Lately I’ve read two pieces that approach talent and training in China from completely opposite perspectives.
The first is Yanmei Xie’s recent piece for Asia Calling, “The ‘Ants” of China Struggle for Small Rewards”.
The second is China CEO: Voices of Experience from 20 International Business Leaders, by Juan Antonio Fernandez and Laurie Underwood.
Together, they tell me that China has thousands and thousands of college graduates. They compete for low-paying jobs in China’s cities, and lack the skills to be top-flight candidates for multinational companies. Thus, recruiting, developing, and retaining talent continues to be one of the biggest challenges for companies operating here.
Xie’s “Ants” piece describes this dynamic from the bottom. It begins:
There’s a group of people in China who are called the tribe of ants .
Like ants, they are of humble roots. Like ants, they work diligently for small rewards like bread crumbs.
Like ants, they live in big clusters in crammed spaces.
They are recent college graduates who flock to big cities seeking to improve their lives their families’ but find themselves in uphill battles. [more]
I find the following lines poignant, especially since I used to teach at a Chinese university that’s partly privately-run. 22-year-old Zhang Pei
worked in sales for an advertising company. He quit yesterday after a fight with his manager. …
Pei went to a private college in Beijing. Since China relaxed regulations on higher-institutions ten years ago, privately-run schools sprouted up.
They let many more people get college degrees, but their graduates are often valued less than those from better-known state-run universities.
“We are different from those who graduate from brand-name colleges. There are too many college graduates. I feel I am not capable enough and don’t have much skill, so I do feel somewhat helpless.” [more]
I thought about Pei’s expression of helplessness and desire for skills training as I re-read a book focused on the opposite side of the business spectrum: China CEO. It came out in 2006 (which happens to be the year I arrived in China) but I think its lessons are still relevant today.
Eli Lilly’s Christopher Shaw, who says the language classes he offers on company premises are well worth the investment, “This is something our employees value and something we value. We want to keep people and we want to promote people. It is very important. When they join my company, they say: ‘Eli Lilly is looking out for my future’”
The authors also point out an important caveat: the risk of “train and run.” This is something we’ve often heard in our meetings with human resources managers in China. Companies invest in training and struggle to communicate to employees that they expect something in return for this investment. One executive complains that staff members return from a training session and immediately start asking about the next, more advanced training.
The interviewees agreed that building employer-employee guanxi is the best defense against high staff turnover. Over and over, the authors heard that a workplace should be “like a family.”
I agree. I also believe that the best training is tailored to meet the companies’ needs as well as the individuals’ interests. Ideally, a training program can make the most of a tight budget, build ‘ants’ skills, make them feel like part of a family, and serve the company’s broader goals.
Yes, I know this sounds a bit utopian. What do you think?
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