Article,
Wanted: Manager, Chinese-speaking only
Reuters, (April 20080428)
Abstract
HONG KONG (Reuters) - American-born Thomas Kwan's career has taken
off since he moved to China to work as the country manager for a
U.S. health products company. "If I'd stayed in the U.S. I wouldn't
have had the same opportunity for advancement," said trilingual Kwan,
46, who was brought up in a Cantonese-speaking household in Virginia
and also speaks fluent Mandarin and of course English. "The U.S.
is still a Caucasian-dominated society," added Kwan, who now lives
in Shanghai.
China's rapidly expanding economy has created a seemingly insatiable
appetite for Chinese-speaking managers. Yet even though 3 million
university graduates enter China's workforce every year, multinational
companies are finding it hard to find local talent to meet that demand.
Companies that are successful in luring top notch recruits are at
an automatic advantage in the race for a piece of China's $1.3 trillion
consumer market. But competition for good quality hires, especially
experienced managers, is fierce.
Companies in China will need 70,000 middle and senior managers over
the next five years, according to executive search firm MRI Group,
but they are unlikely to find them. "We'll be lucky if we can identify
50 percent of that number," said Erica Briody, director of MRI China.
Since last year, PricewaterhouseCoopers has posted Chinese recruiters
in the United States, Britain and Australia to scout for graduates
at university campuses as they seek to keep pace with business growth
in China by recruiting 3,000 people a year.
They are targeting Chinese students studying abroad as well as experienced
foreign professionals with a Chinese heritage such as Kwan. "The
economic boom in China means the talent needs are demanding. We are
building a talent pipeline for the future," said Angela Jiang, a
PricewaterhouseCoopers recruitment manager based in New York and
responsible for finding U.S.-based talent for the firm's China operations.
Recruiting qualified Chinese-speaking managers is crucial for firms,
especially multinationals, as they seek to capitalize on business
opportunities in the world's fastest growing major economy. "Multinational
companies are looking to China to grow their organizations," said
Briody. "If they can't get the talent their expansion plans will
be limited. Ultimately they can't be competitive."
SHORTCOMINGS
A report by the McKinsey Global Institute in 2005 said fewer than
10 percent of China graduates who applied for jobs at multinationals
had the right skills and qualifications to work there. Poor English
was the main shortcoming. The Asian Development Bank in its 2008
Asian Development Outlook says the skills shortage is aggravated
by China's failure to produce the right kind of graduates rather
than too few. In 2005, it says, 3.1 million people graduated from
universities in China, nearly three times the number of graduates
in the United States. Some 600,000 of them were engineering students,
nearly 10 times the number in the United States.
Yet only a fraction were seen as suitable recruits by firms because
China graduates may be well versed in theory but often lack practical
problem-solving skills, analysts said. "While the root cause of China's
skills crisis lies in the leap in demand for skills, the education
system has failed to keep pace," the ADB said in the report. China's
rote-learning based education system doesn't help produce managers,
says Shanghai-born Stella Hou, Hong Kong general manager of HR services
company Hewitt Associates. Öur education system doesn't give us
a lot of soft skills training," said Hou. "Most Western companies
advocate being vocal. That limits the opportunity for Chinese employees
to show how capable they are. Indians, for example, are much more
vocal."
However, Rajan Srikanth, Asian head of HR consultants Mercer, says
firms should change their management style to fit in better with
local cultures. Ämericans' approach to global leadership has been
imperial," he said, suggesting that companies seeking to leave their
mark in China should opt for "collective leadership" which is more
in line with Asian management styles.
Srikanth also says firms should recognize that China graduates need
to go through in-house training programs to learn the "soft skills"
they might lack straight out of university. That is exactly what
multinationals such as Coca-Cola Co are trying to do -- develop managers
with an international outlook. "Despite there being 1.3 billion people,
those with the ability to operate in an international environment
at managerial level are in great demand," said Jonathan Taylor, vice
president of human resources for Coca-Cola China in Shanghai. The
soft drinks company sends management trainees from China to centers
around the world. It has six mainland Chinese working at its headquarters
in Atlanta who will take up leadership positions in China in 12 to
18 months time.
If it cannot develop enough Chinese managers, the company would have
to parachute in more expatriate managers to keep pace with business
growth, says Taylor. But that's not ideal. "Having international
talent as part of the mix is key because our customer base is truly
global and diverse," he said. "But if companies are going to be successful
here they need to be developing and retaining Chinese talent." CULTURE
AND LANGUAGE
PricewaterhouseCoopers says hiring overseas Chinese is a good option
until China's managerial labor force develops. "They (overseas Chinese)
might not have lived in China but they know about the culture from
their parents so they can adapt more easily to the environment,"
said Jiang. "They have better language skills and they can help train
local staff." American-born Chinese, who not so long ago would have
balked at living in China, are now eager to participate in the country's
economic transformation, she says. "We expect them to stay 2 to 3
years but we've found they'll often stay longer." Kwan, who has been
in China for four years, says his understanding of Chinese culture
is as invaluable as his linguistic abilities when it comes to managing
his China team.
"Here, I am bicultural. I understand that Western culture and Chinese
culture are different and that Chinese don't normally speak out,"
he said. "Whereas Americans are encouraged to challenge their boss
to explain things, I have to ask Chinese staff what they think and
encourage them to speak up. A lot of expat managers fail in China
because they don't understand that Chinese don't tell you what they
think."
(Editing by Megan Goldin)
