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Years ago, the foreign companies were the paradises for the Chinese talents. With higher salaries, stable positions, joyful working environment and better self-improvement opportunity, the foreign companies attracted a lot of high-quality talents in China, who in return made great contributions to their development.
However, things began to change in recent years. There were versatile reasons: the slowdown of economic growth made the high salaries not as available as before; the financial crisis reduced the stability of the positions; the rise of the Chinese domestic enterprises raises the bait for local talents; the increasing house prices and CPI in China forced the graduate students to look for jobs with stronger stability, which are usually found in the state-owned enterprises and government departments.
The challenge for the foreign companies is huge. We had a report in our last month’s magazine saying that the foreign banks are short of talents in some key positions. Actually, many multinationals in the other industries have the same problem. How to attract and retain talents has become a hardcore of foreign companies’ daily operation.
Multinationals Short of Talents
In the 1990s, the multinationals had a great lead in contending for high-quality talents with their great advantages in salaries and normal management. However, the multinationals are greatly challenged by China’s SOEs and private in these years, especially after the financial crisis.
The challenges can be reflected in the change of college graduates’ attitude towards choosing jobs. When the college graduates had the right to choose their own jobs in 1993, their choices of jobs are an important standard to judge the companies’ appeal for talents. The foreign companies, represented by the global Top 500, had been the primary choices of the graduate students.
However, the “Survey about College Students’ Choices of Jobs” showed that the foreign companies’ appeal for graduate students had decreased in the recent five years. In 2006, the foreign companies were still very popular, with multinationals taking seven out of the ten best places for college graduates to work. This situation was continued in 2008. However, in that year, 42.4% of the college students wanted to go to foreign companies after graduation with 8.2% lower than the year of 2007. The decreasing trend just emerged out.
In 2009, a report showed that the SOEs took 29 of the 50 best employers for college graduates, which was the first time that SOEs had more places than foreign companies in that list. In 2010, there were 33 SOEs appearing in this list while only four foreign companies successfully defended their places. The situation had significant changes.
Stability prevails over everything?
Li Jiani, 23, used to be an employee in a multinational clothing company in Shenzhen. According to her description, she usually worked overtime in her previous company, which had worn her out. She had resigned, waiting for the opportunity to find a job in a state-owned enterprise or preparing for the examinations to earn a position in the government departments.
The best advantage in the SOEs is the stability of the positions. It is rare for the SOEs to cut jobs, especially the big ones. Though the SOEs cannot compete with foreign companies in the salary level and the future development, they can provide stable jobs. That means that a college student, if finding a job in an SOE, nearly has no need to worry about losing jobs in the future. In the era full of uncertainties, stability prevails over many things for a lot of students.
In addition, the improving level of the SOEs makes them more appealing for the graduate students. There are 54 Chinese companies standing in the list of Fortune 500 in 2010, 90% of which are the SOEs. During the financial, when the foreign companies are busy cutting jobs, the SOEs provide a lot of working opportunities for the graduate students, which impressed the new job-seekers a lot.
Private companies’ headhunting
If the college students are easily influenced by the outside when choosing their jobs because of their youngness, do these people, who have been working for a long time, change their attitudes of working too?
When the multinationals swarm into the China in the early 1990s, they were also haunted by the shortage in proper talents. This was on one hand due to the difference between the companies’ demand and the quality of students under China’s education system; on the other hand, the SOEs and private companies in Chin had no complete talents training and developing system at time. Therefore, many multinationals could not find “plug-and-play” talents and had to play the role of talents training bases.
Previously, the contest for talents, especially the high-quality talents, was usually held among different multinationals. However, China’s local companies, with stronger power, consummate modern enterprise system and more importance attached to talents, also attend in the competition for the high-quality talents. These local companies, especially the private companies, try to recruit high-quality talents with multiplied salaries and higher positions.
After the financial crisis, China’s local enterprise took the lead in recovery. They consider the foreign companies as talents pool from which they can get high-quality talents in management and technology. Intensive actions were held, especially in the fields of chemistry, fast moving consumer goods and finance. According to a survey, the number of people taking the private companies as their primary choices if changing their jobs increased by 5% in 2010 compared with a year before. However, the number of people favoring foreign companies decreased by 10%. The preference of the private companies is more apparent in the people taking executive positions, with 60% of them like to go to private companies.
The fundamental reason is that the private companies have already caught up with foreign companies in the salary and welfare.
According to the report, 43% of the people preferring private companies are attracted by the high salaries they provide.
Foreign companies usually have strict career development system and remuneration system, which are built upon their own countries’ stable labor force market and will not adjust to the Chinese market. But China’s current talents market features the great lap between demand and supply of the talents. The high-quality talents usually have special demand for salaries and welfare, making it hard for the enterprises to recruit high-quality talents with flexible salary system.
In addition, though the private companies can not give the rich welfare like the SOEs, they have their own advantages – the middle- and long-term stock options brought by the massive listing of private companies in these years.
From the view of career development, private companies can give the middle-class executives bigger space of development.
The middle-class executives attach great importance to the “space and opportunity of development” instead of “definite career development path”. The foreign companies with complete system and structure can provide “definite career development path” but they limit the space for promotion. Some private companies, with improved strength, can provide better opportunities of promotion for the high-quality talents.
At present, SOEs, private companies and foreign companies have their own advantages to attract talents, with the foreign companies at the disadvantageous place. Foreign companies have to improve their flexibility in China’s talents market and provide more attractive salaries as well as better development opportunity for the talents.
Spoilers: How Foreign Companies Retain Experienced Staff
The loss of talents, especially the ones who have been working for long, is a problem haunting the enterprises. In recent years, some multinationals saw frequent resignations of their experienced workers. They have to think of ways to solve the problem.
The experts give out a prescription including the measures as follows: higher salaries, better housing conditions, improving welfares, intensive evaluation, training and development, and the brighter corporate image.
Salaries and housing conditions are the toughest but most important problem for the foreign companies in China. These are the problems that both the enterprises and employees attach importance to. According to a survey, it is good for the foreign companies to retain talents through renting houses built by themselves, building houses with employees’ collective funds and founding corporate housing funds.
The other welfares: the enterprises usually provide bonus and the other welfares to attract the first-tier talents. But these welfares are only given to the workers who have been working for a certain period, say, they have already shown their loyalty to the companies. The period usually lasts two or three years.
Evaluation, training and development. Evaluation can inspire the employees and give them the target to purse. Training is necessary but the employers must make sure that the employees can stay in the companies after training. One of the best ways to keep the talents is to promote the workers from inside.
Corporate images: most of Chinese young men believe that the multinationals have great strength and better working environment. The foreign companies can make use of their corporate images to attract the high-quality talents and retain them inside.
Influence from the recruitment. The foreign companies are recommended to put the age, education degree and personal ability into consideration. They should remember that they are looking for the most suitable talents instead of the best ones.
Positive Case: Why P&G’s Talents Strategy Works Well
From the table in the previous article, we can see that Proctor & Gamble (P&G) stills stands at the second place of the list. Why its talent strategy works well? The reason should date back to the time when it started its localization strategy in the 1990s.
At that time, the Chinese college students were given jobs after their graduation. However, P&G took the lead in recruiting college graduates. In 1995, the company recruited 200 high-quality college graduates, which marked the success of P&G’s “finding local talents”.
When P&G’s former president John Pepper visited China in 1991, he confirmed China’s important role in P&G’s long-term development. Pepper advised P&G’s directorate to introduce their best products into China, to build solid relationship with the governments and to recruit the best local talents. These three advices became the guideline of P&G in its 20 years’ development in China.
Let’s put aside how P&G build relationship with Chinese government and localize their products since this article focuses on its talent strategy, which started from recruiting local college graduates. This measure not only solved P&G’s own problem, but also set up good examples for many local and foreign companies.
P&G is famous for its way of training the talents. In its US headquarters, the current CEO A.G. Lafley has held a communication conference with the workers of the human resource department every Sunday and reviews the performance reports of the 200 senior executives.
In China, P&G spent less than 20 years fostering the first local senior executive – Xiong Qingyun, who joined in P&G in 1992 and was promoted to the brand operation manager of P&G Greater China in 2008.
Some talented people having been trained by P&G earned their names in other companies. Wu Xianyong, vice president of Lining, once worked in P&G for nine years, Chen Dongfeng, vice general manager of Vanke, also has 17 years’ working experience in P&G… Some famous companies’ human resource managers admit that P&G is a cradle for the local talents.
“Leaders Made in China”
Zhai Yuyan, who joined in P&G in 1993, now is the vice president of the human resource department of P&G Greater China. She and her peers joining in the company are the first local leaders of P&G in China. Li Yunyu, head of the human resource department of P&G Greater China, said that the cases of her and Zhai Yuyan could tell P&G’s attitude towards inside promotions.
In addition to that, Li Yunyu’s case also tells one trend of P&G – “Leaders made in Greater China”. During her 15 years in P&G, she was appointed executive in the Philippines and Singapore. In the Philippines, she and the heads of more than 40 departments in the other 30 countries worked together. The experience gave her confidence to work well in any countries’ human resource departments.
China has already become a battlefield for the global market. P&G believed that they have foster the “best generals” in China quickly and efficiently. In other words, P&G makes use of its global experience to foster talents for global use by giving them training and establishing their international viewpoint.
Growing in Innovation
When Zhai Yuyan began to work in P&G, a small matter impressed her a lot. One day, when she was to carry a crate, a manager came by and said: “Hold on! I should teach you some basic points about carrying things safely.” This case brought Zhai Yuyan with brand new knowing about the relationship between the superior and the subordinate. In P&G, the line managers are responsible for the development of their underlings. The responsibility is reflected in every aspect. They can help proofread the mistakes in the underlings’ emails; they can give them the directions of their career development. Everyone in P&G agrees with this point and strictly follows the rules.
P&G’s most fundamental talents cultivation theory is to “Build from Within”. when P&G acquired Ghost Gillette in 2005, an executive of Ghost Gillette wanted to recruit a new brand manager from the outside. Zhai Yuyan told him: “P&G usually hire executives from the outside. We would like to promote an insider to take this position.
The Gillette executive was confused. Why P&G wants to select talents from inside? The headquarters of P&G gave a convincing answer: the data shows that only 50% of the new leaders chosen from the outside prove to be suitable for their positions. In P&G’s system, a worker started from the basic position and climbed to the executive position step by step. 80% of them prove to be qualified. P&G’s investment in these people’s development prove to be worthwhile after they are promoted to the leading positions.
Training as the Core
Marina is the senior media manager of P&G Greater China. She is used to having a cup of yoghurt in the Fruit Bar on the 30th floor of P&G’s headquarter building in China. Next to the Fruit Bar is a conference room which is turned into a fitness center after 5 pm everyday. The workers can learn yoga and dancing there. In addition, as P&G Greater China’s president Li Jiayi suggests, the workers of P&G can choose one day to work at home every week. This could not only reduce the time wasted on the way to the office but also give more time to the employers to work at home. The stock options started in 2009 also improved the employees’ morality a lot.
Behind these welfares are the systematic and detailed training programs of P&G, which included the matters about commercial skills and living trivia. From “the 7 habits of efficient man” and “teamwork” to how to earn money from the stock money, how to find suitable babysitter and how to make the family more harmonious, you can find exclusive training about these matters in P&G.
Even the course about “how to deal with headhunters” could be seen in P&G’s training program. The intensive training makes P&G’s employees the best targets of headhunters.
That’s why P&G give their workers the training about the headhunters. The goal is not to prevent the employees from being headhunted, but to teach them how to comprehend and review the new job opportunity before resignation.
However, things began to change in recent years. There were versatile reasons: the slowdown of economic growth made the high salaries not as available as before; the financial crisis reduced the stability of the positions; the rise of the Chinese domestic enterprises raises the bait for local talents; the increasing house prices and CPI in China forced the graduate students to look for jobs with stronger stability, which are usually found in the state-owned enterprises and government departments.
The challenge for the foreign companies is huge. We had a report in our last month’s magazine saying that the foreign banks are short of talents in some key positions. Actually, many multinationals in the other industries have the same problem. How to attract and retain talents has become a hardcore of foreign companies’ daily operation.
Multinationals Short of Talents
In the 1990s, the multinationals had a great lead in contending for high-quality talents with their great advantages in salaries and normal management. However, the multinationals are greatly challenged by China’s SOEs and private in these years, especially after the financial crisis.
The challenges can be reflected in the change of college graduates’ attitude towards choosing jobs. When the college graduates had the right to choose their own jobs in 1993, their choices of jobs are an important standard to judge the companies’ appeal for talents. The foreign companies, represented by the global Top 500, had been the primary choices of the graduate students.
However, the “Survey about College Students’ Choices of Jobs” showed that the foreign companies’ appeal for graduate students had decreased in the recent five years. In 2006, the foreign companies were still very popular, with multinationals taking seven out of the ten best places for college graduates to work. This situation was continued in 2008. However, in that year, 42.4% of the college students wanted to go to foreign companies after graduation with 8.2% lower than the year of 2007. The decreasing trend just emerged out.
In 2009, a report showed that the SOEs took 29 of the 50 best employers for college graduates, which was the first time that SOEs had more places than foreign companies in that list. In 2010, there were 33 SOEs appearing in this list while only four foreign companies successfully defended their places. The situation had significant changes.
Stability prevails over everything?
Li Jiani, 23, used to be an employee in a multinational clothing company in Shenzhen. According to her description, she usually worked overtime in her previous company, which had worn her out. She had resigned, waiting for the opportunity to find a job in a state-owned enterprise or preparing for the examinations to earn a position in the government departments.
The best advantage in the SOEs is the stability of the positions. It is rare for the SOEs to cut jobs, especially the big ones. Though the SOEs cannot compete with foreign companies in the salary level and the future development, they can provide stable jobs. That means that a college student, if finding a job in an SOE, nearly has no need to worry about losing jobs in the future. In the era full of uncertainties, stability prevails over many things for a lot of students.
In addition, the improving level of the SOEs makes them more appealing for the graduate students. There are 54 Chinese companies standing in the list of Fortune 500 in 2010, 90% of which are the SOEs. During the financial, when the foreign companies are busy cutting jobs, the SOEs provide a lot of working opportunities for the graduate students, which impressed the new job-seekers a lot.
Private companies’ headhunting
If the college students are easily influenced by the outside when choosing their jobs because of their youngness, do these people, who have been working for a long time, change their attitudes of working too?
When the multinationals swarm into the China in the early 1990s, they were also haunted by the shortage in proper talents. This was on one hand due to the difference between the companies’ demand and the quality of students under China’s education system; on the other hand, the SOEs and private companies in Chin had no complete talents training and developing system at time. Therefore, many multinationals could not find “plug-and-play” talents and had to play the role of talents training bases.
Previously, the contest for talents, especially the high-quality talents, was usually held among different multinationals. However, China’s local companies, with stronger power, consummate modern enterprise system and more importance attached to talents, also attend in the competition for the high-quality talents. These local companies, especially the private companies, try to recruit high-quality talents with multiplied salaries and higher positions.
After the financial crisis, China’s local enterprise took the lead in recovery. They consider the foreign companies as talents pool from which they can get high-quality talents in management and technology. Intensive actions were held, especially in the fields of chemistry, fast moving consumer goods and finance. According to a survey, the number of people taking the private companies as their primary choices if changing their jobs increased by 5% in 2010 compared with a year before. However, the number of people favoring foreign companies decreased by 10%. The preference of the private companies is more apparent in the people taking executive positions, with 60% of them like to go to private companies.
The fundamental reason is that the private companies have already caught up with foreign companies in the salary and welfare.
According to the report, 43% of the people preferring private companies are attracted by the high salaries they provide.
Foreign companies usually have strict career development system and remuneration system, which are built upon their own countries’ stable labor force market and will not adjust to the Chinese market. But China’s current talents market features the great lap between demand and supply of the talents. The high-quality talents usually have special demand for salaries and welfare, making it hard for the enterprises to recruit high-quality talents with flexible salary system.
In addition, though the private companies can not give the rich welfare like the SOEs, they have their own advantages – the middle- and long-term stock options brought by the massive listing of private companies in these years.
From the view of career development, private companies can give the middle-class executives bigger space of development.
The middle-class executives attach great importance to the “space and opportunity of development” instead of “definite career development path”. The foreign companies with complete system and structure can provide “definite career development path” but they limit the space for promotion. Some private companies, with improved strength, can provide better opportunities of promotion for the high-quality talents.
At present, SOEs, private companies and foreign companies have their own advantages to attract talents, with the foreign companies at the disadvantageous place. Foreign companies have to improve their flexibility in China’s talents market and provide more attractive salaries as well as better development opportunity for the talents.
Spoilers: How Foreign Companies Retain Experienced Staff
The loss of talents, especially the ones who have been working for long, is a problem haunting the enterprises. In recent years, some multinationals saw frequent resignations of their experienced workers. They have to think of ways to solve the problem.
The experts give out a prescription including the measures as follows: higher salaries, better housing conditions, improving welfares, intensive evaluation, training and development, and the brighter corporate image.
Salaries and housing conditions are the toughest but most important problem for the foreign companies in China. These are the problems that both the enterprises and employees attach importance to. According to a survey, it is good for the foreign companies to retain talents through renting houses built by themselves, building houses with employees’ collective funds and founding corporate housing funds.
The other welfares: the enterprises usually provide bonus and the other welfares to attract the first-tier talents. But these welfares are only given to the workers who have been working for a certain period, say, they have already shown their loyalty to the companies. The period usually lasts two or three years.
Evaluation, training and development. Evaluation can inspire the employees and give them the target to purse. Training is necessary but the employers must make sure that the employees can stay in the companies after training. One of the best ways to keep the talents is to promote the workers from inside.
Corporate images: most of Chinese young men believe that the multinationals have great strength and better working environment. The foreign companies can make use of their corporate images to attract the high-quality talents and retain them inside.
Influence from the recruitment. The foreign companies are recommended to put the age, education degree and personal ability into consideration. They should remember that they are looking for the most suitable talents instead of the best ones.
Positive Case: Why P&G’s Talents Strategy Works Well
From the table in the previous article, we can see that Proctor & Gamble (P&G) stills stands at the second place of the list. Why its talent strategy works well? The reason should date back to the time when it started its localization strategy in the 1990s.
At that time, the Chinese college students were given jobs after their graduation. However, P&G took the lead in recruiting college graduates. In 1995, the company recruited 200 high-quality college graduates, which marked the success of P&G’s “finding local talents”.
When P&G’s former president John Pepper visited China in 1991, he confirmed China’s important role in P&G’s long-term development. Pepper advised P&G’s directorate to introduce their best products into China, to build solid relationship with the governments and to recruit the best local talents. These three advices became the guideline of P&G in its 20 years’ development in China.
Let’s put aside how P&G build relationship with Chinese government and localize their products since this article focuses on its talent strategy, which started from recruiting local college graduates. This measure not only solved P&G’s own problem, but also set up good examples for many local and foreign companies.
P&G is famous for its way of training the talents. In its US headquarters, the current CEO A.G. Lafley has held a communication conference with the workers of the human resource department every Sunday and reviews the performance reports of the 200 senior executives.
In China, P&G spent less than 20 years fostering the first local senior executive – Xiong Qingyun, who joined in P&G in 1992 and was promoted to the brand operation manager of P&G Greater China in 2008.
Some talented people having been trained by P&G earned their names in other companies. Wu Xianyong, vice president of Lining, once worked in P&G for nine years, Chen Dongfeng, vice general manager of Vanke, also has 17 years’ working experience in P&G… Some famous companies’ human resource managers admit that P&G is a cradle for the local talents.
“Leaders Made in China”
Zhai Yuyan, who joined in P&G in 1993, now is the vice president of the human resource department of P&G Greater China. She and her peers joining in the company are the first local leaders of P&G in China. Li Yunyu, head of the human resource department of P&G Greater China, said that the cases of her and Zhai Yuyan could tell P&G’s attitude towards inside promotions.
In addition to that, Li Yunyu’s case also tells one trend of P&G – “Leaders made in Greater China”. During her 15 years in P&G, she was appointed executive in the Philippines and Singapore. In the Philippines, she and the heads of more than 40 departments in the other 30 countries worked together. The experience gave her confidence to work well in any countries’ human resource departments.
China has already become a battlefield for the global market. P&G believed that they have foster the “best generals” in China quickly and efficiently. In other words, P&G makes use of its global experience to foster talents for global use by giving them training and establishing their international viewpoint.
Growing in Innovation
When Zhai Yuyan began to work in P&G, a small matter impressed her a lot. One day, when she was to carry a crate, a manager came by and said: “Hold on! I should teach you some basic points about carrying things safely.” This case brought Zhai Yuyan with brand new knowing about the relationship between the superior and the subordinate. In P&G, the line managers are responsible for the development of their underlings. The responsibility is reflected in every aspect. They can help proofread the mistakes in the underlings’ emails; they can give them the directions of their career development. Everyone in P&G agrees with this point and strictly follows the rules.
P&G’s most fundamental talents cultivation theory is to “Build from Within”. when P&G acquired Ghost Gillette in 2005, an executive of Ghost Gillette wanted to recruit a new brand manager from the outside. Zhai Yuyan told him: “P&G usually hire executives from the outside. We would like to promote an insider to take this position.
The Gillette executive was confused. Why P&G wants to select talents from inside? The headquarters of P&G gave a convincing answer: the data shows that only 50% of the new leaders chosen from the outside prove to be suitable for their positions. In P&G’s system, a worker started from the basic position and climbed to the executive position step by step. 80% of them prove to be qualified. P&G’s investment in these people’s development prove to be worthwhile after they are promoted to the leading positions.
Training as the Core
Marina is the senior media manager of P&G Greater China. She is used to having a cup of yoghurt in the Fruit Bar on the 30th floor of P&G’s headquarter building in China. Next to the Fruit Bar is a conference room which is turned into a fitness center after 5 pm everyday. The workers can learn yoga and dancing there. In addition, as P&G Greater China’s president Li Jiayi suggests, the workers of P&G can choose one day to work at home every week. This could not only reduce the time wasted on the way to the office but also give more time to the employers to work at home. The stock options started in 2009 also improved the employees’ morality a lot.
Behind these welfares are the systematic and detailed training programs of P&G, which included the matters about commercial skills and living trivia. From “the 7 habits of efficient man” and “teamwork” to how to earn money from the stock money, how to find suitable babysitter and how to make the family more harmonious, you can find exclusive training about these matters in P&G.
Even the course about “how to deal with headhunters” could be seen in P&G’s training program. The intensive training makes P&G’s employees the best targets of headhunters.
That’s why P&G give their workers the training about the headhunters. The goal is not to prevent the employees from being headhunted, but to teach them how to comprehend and review the new job opportunity before resignation.