Tag Archives: Asia Employment

“Uncorking the Full Potential”_China Daily

Monday, 08 April 2013 06:26

Strategic use of micro blogs can help companies achieve marketing success

It comes as no surprise that Sina Weibo is one of the most popular and the fastest growing micro-blogging platforms in China, considering that it had nearly 500 million users by the end of February.

Along with its popularity the platform has also become an integral marketing tool for companies across various industries in China. According to the 2012 Corporate Weibo White Paper, there were 130,565 companies that had certified enterprise micro blog accounts by the end of February. Prominent among them are restaurants (50,000), automotive (7,546) and business services (7,212).

In the Fortune Global 500 list, there were 243 enterprises that have opened micro blog accounts, while 207 enterprises in the Fortune China 500 list also have micro blog accounts. All of this clearly underscores the point that a micro-blog presence is essential for a company that is planning to operate in China.

That also raises the question on the need for a micro-blog presence. The obvious answer is not just to tap the huge market with immense potential, but also to realize some benefits that only a micro blog can bring to a business. Micro blog is known as the Chinese Twitter, but in my opinion it is Chinese Twitter plus Facebook.

First of all, micro-blogging is the way for businesses to personally interact with potential customers to build brand image and customer loyalty. Micro-blogging can also create a positive association and friendly attitude toward the brand.

Secondly, a micro blog can be used as a market research tool since the company can learn current trends, and interests as well as what people are saying about its products and services. By constantly getting feedback on their micro blog, companies can come up with new ideas to approach customer needs and expectations.

Finally, it is free to open an account or to publish anything on a micro blog, and hence an option for companies to reduce marketing costs. If a company has a relatively huge number of fans, any posting on its micro blog automatically acts as a free press release.

Though these advantages are enticing enough, it is important for companies to have enterprise micro blog accounts if they are to realize the full potential. This is especially so as there are several challenges that companies face while using social media, or more specifically a micro blog in China.

Most of the people use a micro blog to connect and interact with others as a way to relax and entertain, while certain amounts of enterprise users in specific industries are more serious than that. Therefore, how to combine the entertainment factor and commercial factor is a question that many enterprise micro blog users need to ask themselves.

Companies should look at how to draw people’s attention but still focus on promoting the brands’ image. This is mainly to reach the goal of getting more micro blog users to become real potential customers.

An example of this is the strategy adopted by one of the top 10 Chinese banks, with a relatively low number of fans and activities on its micro blog. The bank came up with a strategy to get more attention from the public by encouraging other users to share posts, re-posts and comments on their micro blog posting. To encourage this activity, the bank also offered an iPhone 4S for the best posting. The initiative got excellent feedback with over 26,000 re-posts and 23,000 comments on the required post “What is your love and dream?” This strategy did boost up the bank’s popularity, but the post was not relevant to the business that the bank offered. Therefore, it did not really help the bank in getting more real customers but only in getting more fans onto its micro blog.

Many Chinese companies also consider micro-blogging as a powerful new media tool to build up brand image and increase customer numbers, along with the traditional marketing in newspapers, radio and television. However, the two media tools cannot be separated but need to be synchronized toward the companies’ objectives.

Much also depends on the business segmentation, and companies should consider using a variety of different media channels to effectively reach all the target audiences. Companies also need to work on how to create integrated marketing in general and how to generate micro blog numbers in particular.

A micro blog is an open site for employees and customers, and once information is published, it is impossible to stop it as people can keep re-posting the original post in just seconds. Another issue of using social networking sites is the risk of leaking confidential information such as salary, trade relations and innovative technology. Companies should take this into serious consideration and come up with a better way to tighten employee activities on social networking sites.

There is no doubt that companies want to do a good job in marketing on their micro blogs, but it also calls for a talented team to run it. RMG Selection recently released the China Talent-flow Survey Report, which showed that there is still a huge shortage of qualified online marketing professionals, especially in terms of social network platforms.

Micro-blogging and its strong influence on the public is definitely a great tool for many companies. However, it is a double-edged sword that can only benefit the business if the company knows how to use it strategically. Therefore, enterprise micro blog users should be aware of certain challenges and get cracking on a detailed marketing plan to uncork the full potential of micro-blogging.

The author is marketing director of RMG Selection, an Asia-focused specialist recruitment and executive headhunting firm. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Link to the article:

http://africa.chinadaily.com.cn/weekly/2013-04/05/content_16377459.htm

"Uncorking the Full Potential"_China Daily

Monday, 08 April 2013 06:26

Strategic use of micro blogs can help companies achieve marketing success

It comes as no surprise that Sina Weibo is one of the most popular and the fastest growing micro-blogging platforms in China, considering that it had nearly 500 million users by the end of February.

The author is marketing director of RMG Selection, an Asia-focused specialist recruitment and executive headhunting firm. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Link to the article:

http://africa.chinadaily.com.cn/weekly/2013-04/05/content_16377459.htm

HR in a (Gradually) Rebounding Economy – RMG HR column on Business Tianjin

Tuesday, 02 April 2013 06:04

2012 was a year of wait and see, considerable moments of economic ‘breath-holding’. Finally, it seems that we have a consistent stream of positive economic signs: Growth in industrial output, growth in the Shanghai composite and an increase in the rates of both replacement recruitment and new hires.

However, as I return from my Christmas vacation, and am encouraged by the good news being reported, I’m mindful of both the situation in early 2012, and 2009, and it seems appropriate to remind ourselves that sound HR practice for tough times is often sound HR practice in good (or improving) times too.

If we cast our mind back to early 2012, there were regular stories about redundancies and restructuring in some of the less-well hedged sectors, including banking/finance and technology. According to the statistics from Bloomberg News, the total number of layoffs published by multi national enterprises all over the world was reported to be 94,369 over a period of 40 days starting from 10 January in 2012. This was 26,561 more layoffs than were reported in the same period in 2011. This affected a variety of fields ranging from finance to IT, to cosmetics and even the food industry. China for a long time was thought to be a ‘redundancy immune’ area, but this conception has changed. In October, 2012, Motorola announced that they were reducing their workforce by 4,000 all over the world, retaining only 3 research centers, which are in Los Angeles, Chicago and Beijing. This leaves 500 highly educated employees in the Nanjing Motorola Research Center facing the prospect of redundancy. Chinese companies such as Li-Ning and Vancl reported similar cuts being made to their work force. This places a great deal of responsibility on HR departments in the upcoming year. In 2013 HR departments must be prepared to balance areas of their business which are growing, with areas of the business where cost-control pressures are highest.

Supporting departments are usually the first place the senior management of a company looks at when cuttings costs. There is a logical reason for this when looking at the short term. Support staff members do not directly generate revenue for a company. Meanwhile, human capital in a company is generally the first or second largest expense, in some industries representing 45% of the average gross expenses. And unlike fixed capital, labour expenses are not directly attached to a loan obligation so a reduction in the work force immediately impacts the company’s income statement. There are also reasons that reducing labour costs may not seem as attractive when taking a long term analysis. US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke points out that capitalist production goes through four part cyclicality; it must go through a depression, a period of increasing activity, a period of prosperity, followed by an overproduction crisis and stagnation. The world had experienced 7-8 of these economic cycles since World War II. Therefore, we should consider the changing of economic environments when coping with economic downturns. This is why we must face a period of slower economic growth efficiently and take appropriate measures and implement proper strategies.

Here are the some solutions which RMG has provided to its customers that can save considerable costs without causing redundancies:

• Reorganise working time. Strategic adjustments to working time during special periods may be enough to help the company meet its goals. For example, some companies’ workforces accept having their working time adjusted from 8 hours/day to shift work of 4, 5 or 6 hours, or they change the working time from 5 days/week to 4 days/week. There are various kinds of working time reorganising patterns like this that some employees actually welcome. This is also a good example of a solution which might be appropriate during good times as well as bad.

Reorganise working time by training. Under this circumstance, shortening the working time is encourages employees to carry out training in their spare time rather than forcing employees to have days off. This leads to greater long term efficiency from the employees while saving the company money in the short term.
Red reorganisation. Fixing wages for a certain time and eliminating redundant workers is one solution. Whilst reducing redundant workers the company should still pay special attention to key employees who add the highest value. Steps should be taken so that they do not leave the company because a competitor is offering a higher salary.
Human Resource contracting/Human Resource recruiting company. This is different from the former point. In this case, the companies have the flexibility to re-employ staff on a more flexible basis- although of course at a premium on their monthly salary. This might be the solution if the company does not expect various productions every day from their employees, because the human resource agencies help to take risk for them.
Telecommuting. Telecommuting is one of the ways human resources departments can outsource expensive labour. It is not widely utilised because of some hidden faults. If it is lacking proper infrastructure and controls, the company may find itself losing productivity. This can require special human resource supervision and if the company is not properly setup to handle these challenges, the additional time and expenses associated with telecommuting may not prove worthwhile.
One year sabbatical. When using this method, the company promises the employee to take a year off of work with the understanding that their position will be waiting for them when they return. For certain employees this may prove to be very attractive as it would allow them time to travel, start a family, or care for a sick relative. For the company, they can reduce their labour costs in the short term without losing their talent long term.

The reason why the HR department is unique is that their management is related to various aspects of the enterprises. All of these activities should improve efficiency, resist downsizing when possible, and maintain growth potential whilst waiting for the economy to rebound.

Short-term activities aim at reducing internal and external costs and it takes up to 3 months to see full results. Short-term activities will be realised by identifying personal costs savings potential, analysing and optimising development and training costs and the optimising HR service provider cost.

Medium-term activities aim at streamlining processes, infrastructure and optimising internal sources. They tend to takes 6 months in total and many includes:

1. Process and organisational optimisation of HR. Focus on the utilisation of individual positions within the HR department and on individual processes in terms of their efficiency. Propose or optimise indicators (KPIs) to measure the performance of individual HR processes and principles of the motivation system applicable to HR employees;

2.HR information system optimisation.

3. Optimisation of total rewards and review of the employee performance management system.

4. Increasing sales team efficiency. Improve the efficiency of your sales teams by optimising the sales process and organisational structure of the sales network, and by optimising the sales people’s remuneration and training system covering the sales area.

5. Outplacement. If the redundancy is inevitable, use outplacement programs and help employees to cope with their difficult situation. By doing so, you will promote the positive image of your company to other employees and strengthen their confidence in the company.

Long-term transformation activities aim at increasing efficiency and modernising the corporate strategy. These usually take about 1 year and mainly includes:

1.Key workforce segments management and motivation: Identify employees with high potential at all organisational levels and key employees whose skills are hard or very expensive to replace. Focus on these particular groups of employees and find out what motivates them to deliver high performance services and stay with your company. Adjust motivation programs for these key employees.

2. HR Strategy: Review or design a new HR strategy in cooperation with other managers, which will reflect your business needs and be aligned with long-term corporate objectives. Analyse your HR processes and propose their redesign as to make HR activities more efficient and devote saved time to projects.

3. Leadership development: Keep or restructure your budgets for development activities. Review your training and development system so as to develop those skills of employees which are really needed by the company. Introduce the system of differentiated development; focus on individual development activities such as mentoring and coaching for selected employees who are good prospects for the company in the long term.

4.Talent management and workforce planning: Ensure that the key employees stay with the company. Identify the demographical situation of the company. Are there any qualified staff members who may retire in the near future? Consider up front possible departures of your employees and their potential replacements. Identify successors internally or start looking around on the labour market well ahead of time. At the same time, use your time to develop your current employees who will help you, together with new hires, to lead the company out of the crisis and increase its chances of fast growth in the coming period.

5. Corporate culture: Strengthen internal communication to make it implicit within the corporate culture. Organise regular meetings with employees and inform them of the company’s latest results and development, build a strong corporate culture and keep them as key ‘links’ between employees and the company and as an important retention factor.

It should also be kept in mind that slower economic times are also opportunities. Many competitors choose to sleep in tough times, meaning that client-acquisition is actually opportune. Tougher economic times are chances to get the enterprise (big or small) in good order, and to cut the fat, so that as better times return, as they seem to be in 2013, the business is leaner and more nimble, and therefore better able to capitalise on a returning market.

by Robert Parkinson

Link to the article: http://businesstianjin.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5933:hr-hr-in-a-gradually-rebounding-economy&catid=182:2013-february&Itemid=100

Recruitment Sorted Easily – RMG HR column on Business Tianjin

Tuesday, 02 April 2013 05:57

The end of every Spring Festival is often the busiest period for corporate recruitment units. Following the deepening of “localisation” to be consistent with Chinese traditions, many companies will begin their recruitment plan for the New Year after the official end of Chinese New Year. At the same time, since year-end rewards tend to be issued around the Spring Festival period, a portion of employees would also choose to leave their positions after the festival; thus causing greater recruitment needs. Recruitment difficulties and employment difficulties have become the biggest nightmare for HR professionals. The recruitment process appears to be increasingly inefficient, especially in the internet era whereby advertisers are increasingly unable to cope with the bombardment of CVs in their inboxes.

Online recruitment has already become the preferred way for job seekers and recruiters, the reason being that the process is very simple. Employers simply post a job online and within just 2-3 days there will be over a thousand applicants; create a resume, a few minutes later, one is open to over a hundred positions. It feels as if online recruitment is too efficient compared to any other job search/recruitment channels, for instance, job fairs. According to an online survey in 2009, there is an average daily count of over 10 million people job searching online. Every job seeker will submit at least 100 CVs before finding satisfactory employment. However, what is the direct consequence of this? According to research conducted by ChinaHR in 2012 for recruitment enterprises, 78% of positions require over a month’s time to hire suitable talents, whilst 20% of positions require more than half a year to find suitable talents. For job seekers, 4% of them have to spend over one month to find ideal work, of which, 23% of job seekers actually spend more than half a year looking for employment.

Recruitment was originally the highlight of HR, but its inefficiency has led it to become HR’s nightmare. Whenever a new position is encountered, ultimately recruiters will complain that the number of indiscriminate applicants is too high. Arranged interviews are very likely left unattended; applicants with signed offers may be nowhere to be found, leading to very few candidates successfully recruited in the end. In fact, besides some of the candidates’ own issues, for instance, blind submissions to raise their hit rates, and a lack of integrity, the enterprise and its HR department has more or less also contributed to this situation.

1. Enterprises now pay more attention to attracting talent. The market awareness of modern enterprises is stronger; they will take advantage of every opportunity to shape a positive corporate image in order to be in contact with more talent. Unclear job descriptions are also a reason contributing to this phenomena. Ambiguous positions easily misguide job seekers to believe “I am also suitable for this position”, leading to an avalanche of useless resumes flying in.

2. HR channels are inaccurate or too broad. For example, many enterprises choose traditional online recruitment platforms with massive amounts of information to undergo recruitment in the hope to bring in extensive talents. However, at the same time, vast amounts of web information bring heavy workload for recruiters. If recruiters were to filter out suitable candidates from the tens and thousands pieces of job seeker information, it would require a substantial amount of time.

3. Partial loss of potential talents in the recruitment process due to the enterprise itself or its HR department. Behind the success of one’s recruitment process lies onerous interview work. Recruitment is a 2-way choice, HR is not only a “gate-keeping” job but it is also necessary to get people that the enterprise needs to select the firm; an important role, which HR departments play in the overall process. The cause of the problem seems to be complicated, but in actual fact, only a few small minor changes are required to save a lot of time. At the same time, avoiding time-wasting and the embarrassment due to a loss of “face” when HR arranges a meeting for the candidate with head of departments and no one attends.

Lay out recruitment needs clearly with accurate job descriptions.

To achieve this, two aspects should be included. Internally, HR is required to properly manage the communication between departments, making employment needs of departments clear, explicit and complete; this is the cornerstone of all recruitment. Another aspect is to write genuinely precise external job descriptions. This is the first stage in which the candidate comes into contact with the company. For instance, be sure to include aspects such as work experience, working life qualifications and so on, require the use of detailed figures to describe; write less vague abilities, such as: strong leadership abilities, strong communication skills, strong organisational skills, good English skills etc. But remember that these attributes cannot be measured, so therefore anyone can consider themselves to satisfy these requirements. Instead, questions such as “How many individuals worked within the team you led?”, “what types of projects have you led?”

Recruitment channel segments.

Recruiting enterprises must first select the correct recruitment website. If the characteristics of the enterprise’s industry are clear, and the professionalism of the intended position is high, then professional recruitment websites must be considered first. Resume submissions received by these websites are not necessarily as high as comprehensive recruitment websites. However, talents and positions available are on a vertical plane, accurate and efficient, which not only eliminates the troubles of filtering the vast amounts of CVs, but also allows appropriate professionals to be recruited immediately.

Selection of third party co-operation.

In many cases, despite HR departments using various suppliers, there are no significant improvements in the speed of recruitment. Only through the correct selection of headhunting company, and its team of consultants, will the expected outcome come to fruitation. An outstanding headhunting partner is not only a good helper during your talent search, but also provides effective assistance and enterprise development in employer branding, formulation of talent strategy, market analysis, as well as many aspects of future development strategies. Consultants can establish good relationships with candidates within a given industry, be familiar with the characteristics of the particular industry, and have confidence whilst interviewing candidates.

To attract and retain talents in the recruitment process.

Candidates are likely to become companies’ potential clients; this is because they only applied for positions if they want someting from the company. So in the recruitment process, HR should place themselves more in the candidates’ shoes. No one is perfect, and therefore the basic principle is to not let the candidates face embarrassment and lose their self-esteem during the interview.

The fine culture of the company and its professional qualities should be reflected during the first call to the candidate. In the exchange process, besides fully understanding the necessary qualities of the interviewer, showcasing the positive energy of the company, such as honour, employee activities, management style, further enhances the talents’ interest in the company. Those who go in to be interviewed are all individuals possessing interest in the enterprise, thus deserve the respect and gratitude from the firm. After the results of the interviews are determined, the candidates should be responded to politely, especially to those of which unsuccessful. At the same time, a corporate talent pool should be established, whereby the information of these unsuccessful applicants should also be inputted into a database. This is because enterprises need different talent at different stages of development; requirements of talent also differ on different levels. Therefore, entering their information into an enterprises’ talent pool reserves, is preparation for the long-run.

Establish a distinctive employer brand.

The distinctive establishment of an employer brand refers to recognition and understanding of the corporate culture, the products and services provided by the company and the talents the firm needs and so on in the first instance whereby the job seeker sees the employer’s name. If you are a company which encourages high returns, then do not let the market feel that your work here is relaxed, because some people really like tense rhythm and these are the people you need. As for those who hope for more freedom in their lives, they will also have their suitable employers. Applications from these people will not result in too many positive outcomes for your company. Of course, this is a long-term process. The popular microblogs are good publicity channels. Since March last year, RMG Selection publicised its company via Sina Weibo and Renren, committed to creating a “fair, pleasant, hardworking, harmonious” employer image. In the recent 10 months of hard work, there are already more than 30 candidates (including official and internships) who have actively sought employment through this route. Further publicity through some promotional videos, print ads, media coverage, can strengthen the employer brand to become the most advantageous and most effective recruiting tool.

Simply speaking, as long as work is a little more meticulous, and a little more is done every day, then HR can save vast amounts of time from the indiscriminating applicants. Recruitment in hi-tech systems engineering, and recruiters are more than just CV filterers, you can also become “technical experts”.

By Robert Parkinson

Link to the article: http://businesstianjin.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6017%3Ahr-recruitment-sorted-easily&catid=183%3A2013-march&Itemid=100

RMG China Talent-flow Report on Recruitment International

Wednesday, 27 March 2013 01:51

Chinese Recruiting Pattern & Trends – Bachelors Beat Doctors!

According to the statistics of RMG China Talent-flow Survey, among the online job seekers, only 9% employees with bachelor’s degree receive no responses in the last 6 months

Chinese Recruiting Pattern & Trends – Bachelors Beat Doctors!RMG Selection initiates China Talent-flow Survey 2012 – 2013 Report. China Talent-flow Survey is designed to understand the current talents flow trends on region, company type, industry and positions within Greater China Region, and get an insight of changing job and how do candidates engage with headhunters. According to the statistics, among the responses from online job seeking, employees with doctor’s degree are less popular than those with bachelor’s degree. MBA does not show its advantage in online job seeking. Employers have different requirement in the aspects of education background for employees of different positions and different type of work. Higher education background doesn’t mean better job opportunities. Finding one’s niche in life, making a timely judgment, and then the education background will become the assistance of your career.

Online job seeking result: Doctors are less popular than bachelors; MBA does not show its advantage According to the statistics of RMG China Talent-flow Survey, among the online job seekers, only 9% employees with bachelor’s degree receive no responses in the last 6 months, while as many as 24% of employees with a doctoral degree receive no responses. Employees with an MBA, which are (allegedly) highly reputed, get a rate of 93% in responses, which is almost the same as those with a bachelor’s degree only who get a 91% response rate. Therefore, we can draw a conclusion that MBA does not necessarily show its advantage in the online job seeking process that it is reputed to. MBA is the most popular client for headhunters; doctors have no big difference with bachelors. According to RMG China Talent-flow Survey, among the bachelors who have found a new job, 46% of them have been placed successfully by headhunters, while the number for doctoral degree holders is 47%, which is almost the same with bachelors. Among job seekers with an MBA, nearly 67% of employees change job successfully through headhunters. Although an MBA does not distinguish itself in online job seeking, it is obvious that headhunters pay more attention to employees with MBA’s degree. Employees with a doctoral degree do not have any special advantage in the eyes’ of headhunters, according to our report’s findings. MBA do not have advantage in positions of starting career, but advantages appear in mid-high end positions. According to RMG China Talent-flow Survey, we can see that bachelors and MBA receive the same number of responses in online job seeking. 66% of bachelors receive more than 5 responses, while 64% of MBA holders receive more than 5 responses. Thus it is clear that an MBA does not any great advantage in the completion for junior-level positions. However, for the mid-to-high end positions where headhunters are important, MBA holders receive much more responses than bachelors. 46% of bachelors change job through headhunters, while 67% MBA are placed successfully into a new job by headhunters. An MBA does not have advantage in the positions of starting career. However, MBA has got the best advantage in mid-to-high end positions where there is headhunters’ engagement. It is gradually a trend to seek job through headhunters No matter bachelors, masters, MBA or doctors, the rate of seeking jobs through headhunters is very high, compared to companies own recruitment efforts. According to the result of the survey, almost half of the employees of bachelor’s and doctor’s degree change job successfully through headhunters, among them, the rate of bachelors is 46%, the rate of doctors is 47%, and nearly 67% MBA job seekers find job through headhunters. In the meantime, 52.26% employees think that calls from headhunters are more professional (than companies’ own HR departments), while 31.2% of employees think that calls from companies’ HR direct are more professional. As shown in Chart 3. It is becoming a trend to seek job through headhunters. Headhunters are becoming more important and more active in the job market and talent flow. Headhunters have been a new power in talent flow.

Link to the article: http://www.recruitment-international.co.uk/news/chinese-recruiting-pattern—-trends-%E2%80%93-bachelors-beat-doctors-18687.htm

Download the full report: https://www.rmgselection.com/tfs

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