Recruitment
China has huge population, not short of people, however, it is not an easy task to recruit qualified staff in most MNCs in China. Chinese economy is growing as fast as 7%-8% every year, which creates high demand for adequate worker force. Therefore, those who are well trained and qualified are in high demand. Changing job frequently is common now in China. A kind of attitude like“ I change job, because I am good” is emerging . Based on a survey done by Gallup recently, young Chinese has highest expectation for their future comparing to their counters in other countries. So don’t be surprised to see some of qualified staff have unreasonably high expectation. Common recruitment practice for MNCs in China, as for middle or higher level managers, mostly they hire headhunter to find the right persons, for entry level, go to top colleges to recruit. Training is a very important part of business operations in China.
Work Relationship
China is a very hierarchic society. Subordinates follow their leader’s order closely, so it is difficult to practice western management theory such as empowerment and delegation in China. Without proper training, Chinese local staff won’t feel comfortable to make any decision without consulting their superiors. Unconsciously employees are eager to please the top manger or executive or show their loyalty to him/her, they are inclined to think that if they have good relationship with the highest rank manger, the top executive will take care of them. With 5000-year history, Sun Tze’s “Art of War” is in Chinese high school textbook, Chinese are somewhat born politician and strategist, in any circumstances, they can easily understand who has the power and cloud. Chinese has tendency to think in term of “role fulfillment” in their job, such as “giving me the role or title, I will perform the job”. Very different from western basic assumption as “ prove that you can do more, and will be given more to do”. Therefore, in western manager’s eyes, Chinese staff seems short of taking initiative. Proper training will solve this problem. Chinese usually have a “role expectation” for their boss, they respect that their boss should maintain certain distance with them. The personal leadership traits such as determined, calm, strong, intelligent, honorable and reserved are highly respected among Chinese. As a result, managers from lower power distance cultures should intentionally maintain the distance to be more effective in China.
Communication
China is a typical group-oriented and high context culture. Chinese don’t feel comfortable to make any honest recommendation or suggestion publicly. The most effective way to solicit good and honest opinion is to use one-on-one conversation. Non-verbal signals are essential to get the true meaning. All college graduates are able to speak and write English, however, the level of fluency and proficiency is varied among individuals. Expatriates who can speak certain level of Chinese should be careful. If you can speak Chinese, Chinese staff is intended to think that you understand them completely, sometimes they won’t spend extra time to communicate more clearly and patiently, which will cause miscommunication and misunderstanding. Therefore, please don’t brag or show off your Chinese or China knowledge in China, it will create problem for you. Chinese employees stress highly on maintaining a healthy and good relationship with their superiors. If their boss moves to new place, they are sometimes willing to follow their boss to the new place by less pay.
Motivation
As a whole, personal development and growth as well as monetary reward are two most important motivators for Chinese employees. Good personal development plans and training programs are very attractive to them, sometimes they are willing to take less pay for these kinds of development opportunities. In any bonus plan or performance reward system, should consider both individual level factors as well as group level elements, only thinking of motivating individual is not adequate to build motivated work force. Detailed and clear rewarding system is needed in place to better guide them.
Ethical Issues
China maybe is among the most corruptive countries in the world. Lacking of legal structure to prevent corruption, plus group-oriented and relationship-based interpersonal interaction makes it even more challenging for the western managers to push western ethical standards in China. In year of 2002, the corruption in Proctor & Gamble and other MNCs made headlines in Chinese media . Local Chinese sales staff partnered with distributors to cheat company’s promotions fund is a common screen in MNCs. Western managers are constantly confronted with decisions such as paying RMB100,000.00 under the table to save one million RMB in import tax, paying kickback to get contracts, etc. In order to avoid corruption and bribery in China, many MNCs use creative ways to build relationship with local clients, such as partnering with top business school to launch special executive education program, and inviting local clients to participate these kinds of educations for free, or inviting them to attend some “special training programs” abroad. By Donny Huang
