For the past several years, China has been
the focal point of economical and industrial growth. This has led to a large
number of foreign businesses to set up operations within the country. However,
finding the right talent to handle the various aspects of their business
locally has proven to be an uphill task. Even the best executive search firms in China have to work extremely hard to fulfil the
HR needs of business organizations. This is mainly due to the various HR
challenges that have stemmed from the various socio-economic changes within the
country. The seemingly never-ending demand for top talent is another reason
that has led to the evolution of these challenges. The most important of these
challenges are discussed as follows.
Lack
Of Qualification
Despite the abundance of workforce in
China, only about 10% of the employees are qualified to work in international
business organizations. This extremely limited talent pool has led to the
growth of a fierce competition between foreign businesses. Hiring the most
experienced professionals employed by local organizations within the same
niche, is also not the right solution. This is because such professionals have
little exposure to the employee-centric work environment within international
companies. The other alternate of employing expatriate executives, often proves
to be too expensive and hence not preferable for smaller setups.
High
Employee Turnover
The lack of enough qualified professionals
has naturally created a huge gap between the demand and supply of best
candidates for executive posts. With the various organizations, trying to woo
the best talent with offers of better compensation, perks and incentives, the
rate of employee turnover is quite high. In fact, the top 10 executive search firms in China
often find themselves,
shuffling the most eligible candidates between their different clients.
However, the high turnover rate often leads to loss of productivity and
reduction in customer satisfaction levels. Therefore the recruitments firms
face a major challenge in terms of finding talented candidates who are in no
hurry to change jobs.
Inconsistencies
In Resume
Given the huge demand for top talent and
the obvious shortage of the same, it is not uncommon for the recruiting firms
to find inconsistencies in candidate resumes. In order to cover up their lack
of proper qualifications, candidates often resort to providing false data in
their resumes for enhancing their chances of getting hired. The challenge of
filtering authentic candidate information to identify the most deserving
candidates for various executive positions thus falls on the recruiting firms.
This requires them to make extra effort to identify the in-discrepancies in
candidate resumes and avoid the failure of recruiting the right professionals.
Increase
In Compensation Expectation
One of the main reasons that attracted international
business organizations to China was its inexpensive workforce. However, with
the significant growth in the demand for qualified and skilled executives, the
compensation expectations of the candidates have also risen significantly. This
trend has been further boosted by the cut-throat competition between various
business organizations to hire top talent with the offer of best salary, perks
and incentives. Thus, hiring top executives in China today costs almost the
same for business organizations, as similar professionals in their home
countries.
