Design Talents in China

Article in Xin Wen Chen Bao, on February 19th, 2009

1. What are the effects of the global economic crisis on the future of design talents in China?
An economic slowdown calls for fewer people with better skills. People with excellent creative thinking abilities, graphic skills, and striving talent will have the upper hand. On an ever increasing level, design talents will need to ask "how" instead of answering yes or no, be comfortable with doing things that they have not done before, and embrace a variety of media with particular focus on any imaginable space between the brand and its consumers.

2. What is the career outlook for creative talents in China?
China's GDP is still expected to grow for many years to come. Secondly, marketing, branding, and connecting to the customers are essential to drive business. Therefore, I am positive about the industry's future and opportunities for creative talents with a strong work ethic and client orientation.

3. What are the major weaknesses of local designers in China?
The main weaknesses of local designers are relatively weak conceptual and English skills. These weaknesses can be overcome by studying and practicing different kinds of art forms, actively engaging in brainstorming sessions, and being committed to continuous learning. In the early career stage, local designers should concentrate on enhancing design skills, learning to manage time and project challenges effectively and efficiently, demonstrating high quality standards consistently, and striving to understand brand essence.

4. What does TBWA\Group\China do to retain creative professionals?
We provide our Employees with opportunities to work on fun, challenging, and exciting projects for world class brands and offer competitive salary and compensation packages with an environment conducive for initiative, creativity, and collaboration. Training and development are also strong pillars of our culture. Last year we launched many new initiatives including Performance Conversation Model, an Organizational Climate Survey as part of the Workforce Scorecard, and RedSlash Awards (employee recognition program). What's more, we create opportunities to build stronger bonds in the workplace. People that easily integrate into our culture are ambitious, open-minded, and honest; while disruption (our philosophy, methodology, and cultural glue) continuously helps us to attract them.

5. What role does Raffles Design Institute play in training creative professionals for the industry?
I appreciate all relationships that TBWA\Group\China has with the educational community in Shanghai. Raffles has been successful at identifying, educating, and inspiring new talent and is one of our key recruitment destinations. In the past, we have been very lucky to work with some of the best students from Raffles. Currently, nearly 10% of our Employees come from our UN-intern program which Raffles and other tertiary institutions partake in.

Internship Programs

Few organizations in China have Internship programs that are thoroughly conceptualized and implemented by the company. Instead, internships are approached on an ad-hoc basis and Interns are hired mostly to off-set headcount shortages. As a result, companies may face low Intern satisfaction scores and consequently high Intern turnover rates that invariably create disturbances to team effectiveness while training efforts do not pay off.

Therefore, it would be beneficial for organizations to design an Internship program that would help the company position itself as a good Employer and not as an exploiter of cheap labor, achieve consistent and quality experiences for Interns, and give Managers a roadmap for Internship arrangements. In order to do so, proper consideration must be given to the following questions:
• What are the expected benefits of the program to the company?
• What are the expected benefits of the program to the Interns?
• What are the objectives of the Intern program?
• How long should the Internship take to be recognized as a valuable experience?
• Who are eligible candidates? What are the minimum requirements?
• What could be the benefits of offering Internship positions to overseas Chinese or foreigners?
• What is the selection process for an Internship position?
• What sort of induction program would be helpful for the Intern to gain a comprehensive understanding of the department, team, and business?
• Should an Intern work on a specific project or help out with any added workload that emerges? What should be the Interns’ tasks?
• Should Interns work OT? How much OT is normal or permitted?
• Should Interns be allowed to use their personal computers at work?
• What level of remuneration appears to be fair for the value Interns create during their Internship?
• What are the expectations of Managers? To what degree will Managers be held responsible for creating a positive and rewarding experience for the Intern?
• What is the most appropriate approval process?
• What quality control tools will be instituted (e.g. Intern Satisfaction Survey, Intern Exit Interview)?

Are People Truly Your Greatest Asset?

“People are our Greatest Asset” is a motto that is as heavily overused in the corporate world in China as around the world. After all, the "people's agenda” is still not the number one priority on many CEO’s list of strategic priorities. Metrics can be used to help the HR department shift the CEO's priorities to PEOPLE. For example, “Amount of time the CEO spends face-to-face with employees from different management levels”, “Hours per week the CEO spends with the HR Head”, “Number of people initiatives that are owned by the CEO”, and “Employees’ engagement score”.

Additionally, to test and demonstrate that substance exists behind this slogan, organizations should consider adopting the following steps:
• Implementing metrics and targets for the organization's people agenda (Workforce Scorecard).
• Making it really hard for excellent talent to leave (Career Planning and Benefits Planning that surpasses the competition).
• Outlining clearly which behaviors are desirable and which are unacceptable (Employee Handbook).
• Creating policies and practices that reflect workforce trends and show genuine care (Periodic HR and People audits and revisions of policies and practices).
• Promoting common sense and a positive “Yes, I can” approach among policy Administrators so that they do not just follow policies blindly but also think about and understand when policies simply do not apply. In this respect, policy Administrators must be empowered to grant an exception on the spot if the situation requires.
• Showing people a "human touch" and respect at all times.

Lastly, companies preaching “People are our Greatest Asset” should also reevaluate their approach to temporary staff such as Freelancers and Interns.

How to Avoid Sloppy Online Recruitment Advertising

Since the boom of the Internet, online advertising has become an integral component of all recruitment efforts. It is not only an extremely cost effective form of advertising, but less demanding than print advertising particularly in regards to ad size, the amount of words used, and quality of the entire copy.

As a result, some companies slack off here and delegate the drafting and posting of online recruitment advertising to junior HR staff without further supervision. Over time however, this approach leads to various design formats with inconsistent copy and numerous grammatical and spelling mistakes. More troubling is the fact that these ads seldom portray the job in an attractive and engaging manner and regularly continue to live on and on somewhere in digital space long after the position has been closed; very careless indeed.

So, to reverse this negative cycle and harness positive public relations, prepare a thorough online recruitment advertising policy. Begin by answering the following questions:
• Who is authorizing the advertising of positions?
• Who approves the final draft of the online recruitment advertisement?
• Who determines placement of online recruitment advertisements (which Internet sites are used will likely depend on the nature of the position and an expected ease or difficulty of securing an adequate field of Candidates).
• Who is responsible for assuring the quality of the company’s agreed to branding, style, and standard design format?
• What are the specific guidelines for the content of the online recruitment advertisement (e.g. to be consistent with the position description/person specification with non discriminatory criteria as sex and age, whether to indicate the salary range of the position, etc.)?
• Does the online recruitment advertising need to be in English or in Chinese or bilingual?
• How do we track the effectiveness of the online recruitment advertising by recruitment portal (e.g. effectiveness of the response rates to the advertisement [Applicant Tracking], the percentage of appointments made after the first round of advertising, or the number of applications processed within standard timeframes)?

Five Human Capital/HR Truths to Reinforce in 2009

1. You cannot rely on the HR function to take care of your people. Every Manager in the company must understand the value of people. Executives and managers must do their part to address strategic people challenges. It is not all up to the HR Department; it is a shared responsibility.
2. HR cannot effectively drive change without a non-HR sponsor. Executive buy-in and in particular the CEO's ongoing and firm commitment are essential to change management. There tend to be just a few change agents in the organization as a whole and this is way many programs and changes fail miserably. See point 1 as well.
3. The entire HR function must learn to help leaders improve their talent decisions, not just implement them. HR practitioners must develop analytical insight to support executive “decision making”. HR is sitting on tons of data but few of which is properly monitored and adjusted to be ready and served up as management information.
4. Simply rebranding HR as “strategic” is not enough. Executives must either hire people capable of assessing people challenges and devising executable solutions or help HR staff develop the required skills and capabilities. If you do not know it, then find it elsewhere and bring it on board or invest in acquiring the skills first. HR strategy is much easier said than done.
5. Bonuses are not tokens to buy future performance. Executives must realize that a "bonus" is a sum of money given to an employee in addition to their regular pay because of excellent work, length of service, accumulated favors, etc. It is not a form of bribery to convince an employee to stay and perform well in the coming year. Concentrate on and fix the true reasons as to why an employee is seriously interested in leaving in the first place.

How do you know if your HR Head lacks strategic potential or leadership?

• S/he focuses on and strives to keep administrative transactions and other non-strategic activities in-house by limiting the HR budget to HR personnel salaries as much as possible.
• S/he does not understand, drive, nor support (financially or otherwise) any employer branding initiatives and perceives recruitment marketing as a waste of time.
• S/he is unable to recognize that competition for critical talent is heating up and does not understand the supply and demand of critical workforce segments.
• S/he is unable to monitor availability of critical talent for the organization and does not work to influence it (e.g. University engagement).
• S/he does not strive to gain insights into employee factors as turnover or age within the organization’s critical workforce segments.
• S/he believes the company’s recruiter is a junior role and does not have an issue with the recruiter being in charge of overtaking administrative duties connected with e.g. visa for expatriates, new staff announcements, etc.
• S/he does not know the answer to the question: Why would great people want to work at their Company?
• S/he does not recognize the link between the company’s standing in the talent market and its position in the product/service market.

HR People in China

In China, the HR profession has relatively low barriers to entry. Even today, many HR Departments are filled with HR people without any formal HR qualifications.

Traditionally, vacancies in the HR Department were taken up by graduates of English schools or Finance professionals whose talents were incommensurate with their new responsibilities and duties.

Another wave of HR professionals comes from consulting companies. Just like advertising agencies develop talent for their in-house Marketing Department, recruitment agencies and HR consulting companies produce a talent pool of in-house recruiters and HR executives. These candidates may find themselves overwhelmed with the amount of daily Admin work that requires their attention.

The final batch of HR professionals comes from an Operations background. This group usually starts their career in Marketing, Sales, or Product Development. They in fact have very limited HR know-how.

To climb the corporate ladder, HR people from all three groups must prove that they have a solid understanding of the company's business, can contribute to and collaborate effectively with senior management, and convert data into management information. In a nutshell, the best HR people are entrepreneurial, highly dedicated, solutions-oriented, and hungry to work with people to drive change, development and training, and individual/team/company performance.