The TIME magazine is an interesting establishment. You write to asialetters@timeasia.com - hoping that you will have your letter published in the subsequent issue, but that does not happen. Forget about that. You don't even get an acknowledgement or rejection - even after you ask them multiple times.
Anyway, this post is about my reaction to an article in TIME, not the magazine.
I was on my way back from one of the customary trips to China, when I came across this article about the employee retention challenges in China ['China's Talent War', May 28, TIME]. It was a deja-vu moment. Replace 'China' with 'India' and turn the clock back 5 to 10 years (or even keep the same timeframe), and you will find an almost exact article in some of the archives. It is rare to find an article in TIME magazine with such palpable lack of real research - apart from what can only be considered as coffee-table conversations - or of reference to any published material on the subject, or also, sadly, of perspective - especially for a contemporary topic dealing with China's people practices. Alcatel, Youku and Alibaba are hardly representative of the overall Chinese corporate landscape.
It was certainly surprising to find no mention of India in this article - which has been a sellers market for talent for almost a decade now - or, for that matter any other part of the world - apart from a few 'copy and paste' examples of methods from the Silicon Valley - methods bordering on being ridiculous.
There is enough evidence in theory and practice that Indian companies have tried, and are still trying, all these methods - right from providing free cookies and meals, and pool tables for staff to play, to providing day-care facilities, and opportunities for higher education while working, up to creating robust career planning structures and also creating a national registry for talent for some new-age industries like software engineering and call centers. These efforts have met with little or no success in most cases for the last decade. If the purpose of TIME's article was to suggest that these will work in China, the experience so far within and outside China suggests otherwise.
More than retention, the larger problem that companies face in a sellers' market of talent is the problem of attracting the right talent for the right job. It is a common mistake people make to think that there are millions of 'employable' people in these countries just because there is a huge base population. Most companies struggle to meet the timelines to fill staff requests, and even if they get people, the quality of new hires is usually compromised. Another phenomenon is that newly hired employees (especially at entry level) hop from job to job - never settling beyond more than 30 to 90 days in one company - i.e. even before they become productive in their jobs, they are gone. These are sometimes referred to as 'floaters' - people who move from one company's training program to another's, and hardly get down to do any productive work.
China already has its share of these challenges related to workforce, which include - apart from above - issues with career progression, performance measurement, and lack of innovation at workplaces. With this background, the TIME article appeared incomplete and outdated. The topic nevertheless is contemporary and pertinent, and I was glad someone is showing these issues the light of the day.
Although it is surprising how accessible China is (contrary to the general image), very little is published about the people aspects of Chinese business. It is perhaps worthwhile to conduct a more detailed research in people issues and come up with a series of articles dealing with different aspects of people management in the local and multi-national companies in China.
p.s. I have switched to Economist since.
Shreekant
26 May 2012
Anyway, this post is about my reaction to an article in TIME, not the magazine.
I was on my way back from one of the customary trips to China, when I came across this article about the employee retention challenges in China ['China's Talent War', May 28, TIME]. It was a deja-vu moment. Replace 'China' with 'India' and turn the clock back 5 to 10 years (or even keep the same timeframe), and you will find an almost exact article in some of the archives. It is rare to find an article in TIME magazine with such palpable lack of real research - apart from what can only be considered as coffee-table conversations - or of reference to any published material on the subject, or also, sadly, of perspective - especially for a contemporary topic dealing with China's people practices. Alcatel, Youku and Alibaba are hardly representative of the overall Chinese corporate landscape.
It was certainly surprising to find no mention of India in this article - which has been a sellers market for talent for almost a decade now - or, for that matter any other part of the world - apart from a few 'copy and paste' examples of methods from the Silicon Valley - methods bordering on being ridiculous.
There is enough evidence in theory and practice that Indian companies have tried, and are still trying, all these methods - right from providing free cookies and meals, and pool tables for staff to play, to providing day-care facilities, and opportunities for higher education while working, up to creating robust career planning structures and also creating a national registry for talent for some new-age industries like software engineering and call centers. These efforts have met with little or no success in most cases for the last decade. If the purpose of TIME's article was to suggest that these will work in China, the experience so far within and outside China suggests otherwise.
More than retention, the larger problem that companies face in a sellers' market of talent is the problem of attracting the right talent for the right job. It is a common mistake people make to think that there are millions of 'employable' people in these countries just because there is a huge base population. Most companies struggle to meet the timelines to fill staff requests, and even if they get people, the quality of new hires is usually compromised. Another phenomenon is that newly hired employees (especially at entry level) hop from job to job - never settling beyond more than 30 to 90 days in one company - i.e. even before they become productive in their jobs, they are gone. These are sometimes referred to as 'floaters' - people who move from one company's training program to another's, and hardly get down to do any productive work.
China already has its share of these challenges related to workforce, which include - apart from above - issues with career progression, performance measurement, and lack of innovation at workplaces. With this background, the TIME article appeared incomplete and outdated. The topic nevertheless is contemporary and pertinent, and I was glad someone is showing these issues the light of the day.
Although it is surprising how accessible China is (contrary to the general image), very little is published about the people aspects of Chinese business. It is perhaps worthwhile to conduct a more detailed research in people issues and come up with a series of articles dealing with different aspects of people management in the local and multi-national companies in China.
p.s. I have switched to Economist since.
Shreekant
26 May 2012
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