I had the pleasure of being invited to attend the CCBC, Shanghai's "War for Talent" event today and was, once again, overwhelmed by the amount of head scratching that was going on with regard to compensation and retention.

 

China 's talent market is a tough one, to be sure, but we should be moving from a discourse on "why do salaries keep going up?" to "what specific strategies that we can use to attract the best people?"  Peter Arkell of the Swann Group was kind enough to leak some information from an upcoming salary survey his firm will release any day now that found that local (PRC Chinese) Business Unit Managers in China are being paid as much as, if not more, than their ex-pat counterparts.  Astonishing? - Not if you are on the front lines of recruiting the truly talented market movers in China.  The fact is that many more companies will soon be faced with the fact that the best and brightest in China will cost them at least as much as they will back home.  Few companies are instituting strategies to deal with it.

 

I liked the thinking behind Julia Correa's concept of adapting to the local market when creating selection criteria for employees in China.  Julia is a Business Manager with J.M. gemini and was a presenter at the event.  Among other ideas she tried to get across to the audience was the concept of adapting to the market as it is and the risks (of not hiring the best you can and not retaining them) of trying to apply a template from "back home" to the China talent market.

 

 I was struck by the fact that while so many attendees seemed to dwell on their retention problems no one had any success stories regarding flexible retirement plans, signing bonuses, day care, elder care, etc, etc. In fact, the one idea from the floor that got the most attention in this regard was a question regarding the legality of charging employees for the training they received as an employee.

 

China is quickly becoming a global driver of the world economy and more and more companies are rushing into this market not only to save money but to drive R&D and marketing.  It is time to move to a more candidate driven view of the market as they are the ones who are calling the shots right now and it will take quite a while for the market to catch up, if ever it does.

 

For more ideas on getting creative with compensation you can scroll down or click here. It will take you to another post I made earlier this year about getting flexible with salries.