Behavioral Changes through Job Swaps

Effective talent management depends on understanding the workforce, their desires and aspirations, and reconciling these with commercial and operational realities. One such desire of Chinese employees is the appetite for meaningful career advancement opportunities, not only in China, but also in the West.

Global job swaps are a unique opportunity for Chinese employees to gain first-hand experience with diverse business environments and cultures. Though, one cannot overlook the size of the investment a company needs to make to support such a program. Given the average training budget per employee per year, the job swap program costs (in particular as we only refer to one or a few job swappers) can be substantial.

Even so, in 2009, TBWA\China made an overseas assignment for one Chinese employee a reality. At the same time, the agency hosted a German employee in its office for the period of six months.

The 2009 job swap was kicked off as both agencies, in Shanghai and in Hamburg, saw the benefits that could accrue to the employees and the agencies from the exchange. Employees were provided with the opportunity to gain international exposure to a different business environment, insight into different cultures and societies, as well as the first hand knowledge of how other cultures approach agency operations and client relationships. Agencies expected to benefit by the ways of having more qualified and experienced staff who returns professionally inspired and equipped with a unique international perspective. Furthermore, agencies used the exchange to strengthen ties between them.

A questionnaire was distributed to job swappers to explore their self-assessment of the interpersonal and intercultural skills. Job swappers completed the questionnaire twice, first after the first 2 weeks of the exchange and second 2 weeks after the exchange was finished and job swappers returned to their home office.

Both job swappers agreed that they developed new skills during the job swap. They became more aware that they sometimes hear people, but they do not truly listen to what they are telling. They learned to strive to get the true message that people of different cultural background were trying to send, read between the lines, and pick up the non-verbal nuances. During the job swap, the job swappers developed into better listeners. Furthermore, job swappers got a better feel for empathy. They became skilled at putting themselves in another's shoes, an ability essential for account service professionals. These behavioral changes were the most realized personal development gains and advantages of a job swap.