriate headcount fell from 107 in 2016 to 11 in 2025 as Vietnamese leaders stepped into senior roles.
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Show up outside working hours
When Typhoon Matmo flooded Thai Nguyen in October 2025, leaders visited 64 of the worst affected employees at home.
None of this is too complex. It is a set of promises with dates attached, kept even in a year when breaking them would have been forgivable.
What does a workplace celebration look like at a mine site?
At Nui Phao it looked like a convoy. When the Best Workplaces result came through, the company put a flag on a van and drove it from plant to office, a lap it called “The Pride Drive,” so the people who earned the recognition could stand beside it.
The Pride Drive, in pictures
Scroll or swipe through the gallery.
Small gesture, right instinct. The trust was built on the ground and the celebration went there too.
FAQs
How does employee trust survive a company crisis?
Employee trust survives a crisis when leaders make the costly choice visible. At Masan High-Tech Materials, mining licence delays in 2025 made a shutdown defensible, and the company kept all 1,300 of its people employed through the disruption. Trust Index scores climbed across the year, with justice, communication and leadership behaviour all improving under real operational pressure.
Is Masan High-Tech Materials one of Vietnam’s Best Workplaces?
Yes. Masan High-Tech Materials was named to Best Workplaces in Vietnam 2026 in the Large category, and has held Great Place To Work Certification for three consecutive years. Both are awarded on employee survey results measured against set thresholds, so they reflect what the workforce itself reported about fairness, communication, safety and leadership.
What percentage of mining workers are women?
ILO modelled estimates cited in the Women and the Mine of the Future global report put the worldwide mining workforce at roughly 21.4 million people, about 85% of them men. That leaves women at close to 15% of the global industry. Masan High-Tech Materials reports 28.8% women across its workforce and 30% in management positions, with a stated target of lifting the overall workforce share to 30% by 2030.
How do you get frontline employees to submit improvement ideas?
Give them a channel, a target and evidence that ideas travel upward. Masan High-Tech Materials runs an Idea App where employees at any level can submit proposals, reviewed in structured meetings at both department and company level. In 2025, 3,719 ideas came through the app and 37% were approved for implementation.
