Tag Archives: Robert Parkinson

Panasonic offers China workers pollution compensation — RMG CEO quoted in the Financial Times

Thursday, 13 March 2014 06:19

Panasonic has become the first international company to declare it will pay employees it sends to China a premium to compensate them for the dangerous levels of pollution in the country.

The Japanese group announced the changes on Wednesday, citing the high levels of PM2.5 in some urban Chinese areas. Particulate matter measuring 2.5 micrograms or less can enter the human blood stream through a person’s lungs and contribute to asthma, cancer or heart trouble.

Employees sent to China by Panasonic typically receive a more generous remuneration package because it is classed as a “hardship posting”, but until now no explicit mention has been made of growing concern over the dire air quality in the country.

Unrelenting smog has become a focus for public discontent, particularly in prosperous urban areas such as Beijing, which in February experiences a week-long stretch of “hazardous” air, the worst level on China’s air quality index. It has also been cited by expatriates as one of the main reasons for leaving the country.

The company did not disclose the number of Japanese employees in China covered by the scheme or the amount they will receive. Chinese employees already living in the country will not receive the extra payment.

Other companies have been quietly increasing the benefits they offer to expat staff over the past year but Panasonic is the first to publicly acknowledge the problem and offer an allowance to compensate employees who agree to relocate to China.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard any company be quite so brazen about it,” said Robert Parkinson, head of Beijing-based recruiter RMG Selection. “The normal style would be to dress it up as a ‘developing country allowance’.

“It’s a bit like saying we know we are exposing you to something that could be life-threatening. We’re going to admit it and compensate you for it.”

At the opening of China’s parliament last week, Premier Li Keqiang said his government would wage “war on pollution”. Days later an official analysis of 74 Chinese cities revealed that only three met national air quality standards.

The issue has gained more international attention since 2008 when the US embassy installed a pollution monitoring system on its roof in Beijing to detect the level of PM2.5.

The government has made some efforts to clean up polluting factories and steel mills and has also pledged to try and limit the number of cars on the country’s roads. Last year it outlined a plan to cut emissions and polluting steel capacity in the populous east, but attempts to regulate pollution are difficult given the country’s reliance on coal burning.

For many expatriates the extreme levels of pollution and its impact on daily life have already convinced them to leave. Many western embassies in Beijing started providing air filtering machines for their diplomats in 2014 as it became increasingly difficult to convince qualified people, especially those with small children, to move to the Chinese capital.

Article shared from FT page:　http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9567823e-a9b3-11e3-adab-00144feab7de.html#axzz2vou41nWU

Major cities losing their allure for new graduates

Monday, 17 February 2014 07:32

RMG China Talent Flow Survey 2013 (TFS2) appears in China Daily again! This is the second version of Chinese job market and talent flow market research since 2012! There are 13 classic questions and specific analysis based on region, gender, education background, industry, function, age etc. People who are interested in getting more info about job market in China should not miss TFS2!

After much consideration, Ying Hanlu decided against finding work in Beijing and Shanghai and instead returned home after graduating in the summer.

“My boyfriend and I were having a hard time with a long-distance relationship, so after he found a job in our hometown I followed,” she said.

Rising property prices and tightened restrictions on hukou – permanent residence permits – made life “too uncertain”, said the 27-year-old, who finished graduate school at Shanghai International Studies University. She plans to marry her boyfriend next year.

A study released last week by online recruitment company Zhaopin and Peking University’s Institute of Social Sciences found collegestudents are showing less interest in working in China’s mega-cities – Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou – after graduation.

Only 38.7 percent of the 10,800 students from 200 universities interviewed said they would choose to work in the three cities aftergraduating, a downward trend for three consecutive years, from 53.8 percent in 2011 and 42.1 percent in 2012.

Soaring property prices, air pollution and traffic congestion were major reasons, according to the report, Best Employer Award2013.

Similar findings can be seen in the RMG China Talents-Flow Survey 2013. Although 35 percent of the 4,000 employees polledchoose to stay in one of the major cities, 53 percent said they had considered relocating to second or third-tier cities, up 16 percentyear-on-year.

Some expressed a willingness to move further to even smaller cities.

“As the central government is tightening the household registration policies in major cities, I suppose the inflow of talents will beaffected in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai,” said Max Ma, chief operating officer of FESCO Adecco in Shanghai, a multinationalhuman resources company.

Zhu Hongyan at Zhaopin said her company’s data show in recent years small and medium-sized cities in central and western regionsof China have provided more job opportunities than eastern counterparts.

“The local economies in developed cities in East China are slowing down while the inland cities are quickly catching up and many big companies are expanding their business to second or third-tier cities, which have created more jobs for educated young people,” she said.

Mobility among different cities is helpful for China to realize a more balanced development among different regions, said Robert Parkinson, founder and managing director of the international recruitment group RMG Selection.

Contact the writers at [email protected] and [email protected]

(China Daily USA 01/27/2014 page5)

HR Attention – China Logistics Talent under The Spotlight

Friday, 14 February 2014 07:24

Do you know that logistic industry is in the shortage of talent? Find out the answer in Robert Parkinson’s article on Business Tianjin. As the development of economic globalization and the rise of the network economy move ahead quickly, global logistics services start to accelerate development. Because of logistic employee shortages, this sector is now one of the top 12 talent shortage industries! For human resource professionals, have you started to consider how to attract qualified logistics talent to stimulate business development? Come and read the insights from Robert!

As the development of economic globalisation and the rise of the network economy move ahead quickly, global logistics services start to accelerate development. Because of logistic employee shortages, this sector is now one of the top 12 talent shortage industries. Therefore, human resource managers should pay closer attention to hiring qualified staff and maintain current logistics talents.

It is common knowledge that the modem logistics is the integration of transport, warehousing and information industry, the service industry is an essential part of the national economy. In the transportation, storage, packaging, distribution processing, information handling and other aspects of company operations, each step demands a large number of personnel involvement. The demand for logistics talent is forecasted to increase by 400,000 per year in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015). However, the number of logistics graduates is only 4 million per year, which cannot satisfy the high demand. Furthermore, the educational qualifications of current logistics staff are much lower than the average standards of other industries.

As a human resource manager, you should start to consider how to attract qualified logistics talent to stimulate business development. Before planning a strategy of logistic staff recruitment, you should clearly understand the meaning of logistics talent first. Logistics operations not only require talented individuals, they also need to hire sales people, purchasing people, and supply chain management personnel.

Sales People

Rather than merely looking at the candidate’s current shipments, companies should recruit sales people fitting their own strengths and weaknesses, in order to utilise the strengths to overcome the weaknesses and to take advantage of the opportunity to avoid the threats. Companies should realise that only a small proportion of sales person are actually qualified for their business niches. Consequently, it becomes incrementally important to have the selling point ready to attract those truly value adding sales people.

Purchasing Personnel

Since procurement is becoming increasingly important in the company’s strategy, it is an essential component of a firm’s supply chain in order to gain market share in the intense competition. Nowadays, procurement is becoming more diversified, multinational, and interdepartmental. The procurement officers need to have good foreign language communication skills, and have an acute sense of influencing factors such as fluctuations in raw material prices and climatic changes.

Supply Chain Management Personnel

The competition has been changed from being primarily amongst companies or amongst regions to being amongst supply chains. China has becoming the world’s manufacturing base, and numerous enterprises have realised that supply chain management is the key link to produce excellent firms. Meanwhile, the supply chain integrates the information system of enterprise, which means that the supply chain managers are required to have hands-on experiences in sales forecasting, purchasing, planning, material delivering, imports and exports. We can say that supply chain management staff could regard these as the crucial factor of a corporation success or failure.

Moreover, language skills are requested- especially English, Japanese, Russian and German. Based on the geographic analysis, Pearl River Delta (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai) is the busiest and the densest airlift region. The Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Hangzhou and Ningbo) is regarded as the most promising region by insiders. The Bohai Rim region’s (Beijing and Tianjin) logistics firms, which focus largely on purchasing and transportation, are suffering from a shortage of talented people with computer skills and financial and operation management experience. The Midwest area is lagging behind the other regions because of the geographical conditions being so restrictive, and transportation managers, warehouse supervisors and logistics operation mangers are needed more than the positions related to international business and customs.

Keeping your present talents is more difficult than recruiting because of the unstable working time, high intensity operations and bored mechanical repetition. Particularly for the young employees, once the desired does not conform to the actual growth rate, they will resign immediately.

In order for a company to retain logistics talents, firstly it must provide career advancement opportunities and pursuit for excellence objectives. Secondly, companies should advocate that talent and enterprise will grow up together, and share the happiness and success with the employees. Remember that emolument is the first element of attracting the talent, but it is not the best way to hold onto the great workers. Finally, companies must be honest with their employees, make them feel that they are not only a part of the company, but also a business partner to the company.

Happy Work

Creating a happy working environment is the fundamental element for the existence of development. For the service industry, particularly for the logistics industry with high technology content and high quality team work, the quality of the employee is the lifeblood of the enterprise. Keeping talented staff members is the key factor to maintaining the core competence in order to achieve the objective. For instance, DHL adopts an open management mode to keep staff morale high. Liguo Zong, the manager of the ground operation department of DHL says that “to make our clients happy, first of all we should make our employees happy, because only in this way happiness will convey to the customers through our employees’ happy face and hands”.

Providing Developmental Space

Corporations offer ideal growth and development space to ensure the continuous improvement of its employees, and it also helps to turn talent into full performance, utilise their potential capabilities and realise their own value to a greater degree as well. Many workplace environments offer some latitude for self-motivated and creative employees to suggest ideas for new work place initiatives. Employees will strengthen the sense of belonging to the firm and sense of responsibility, and consciously stay in the company.

Setting up a Rewards System

Wage, bonus and welfare incentives

Wages influence employee behavior effectively, and enterprises can retain talent with high salaries. There are also bonus schemes that can be used mainly including monthly bonuses, quarterly bonuses, and annual bonuses. The commonly used incentives are treatment of employees’ health care, housing and social insurance.

To honour outstanding employees

Even though high wages and bonuses are very attractive, they are not the best ways to reward employees. As a human resource manager, you might want to consider other rewards systems. Take an example from FedEx. They offer several major awards including Bravo Zulu which is a reward for outstanding performance, the Finders Keepers is the award for the staff member that contacts customers every day and brings new customers to the company, the Best Practice reward employees whose contributions exceeds the company’s goals, the Golden Falcon Awards are given to staff who are nominated by the customer and company management; and the Star/Superstar Awards are the highest awards of work performance in the company.

China’s logistics industry is booming year on year, which indicates that the number of logistics talent is also eager to find its place. However, since the number of applicants cannot satisfy the huge demand, more and more employees are resigning their jobs in search for opportunities. Human resource managers should focus on attracting logistic talents including sales people, procurement personnel and supply chain management staff through different methods. For instance, by providing career advancement opportunities, offering a competitive salary and setting out reward and punishment systems. In the end, companies need to retain the talented employees by giving full play to each person’s potential, providing developmental space, and creating reward systems in order to develop long-term competitiveness in the industry.

Read the original version at:http://www.businesstianjin.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7115:hr-hr-attention-china-logistics-talent-under-the-spotlight&catid=192:2013-october&Itemid=100

By Robert Parkinson, CEO and Founder of RMG Selection

CV – the Vital First Step

Friday, 14 February 2014 06:31

Latest article from Robert Parkinson (CEO & Founder of RMG Selection) on China today! # CV – the Vital First Step# To keen overseas job seekers who want to work in China: When enjoying the excitement of coming to China to find a job, does it ever occur to you that 100 of the CVs you’ve sent out don’t even get a glimpse from the Chinese HR?! Find out how to present yourself in CV together with Robert now!

To keen overseas job seekers who want to work in China: While anticipating the excitement of coming to China to find a job, does it ever occur to you that maybe 100 of the CVs you’ve sent out won’t even get a glimpse from the Chinese company HR? Does that shock you? If you expect to get a good job because of your years of work experience and career achievements, would you believe that the Chinese HR might miss your point entirely? Having worked as a headhunter for 15 years and lived in Beijing for 10 years, I have read thousands of resumes from foreign job seekers, and can tell you that just a few changes on your CV could make your dream career in China a reality!

The first thing we need to understand is just exactly how long CVs are scanned for, particularly for junior and mid-level positions. It’s about 23 seconds. That’s all! So when you’re composing your CV, what you leave out is just as important as what you put in.For example, I’ve seen resumes that are literally flooded with information. I recently read one from a senior manager that was eight pages long! Piling on details about your work experience will only make HR workers lose interest. Of course, all work experience matters in one’s career, but you have to bear it in mind that it’s important to distill it down to key responsibilities and achievements, and write as concisely as possible.Last but not least, remember that you are only as good as your last deal. So you should devote the space that your experience of 15 years ago would take up to your current job. Employers aren’t so interested in what you did 15 years ago, so balance the space in your CV accordingly. As a general rule CVs should take two sides of A4. One page isn’t enough. But if it’s any longer than three sides, your CV will not be read.

Don’t be coy about photos or age. Specifying age might be banned in the U.S., but it isn’t here: age is relevant, so include it. Likewise, Chinese hiring authorities like to see photographs. But make sure the one you show isn’t a studio-style shot that is flattering but does not reflect your age! I met a candidate last week whose CV and the photo on it impressed me and gave me a good feeling. But when she entered my office it was clear that the photo had been taken 10 or more years earlier. This to me was tantamount to deception.

Don’t tell stories from the 1960s: I like reading biographies of people like Steve Jobs and Angela Merkel, and the career stories of job applicants take up a considerable share of my reading matter. But Chinese HR have absolutely no interest in the career stories applicants tell on their CV. Describing a job in the 1960s on a supermarket check-out is not really advisable, especially for senior job seekers. Another point I want to make is about the order of work experience. I strongly recommend reverse order – starting from the most recent job. This will instantly inform Chinese HR whether or not you fit the position. The same applies to education background part. Start with your most recent and most impressive academic degree to make the best HR impact.

Bullet points: Keep it brief: I clearly remember one of my university courses on writing cover letters. A cover letter is indispensable to job applications in most Western countries. But no matter how hard or long you work on your cover letter, it really makes no difference to HR people in China. Remember, the Chinese HR worker only allocates about 20 seconds to each CV. Nobody will spend extra time reading your cover letter. What you can do is to write a brief, professional e-mail. In my headhunter capacity, I suggest that this email include specific attributes, in the form of bullet points, which make you the right person for the company. This, again, will help Chinese HR workers spot your suitability for the job. Job hunting in a completely different country is no easy task, and your CV is the vital first step towards your Chinese dream career. Nobody expects their painstakingly prepared resume to be cast aside after a cursory glance. If you take a few minutes to incorporate in it my suggestions, I can more or less guarantee more responses from Chinese HR departments. If not, well, you can always come back to me, as long as you don’t apply for a position that bears no relation to your previous experience.

为何你的员工不安分

Tuesday, 07 January 2014 04:04

每逢“金九银十”跳槽季，许多职场人士都开始活跃起来，此时的中国人才市场展现着勃勃生机。这个充满着生气的场景，不禁让我想起五六十年代的中国人。那时，绝大部分人在选择了某种工作之后，都会鞠躬尽瘁死而后已。坚持不懈的追求和高度负责的态度成就了顽强一代人。然而，老一代的中国人却用“不安分”和“挑剔”这样的字眼来形容现在职场中的年轻人。其实，我非常理解老一代人的想法。在他们眼中，安稳才是工作中最重要的事情。不过，事关职业发展和工作更迭，我认为是时候让老一代中国人体验一次头脑风暴了。在猎头和招聘行业的这15年里，我发现其实越来越多的中国人开始理解人们换工作时形形色色的理由，有时是因为薪资待遇，升职空间，公司文化，领导风格，有时又是因为工作内容，公司地点，社会福利，工作环境以及家庭因素。从这个角度出发，我认为深入了解换工作的种种原因就是拉开这场头脑风暴的帷幕的关键。根据罗迈国际和英国诺丁汉大学的联合进行的《第二期中国人才流动调查报告2013》显示，调查者把薪资待遇，升职空间和工作文化列为影响人们换工作的前三个因素。该调查报告在今年7月中旬到10月份期间收到了近4000份回复。下面的图表1将会向大家展示一些重要的数据。可以看到，名列第一的换工作原因是薪资待遇，有69%的被调查者把薪资水平作为更换工作的导航仪。这个结果并不是那么出乎意料，应为早起“职业”就是用来维持生计的一种方式。体面的薪资可以为人来带来更好的生活水平，反之亦然。因此，也就不难理解为什么在大家在换工作时一定会“看钱”。

　　此外，我还注意到今年女性跳槽时考虑的因素基本和男性一致。几十年前的中国女性只能过着“大门不出二门不迈”的生活。那时，中国女性外出工作是极其不被看好的，甚至是根本不可接受的事情。然而，现今社会文明的巨大变化给了中国女性接触外围环境的机会。从下面的图表2 和图表3我们可以看出影响人们换工作决定的前三个因素在男性和女性上完全一样，甚至这三个因素的比例在男女之间都相差无几。我想中国女性能从家庭主妇的角色快速的转变到女性职场精英的角色，这证明她们在职业发展的进程中属于“适者生存”一类。

　　在文化如此多样化的中国生活的这十多年里，我听说过很多有关中国历史和文化的轶事。我以升职举一个非常具有代表性的例子，请看图表4。扎根于传统中国文化的加官进爵对于现代升职概念有很大影响。根据著名的中国百科全书《吕氏春秋》，每一个人都希望在等级体系中获得晋升机会，这也是人们自我实现的基本需求。在现在社会，升职则被作为对员工努力工作以及取得成绩的认可。

　　尽管排行第二的跳槽因素为升职，但是根据图表4，人们对于升职的需求在不同的年龄段是很不一样的。可以看到从18到35岁这个年龄段，升职对于人们换工作的影响呈缓慢递增趋势。尤其30到35岁这个年龄区间职场人士正处在职业生涯的黄金阶段，此时只要他们对目前职业的满意度达到了峰值，跳槽或者晋升对于他们来说就没有那么大的诱惑力了。相比之下，现在的年轻人倒是会因为晋升空间而选择跳槽。其实图表1中的第三个影响人们跳槽的原因让人有点难以置信，但事实是有50%的员工会因为对企业文化不满而考虑换一个新的工作环境。企业价值观，工作环境，同事关系，以及核心领导人等因素都是企业文化的一部分，他们在很大程度上决定着员工是否喜欢一家公司。关于公司文化，其实很多公司都是只知其一不知其二。良好的公司文化可以吸引人才，然而更重要的问题则是如何利用公司文化保留人才。根据我的招聘经验，实际上90%的员工离职都和直线经理风格或者公司管理方式有很大关系。但是，却没有几家公司真正注重企业文化建设问题。优良的企业文化可以为公司带来“智能”员工，工作中这些员工们的表现不仅会影响公司客户和应聘者，还会影响到其他员工。所以，建设会企业文化才能起到中流砥柱的作用。经历了诸多面试的场景，我非常清楚地记得很多候选人都告诉过他们想跳槽的原因，有些人不满意现在工作环境，有些人不喜欢同事间的冷漠关系，还有些人实在忍受不了公司的惩罚体质，而这些恰恰都属于企业文化建设。以前人们看新的工作机会主要向钱看齐，而现在人们在意的不仅仅是薪水的问题了。如果一家公司没有独特的企业文化，那就意味着该企业会遇到人才吸引和保留危机。我知道有些人把“浮躁”和“挑剔”当成跳槽的代名词，但是为什么不换种方式看待问题呢？我个人更喜欢把跳槽看作是在职场上开发个人潜能的翘板，因为影响现代年轻人换工作的因素确实变得相对复杂了，仅仅把他们定义为“活跃”的一代人不免会以偏概全。根据《中国人才流动调查报告2013》，图表1中列出的几点大致是在人们考虑跳槽时比较有影响力的因素。对于企业来说，一定要了解员工跳槽背后的真正原因，不要天真地认为你的员工只在乎涨薪或升职，因为企业文化，公司领导力以及工作内容在现代职场中已经变得异常重要。所以只有与时俱进，才能稳住员工的心。 Read the original version at: http://www.ceconline.com/hr/ma/8800069325/01/

Page 4 of 7