"Mostly I stay at the office, but we had a small crisis," said the China manager of an international event organizer. He tried not to look too depressed, he was in that way a professional. I had already noted that rather senior staff was dealing with much of the basic logistical issues of the high-profile conference I was attending, but I had not noted anything really special.
"Last week five of my people left the company," he said.
That must have come as a shock, especially with a major conference at hand, I suggested.
"Three years ago, when it happened for the first time, I was shocked," he said. "Since then it has happened about four times, so you get used to that. I'm not shocked anymore."
His body language suggested differently.
"First one leaves, and then you know a whole bunch will be gone very soon," he continued. "For each position I have I hire and train five people and hope one of them will hang on."
Retaining staff is a subject that pops up at almost every lunch of those international conferences in China, no matter what the subject of the conference is. The problems vary from industry to industry but the market for those bilingual, well educated Chinese with the ability to function in an international company is tight in this booming economy. Since people who have that kind of work experience of five years and more is fairly limited, poaching people at other companies is rather normal and the monetary incentive is mostly enough to let people switch company.
My manager had to rush off again, so we could not sit down and analyse the problem further. But I could see a few additional problems on top of a rather difficult labor market in China. How would our manager deal with the next new hire, I was thinking, a hire that was probably due only days after this conference had closed. He obvious saw a in potential new hire somebody who would with a certainly of 80 percent leave again. If you look in that way at candidates, you are not really going to invest in them.
By investing I do not mean sending them on prestigious courses or give them a competitive salary. There is in China one element more important than salary or prestige of an international company. Bosses are expected to have a rather personal relationship with their individual staff members that is uncommon in Europe or the US, and maybe even considered to be inappropriate. But in China a boss needs to know what is bothering their staff. Are you buying a house, where is the house, what do you pay? Are you still living with your parents, are they working, healthy? Where do you spend your May holiday and how expensive is it?
Chinese staff members can be the most loyal employees, but it is a loyalty that comes at a price many foreign managers are not willing to pay. They want to keep work and home strictly separated, as they are often instructed to do. But if you are not investing in that loyalty, somebody else in the company may build up such a relationship with your staff. For example your office manager who does have this special touch for getting people's loyalty. And when your office manager then leaves, most likely people who have a strong personal relationship with him also leave. Creating loyalty should be part of your retention program, although you should not write it up like that in the communication with your headquarters. They might think you have gone funny after staying too long in China.
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