Do you really understand employee happiness 2

Job-hopping after the Chinese New Year has always been a tacit rule for job-seekers in different industries. As a result, headhunters are much busier than in other months. After working in China for around 10 years, I find it difficult both in terms of recruiting and job seeking in this period of time. In early February, Chinese technology industry experts announced the news about the high-end talent shortage, which in fact didn’t surprise me. It was in the process of conducting the RMG China Talent Flow Survey 2012-2013 in 2013 that the full picture of the current talent shortage became clear. I understand that labour shortage is always prevalent in the service industries and on the assembly and production lines in traditional manufacturing industry. However, when I heard about the shortage of high-end talent, as well as confirming my understanding of the market conditions, I immediately thought that we should consider the problems behind this as well.

In order to overcome the difficulty in post – festival recruitment , various companies will optimize their recruiting plans. Some offer highly competitive treatment and supplementary commercial insurance, while others subsidise employee food and accommodation or focus on the enjoyment factor of the working environment. Despite these attractive conditions and all the efforts, the hiring market situation is still challenging. If HR professionals think that it is the “picky” attitude of the applicants that creates the difficulties in recruiting, then they are largely wrong. Do you truly understand what employees need and do you really consider employee happiness all the time? No matter how attractive the offers might be, if employers’ offers do not cater to job-seekers’ demands, they won’t work happily anyway.

There are many ways to improve employees’ levels of happiness. In general, we can increase it through material incentives, mental encouragement or both combined. In order to make the point clearly to every HR professional, let’s get started

with material incentives. With regards to the treatment aspects, most HR people will stop thinking after high salaries, bonus, birthday benefits, annual health examinations and other such typical schemes. However, people’s understanding of material treatment is where the problem is. In terms of material treatments, does dining or entertainment count? When it comes to employees’ happiness, IT mammoth Huawei is quite a good example. It is estimated by the media that Huawei employees’ average annual income amounts to about 280,000 CNY. Talented employees are certainly well paid. The company focuses on improving the environment of the company’s dining hall. I would say it must be hard for employees to be unhappy working in such a nice environment with a high-end dining hall and coffee bar, as well as various entertainment facilities. Of course, companies with different styles and scales vary in their working environments.

Amongst all of the factors influencing employees’ happiness, families play a very, if not the most, important role in their levels of general satisfaction with their work. Kyle Cao, recruiting specialist at RMG Selection, says that many pharmaceutical companies have incorporated the employee family plan into employees’ benefits to stimulate hard work and devotion of the employees.

Do you really understand employee happiness 1

When it comes to employee training, many HR people will think about training projects like induction training, promotional training and study abroad schemes. However, very few of them associate this with having a positive impact on their employee’s happiness. HR departments simply think that they have nothing to do with each other. Frankly speaking, a lot of industries and functions actually need long term training plans. Take RMG as an example here. In the last couple of years people who would like to join RMG always  ask me about training prospects. It is understandable that these people don’t know much about the field and want to get used to their roles as quickly as possible by attending some training sessions. I have to emphasise that what makes employees happy is not basic training but skills-based training and practice.

Employees’ happiness with their role also derives from the recognition of their efforts from the company and the managers. The recognition does not necessarily need to come in the form of a material reward. Sometimes a bit of encouragement from management can evoke the activeness of employees to a large extent. For example, many companies will vote for the best employee of the month, the best seller of the season or the employee of the year. In this regard, why not show high recognition to the best staff members by putting up their pictures on an honour wall? Managers can encourage their employees by sending emails to express their appreciation of their contribution at work. Without much effort, employees’ levels of job satisfaction will go up naturally.

With the Chinese economy maturing and changing from being less reliant on exports, the needs and wants of employees will change too. High salaries will never be the only factor that influences employees’ job satisfaction. With better living conditions, if companies really want to give employees true happiness they must grasp the employees’ psychological demands as well as their material incentives.

If we want to solve the problem of senior worker shortages, why not start by improving employees’ happiness at work? After reading this article, lots of HR professionals might come up with unique ideas for their companies. However, it will be meaningless if it is not followed up with some action. It is every recruiter’s essential responsibility to make sure that every employee enjoys working within their