Five HR Trends Prevalent In China That Organizations Need To Be Aware Of

The challenge of finding and recruiting top talent for various job positions within a business organization cannot be solved with the “one size fits all” approach. To complicate things further, the HR trends keep changing as per the needs and expectations of both the candidates and the recruiters in the job market. This is especially true in case of a blooming market like China, which is constantly providing new growth opportunities for businesses from across the globe. Being aware of these trends can help companies to make the right hiring decisions and recruit the best candidates for their business. The five most important of these trends prevalent in the country as identified by the top 10 executive search firms in China are discussed in brief as follows.

Rethinking The Candidate Profile

Unlike the earlier times, when specific positions in multinational organizations were filled only by expat candidates and other posts were reserved for local candidates, this distinction has now ceased to exist.With the talent pool of Chinese candidates possessing international experience and right skill sets, expanding rapidly, these traditional assumptions no longer hold any validity.

Need To Build A Talent Pipeline

The experts from the leading recruitment firms in China are advising their clients to work towards making talent search an ongoing and proactive process. Making an effort to build a talent pipeline minimizes the stress of filling a sudden vacancy in a rush. This is especially true for businesses operating in niches requiring candidates with highly specialized skills or having a major shortage of talented candidates.

De-centralize The Decision Making Process

Overseas organizations operating in China need to ensure that the power to make strategic decisions lies with the local top management. This is essential to minimize the risk for such businesses to lose their top talent to local Chinese businesses. The limited authority of ownership that is associated with lack of decision-making power tends to affect the motivation and retention of the workforce.

Using More Creative Methods Of Compensation

Most overseas organizations in China find it difficult to provide the expected salary and benefits to deserving candidates. However, the recruitment professionals from the executive search firms in China advice their clients not to be bogged down by this challenge. Rather they insist on finding more creative ways to compensate the deserving candidates. These might include offering interest-free loans or even providing commuting facilities and other similar perks.

Invest In Enhancing Candidate Skills

Ensuring employee development through skill enhancement and training is the key to organizational success. Such initiatives help in enhancing the overall satisfaction level of the employees and this naturally reduces the employee turn over rate. Moreover, it helps in preparing the candidates for bigger roles and responsibilities in the future, fulfilling the need for creating a talent pipeline.

4 Benefits Of Executive Coaching In China That You Never Anticipated

Executive coaching in China has boomed for one reason only – CEO’s, small business owners, managers, and leaders have discovered that it works in favour of the organization. There are different types of training that the companies have started to promote in their organizations. From Career transition coaching in China to Outplacement coaching in China, every training program has its own benefits. 

Here is a list of four ways executive coaching benefits your leaders and your company as a whole:

Heightened Self-Awareness - One of the main areas targeted by executive coaching is self-awareness. Self-awareness is the catalyst that ensures growth. Without this, people blindly continue doing things in the same way without having to look for improvement areas and better and more effective ways to do a particular task. Being self-aware also increases your emotional intelligence in order to handle a particular situation you might have come across as a leader. Studies have shown that people with high emotional intelligence are more capable of handling their feelings in difficult situations.

Improved Self-Regulation - Awareness of one’s emotions helps discipline one’s emotions, a skill very much needed in a leader. For example, imagine at work, you have to oversee a new employee who is senior to you in experience and has worked in a variety of industries. Having an understanding of one’s emotions can help you be at ease with him and thus will help you manage the new employee better. 

Higher Levels Of Empathy - Empathy in a leader is like a soul in an organization. It is a quality that allows people to feel how another individual is feeling and thus can help your top talent be more proactive with their teams. Empathy can help in enhanced interactions with the team thus developing a feeling of belongingness and being cared for by one’s organization. Studies have shown that an empathetic manager or leader is more likely to get the work done in an innovative and stress-free manner than the one who lacks this quality. Great leaders are always known to be empathetic towards their people. Rene Schuster, former CEO of Telefonica Germany, expresses the relevance of it in this quote: “Empathy is not a soft nurturing value but a hard commercial tool that every business needs as part of their DNA."  

Boost In Cognition At Work - Working with a coach helps broaden your mind and gives you the ability to view situations from other people’s perspectives. This helps your top talent to consider new viewpoints and therefore help widen the flow of ideas. In other words, this helps in the development of a flexible mindset thus developing a more friendly work culture where anybody can contribute thus increase the intake of innovative ideas in a company. This would in turn help in increasing the overall productivity and efficiency of the other employees as well.

Reasons Behind The Inability Of Overseas Organizations To Recruit Top Chinese Professionals

The Chinese talent market has grown significantly over the past couple of years. Despite that many overseas organizations find it extremely difficult to attract and hire top Chinese professionals for specific roles. The excuse of the unavailability of talented professionals in large numbers amidst the local population is no longer working for such organizations. In this context, the professionals offering board advisory in China services, have identified the below-discussed reasons that are responsible for the failure of overseas organizations to recruit top Chinese professionals.

Little Focus On Recruiting

Most overseas organizations tend to outsource their hiring process to professional recruitment agencies. This ensures that a majority of tasks associated with the process are performed by the recruiters, with minimal involvement by the hiring organization itself. This does not work well with the local Chinese professionals as they fail to associate with the business organizations actually hiring them. Ensuring the active involvement of a senior management executive from the organization in the recruitment process can convince the local professionals to a great extent.

Long Waiting Time

It is common for overseas organizations to make the shortlisted candidates wait for days before confirming their selection or rejection for a given position. Even when these delays are genuine and cannot be helped, the local management of the company makes little effort to contact the candidates and assure them of a speedy response. In fact, most organizations conveniently pass the burden to the retained executive search firm in China they partner with. Even if these agencies contact the candidates on their client’s behalf, they fail to make the same impact as someone from the organization itself and this makes the candidates feel undervalued and unwanted.

Insufficient Compensation And Benefits

It is a common perception that hiring local professionals can cost the company lesser than brining in experts from their own countries. This belief often leads organizations to make compensation and benefit offers that are way below what they would offer to an expat. There are  several examples of life science executive search firms in China offering a significantly lesser compensation to local Chinese candidates as compared to foreigners for the same position within an organization. Most Chinese professionals find it insulting to negotiate the huge gap, which in most cases, is set deliberately by the hiring organizations. These professionals prefer walking away from the proposed job option rather than indulging in dishonest methods to earn more money.

Disrespect For Local Culture

Chinese culture is one of the oldest cultures in the world and the people in China are extremely proud of their ancient traditions and practices which often extend into their way of working. As such any disrespect shown towards these traditions and practices can make the professionals feel personally insulted. Being extremely self-respecting, they thus tend to decline the job offer even if they find it extremely appealing and beneficial.

How To Finalise Amongst The Top Executive Search Firms In China

Top talent is like a treasure waiting to be discovered. Talent issues can be dubbed as the major business issues of the modern competitive world. The race to hire qualified executive leadership is fierce and those who fall behind may end up incurring huge costs to their business both monetarily and otherwise. 

Amidst growing complexity in today’s recruitment climate, the businesses need to turn to top executive search firms in China for strategic insights and to minimize risk in the long run. The best potential candidates could anywhere across the town or even across the globe. Leading recruitment firms in China know this difficult terrain and can find that needle in the haystack quickly and effectively for their clients. 

Organizations these days are increasingly partnering with one of the top 10 executive search firms in China in order to identify, attract and retain top talent in the minimum possible time with the maximum possible precision. 

However, the risks associated with making a wrong decision while finalizing the search firm for your company can cost you dearly and so you need to be proactive before you find the one who understands your business needs and is capable to deliver you the best results in less time with minimum risk at your end.

Here is a quick guideline to help you with your selection:

The Value Of Executive Search - First of all, you need to understand the value the firm would be bringing to your business. A lot of times, one base the decision to only the economics involved but one needs to understand that the selection needs to be on the basis of a middle ground between value and economics involved.

Solutions Available To Your Top Business Challenges - In other words, TALK. Discuss your business needs and challenges with the firm and see what kind of solutions are they proposing. You can then compare the firms on the basis of your discussion and choose the one you find most convincing.

Talent Acquisition Models - This is important. Try to understand their talent acquisition models which will again help you make an informed decision while picking the one from the lot.

The Executive Search Process - Try to understand the process they follow overall. What is their approach to the entire process? Do they work in deadlines? Do they organize an initial requirement gathering? And so on.

What You As A Client Can Do To Help Ensure Success? - In other words, ask them if they have any questions for you. A good firm would like to understand your business inside out before going out looking for a suitable fit for your company with the specific skill set you need.