Three Things That Can Help Executives Ensure The Success Of Their Multinational Teams

There has been a considerable change in the way people work together in modern times. Extensive globalization, combined with the need for businesses to expand their reach into new markets and the growth of flexible workplaces, has resulted in the evolution of teams comprising of professionals from diverse cultural and national backgrounds. According to the experts from leading recruitment firms in China, driving such multinational teams to success can prove to be a major challenge. This is mainly due to the vast diversity of thought processes and work cultures amongst the team members. However, by keeping the below discussed three important things in mind, top executives within an organization heading such multinational teams, can effectively overcome this challenge.

Building Trust With And Within The Team

The first and the most important thing for the executive leaders need to focus on is to build trust with the team and within the team. They need to take the necessary steps to win the trust of every single member or the team. At the same time, they need to work towards building the trust of the team members on each other. In this context, the executive leaders need to look out for the personal and professional well-being of the individual members and the team as a whole. In addition, they need to provide opportunities for the members to understand each other and share their knowledge and experience. Both these activities go a long way in creating a strong and united team irrespective of the diversity of its members.

Make Efforts To Understand The Cultural Differences

One of the biggest hindrances that the executives face in their trust-building efforts is their limited understanding of the cultural backgrounds of individual team members. This might derail even the most well-thought-of team building efforts lead to a significant reduction in its overall efficiency. That is why it is important for the executive leaders to make sincere efforts towards gaining at least some basic information about the cultural backgrounds of their individual team members. This can provide them with key information about the best ways of dealing with the team members and building a motivating work environment. In fact, the leading executive search firms in China give preference to candidates showing a willingness to make such efforts for team building.

Motivate The Team To Follow A Single Corporate Culture

While understanding the cultural differences of team members is of great significance for the executive leaders, they should try to unite the team under a single corporate culture. However, in order to do so, it is important to first familiarize the team members with the key aspects of the company culture. The professional consultants from the top executive search firms in China are of the opinion that the executive leaders should focus on the cultural aspects that are common between the organization and the background of the individual team members. This can prove to be a motivating factor to help the teams accept and adhere to the company culture. Furthermore, it will help alleviate the tensions among team members as they will be focused on understanding and following the corporate culture promoted by executive leaders.

Getting Familiar With The Different Types Of Training Programs That Businesses Should Invest In

Employee training is one of the key aspects of ensuring the smooth functioning of a business. Proper training not only helps in enhancing the employee skills and competencies according to changing business needs but also improves the overall growth and profitability of the business. That is why the top headhunting firms in China advice their clients to invest extensively in training programs designed to meet the varying professional needs of their workforce. Discussed below are some of the most common types of training programs that business organizations should invest in to ensure the proper growth and development of their employees as well as the company itself.

Training For Role Fitness

One of the key concerns of business organizations while hiring new employees is about ensuring their role fitness. This involves accessing their suitability for handling the various responsibilities associated with a specific job role. Many times the organizations choose to hire candidates with the right attitude and competence for a job position but lacking some key skills. Investing in training programs that can help enhance the role fitness of such candidates is a common trend. This not only helps in upgrading the desired skill set of the new employees but also makes them feel welcome and wanted, which can improve their level of loyalty towards the organization.

Training For Retention

Most businesses today struggle with the problem of employee retention across all employment levels within the organization. By investing in training programs designed to enhance the retention levels, the organizations can overcome this problem in an extremely cost-effective manner. These training programs  educates the employees about making the best use of their skills to get noticed, train them to deal with stressful situations at workplace and even offer advice about staying productive in various ways to enhance their employability level for the organization. These training programs can go a long way in enhancing the confidence and performance level of employees, besides improving the level of trust they pace in the organization.

Training To Understand Company Culture

Newly employees often feel ill at ease within their new work environment, mainly due to them not being familiar with the work culture and values of the organization. Investing in a training program to help these employees gain a better understanding of the company culture and work ethics and values. According to the professionals offering executive coaching in China, this makes it easier for them to start fulfilling their responsibilities without any delay and in accordance with the overall ethos of the workplace. Most importantly, such training sessions help in the new employees to establish a sense of connectivity with their new work-environment which contributes significantly towards enhancing their performance.

Training For Skill Set Enhancement

Many times it becomes essential for business organizations to enhance the skill set of the members of its workforce. Investing in the appropriate training programs in such cases is a necessity for business organizations as otherwise they might lag behind in the highly competitive market place. Such training not only helps in improving the overall performance and efficiency of the employees but also makes improves their sense of attachment towards the business organization.

Effective Tips For Cultivating A Great Relationship With A Retained Executive Search Firm

Retained executive search professionals have come to play a vital role in helping business organizations attract and recruit top talent. However, in order to gain the best benefits of hiring the services of a retained executive search firm China, it is important for the client organizations to work towards cultivating a strong relationship with these firms. Discussed below are some effective tips that can help business organizations to achieve the said objective for fulfilling their talent needs in the most satisfactory manner.

Choose The Right Recruiters

The first and perhaps the most important step in the direction of establishing a strong bond with the retained executive search firms is to choose the right ones. For this the hiring organizations should consider the expertise and competence of such firms in terms of fulfilling the talent needs within their specific niche. They should also pay attention to the quality of the candidates being provided and the overall cost of hiring the firms for both individual recruitment campaigns as well as long term talent needs.

Convert Virtual Relationship Into A Real Thing

It is important for the hiring organizations to avoid communicating with their retained executive search partners only through virtual channels. They should invest time and effort in getting to know the various professionals working with these firms, who will be handling their recruitment campaigns. Face to face interactions helps in establishing a strong bond between the retained search firms and the hiring organizations based on mutual interests and needs.

Establish Open Lines Of Communication

It is important for the hiring organization to make it possible for the retained search professionals to contact them at almost any time. In addition, the hiring organizations also need to ensure that they are available to clarify any queries and doubts of these professionals as and when they might seek answers for the same. Establishing open lines of communication is essential to develop the sense of trust and understanding between the recruitment firm and the hiring organization and this in turn forms the basis for a strong professional relationship.

Befriend The Firm

The business organizations should work towards establishing a friendly relationship with the retained and life sciences executive search firms in China. Going beyond the traditional client-server relationship can prove extremely beneficial for both the parties in the long run. It will also enable the business organizations to share their talent related problems and challenges with the recruitment firms in a more free and frank manner. On their part, the retained search firms can provide valuable tips and advice to help their “client friends” overcome the various issues related with efficient talent recruitment and management.

Work Towards Establishing Long Term Relationship

The business organizations should work towards establishing long term relationships with their retained executive search partners. This can prove beneficial in terms of helping the organizations build a strong team of top performers. In addition, it will also ensure that the hiring organizations get all the benefits of being the most preferred clients of the search firms. This might mean getting the opportunity to hire the best candidates before anyone else besides getting special package deals and additional services.

Effective Succession Management Strategies That Can Help Organizations Nurture Leadership Talent

One of the key areas that business leaders need to focus on for ensuring sustained growth and success of their organization is the presence of a great succession plan. Having an active succession management process is the key to delivering a timely pipeline of talent ready to take on leadership roles. However, according to the top executive search firms in China, only a handful of business organizations within the country actually have a dynamic succession plan in place. Discussed below are some effective succession management strategies that can help business organizations reap great benefits in terms of a well developed in-house leadership talent pool.

 

Effective Benchmarking

Effective benchmarking is essential to get the desired results for any succession planning process. This essentially means comparing the capabilities and competence of the identified internal successors with external candidates while also taking into account the probable development and training that the internal candidates are likely to undergo. It has been established that with proper benchmarking, internal candidates selected for a future leadership role are likely to provide better results than the external candidates.

 

Proper Classification Of Talent

When it comes to identifying the best internal candidates having the potential to take up top positions, most organizations come up with a very limited number of candidates. Nevertheless, it is important for the organizations to appropriately classify these talented candidates to ensure their proper development and deployment. This enhances their success rate in top leadership roles by a significant margin as the candidates get ample time and opportunities to improve their performance and expertise in the specific niche.

Have A Checklist

The leading executive search firms in China advice their clients to have a checklist of the skills and traits they desire in candidates suitable for inclusion in the succession training program.  This can help them to conduct a focused internal search based on the character traits desired for various top level positions besides helping save valuable time and effort. Verifying the level of traits such as intellectual capacity and flexibility, emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills as well as the ability to handle challenging situations should for an integral part of any succession planning strategy.

 

Active Learning Capability Of Candidates

According to a research a majority of professionals engaged in top management roles are interested in taking up challenging projects and making tough decisions. This is because such actions not only provide them with an opportunity to showcase their talents but also to enhance their personal skills and knowledge. Most importantly it helps them to take the business on a path of success and help fulfil its long and short term objectives. Thus active learning capability should be a key focus area while identifying candidates for succession planning process.

Retention Of Best Candidates

Even the most efficient succession planning strategy will fail to provide the desired results, if the organization is not able to retain its best professionals. It is essential for a business to channel and nurture the professionals having the best potential so that they do not seek other growth opportunities outside the organization. This can be ensured by providing constantly challenging objectives to such professionals besides rewarding their efforts suitably.

Bridging The Gender Gap In Chinese Boardrooms – Understanding Its Significance And Implementation Needs

Like other cultures across the globe, Chinese business scenario has traditionally been male dominated.  This means that the average number of women working in top leadership roles, within Chinese business organizations is almost zero. However, while the situation is rapidly changing in most developed and even rapidly developing countries, the trend has not been picked up by the business community within the country in large numbers. While a select few organizations have included a few women in their management boards, this number is still ridiculously quite low. According to the top leadership development firms in China this affecting the employer branding of Chinese organizations in a significant manner.

Need To Reduce Gender Gaps

There is a growing demand to reduce gender disparity within top management positions on a global scale. This trend has been popularised by the fact that the few women, who have handled such roles and responsibilities are known to have provided almost similar if not better results as their male counterparts. In fact, an increasing number of females are gaining the proper qualifications and skills to fulfil the demands of these challenging roles. Moreover, the career objectives and ambitions of women have undergone a drastic change over past several decades. They are no longer satisfied with the prospect of the career growth coming to a stop upon reaching the position a senior manager. Rather they are seeking a place as an elite member of the top management and are willing to undergo further skill enhancement and training to become worthy of such positions.

What This Means From Chinese Perspective

Chinese society and culture generally does not favour women taking up leadership roles either in society or business. This is because women have mostly been treated as second class citizens within this ancient oriental culture. They are believed to possess neither the skills and knowledge nor the competence required for making tough business decisions. Moreover, the concept of male superiority that has been ingrained into the minds of Chinese people, irrespective of their gender, makes it difficult for them to accept a female at a top leadership position within an organization. In fact the experts from the leading recruitment firms in China consider this to be one of the major hindrances faced by Chinese companies in terms of including more women in their boards.

Ways To Reduce Gender Disparity

With the significant influx of foreign businesses in China, the business community has become more flexible and many traditional methods have been gradually done away with. While nothing much has been achieved in terms of bringing more women into the Chinese boardrooms, the position of women within business organizations has improved significantly. This has given much hope to females looking to enjoy a successful career as a top management professional. This is evident from the fact that the number of young females opting for management education and training is increasing steadily. The Chinese business organizations are also adapting a more open approach towards employing competent females in senior management positions. However, there is still a long way to go before Chinese businesses can boast of providing having a reasonable representation of females in their boardrooms.

The Four E’s Career Transition Coaches Need To Focus On

Career transition is an integral part of the career growth strategy of modern day professionals. While in most cases, the employees make such transitions of their own accord, many times the hiring organizations might force the employees into making such a decision. In either case, it is advisable for companies to seek the services of professionals offering the services of career transition coaching in China. These professionals can play a key role in ensuring the smooth transition of the employees, especially in case the decision has not been of their own making. However, in order to maximize the effectiveness of their training, it is important for the career transition coaches to focus on the four E’s discussed below.

 

Explore

The coaches should educate the employees about exploring the future and gaining a better understanding of where they want to go. This helps to analyse the career options available to them in a more comprehensive and informed manner. They are also better able to identify the opportunities that best match their skills and experience levels. In this context it is important to make the employees understand that while they might seek the advice of family and friends, their career decisions should be based on a better understanding of their own self.

 

Experiment

The coaches should also make the employees aware about the importance of experimenting with new options. They should encourage the employees to try new things and build new connections. The employees should be educated about the disadvantages of following a linear and predictable career path in the highly competitive modern times. In fact, great career success is often achieved only through a constant trial and error process, which despite the associated risk can provide the employees with the necessary support for their future decision making.

 

Engage

Increasing their engagement level is of outmost importance for the employees undergoing career transition. Being engaged will help them to launch into their new roles with greater confidence and the right attitude. It is also important for the employees practising engagement to master the skill of managing their emotions and finding their personal balance. This proves beneficial in helping them to deal with any surprises, frustrations and disappointments in their new roles. Greater engagement also helps the employees to assimilate the culture and work environment of their new company in a faster and more effective manner.

 

Expand

The career partners in China, employed by business organizations should educate the employees in the career transition phase about the importance of expanding their skills and knowledge. This will help the employees to deliver and thrive in their new roles besides helping them to move several steps forward in the direction of fulfilling their career objectives. Moreover, expanding their skills and expertise improves the chances of the employees being considered for in-house growth opportunities while also enhancing their confidence and sense of self worth.