Does a 10-Person Company Need an HR Department?

Yes — but not a hire. This article prices a real HR employee, lists the risks of owner-DIY, and gives three options for companies under 20 people.

Short answer: a 10-person company badly needs HR work done properly — but not necessarily an HR employee. Those are different things, and confusing them makes owners either waste money or carry legal risk unknowingly.

The true cost of an HR hire is not just the 8–12M VND salary: add social insurance, bonuses, a desk, training — and the biggest risk, resignation, taking all knowledge of your paperwork along. Meanwhile a 10-person company's HR workload fills only 30–40% of a full-timer's hours.

Three options: (1) owner does it — free but most expensive, because the owner's time should be selling; (2) traditional per-case HR services — fine for documents, but nobody watches daily; (3) rent an AI HR department — AI works daily (job posts, contracts, payroll, insurance reminders), a real specialist reviews everything, at about 15% of one salary.

Whichever you choose, one principle: never let HR be "when I have time". Labour paperwork is the kind of work that stays silent until the day it becomes a big problem.