MTI Newsletter
Current projects of
MACHWÜRTH TEAM INTERNATIONAL
Organisational and Personnel Development
Personnel Development in China is still in
its infancy
Discover how much growth potential there still is in China
Multinational Companies…
…bet on China. The reasons
are obvious: Not a lot of other
markets do still offer a middle
and long-term growth potential
as high as China. The business
success, however, does not oc-
cur automatically. Challenges
are huge, especially in the field
of personnel development (PD).
Within the western large-scale
enterprises almost 90% of the
employees are of Chinese ori-
gin. Therefore, these organiza-
tions are under Chinese influ-
ence even though the compa-
nies come from England, Ger-
many or France and are being
led by European CEOs. Due to
this aspect every European
company needs to adapt its HR
management to the Chinese
features - with all due respect to
the attempt of establishing glob-
ally linked uniform personnel
development (PD) standards.
This can also be affirmed by the
survey conducted by Machwürth
Team International (MTI) with
it’s headquarter in Visselhövede
close to Hamburg (Germany).
This year Machwürth questioned
35 European and 19 Asian
companies concerning the topic
of personnel development stan-
dards. One of the major results:
The PD in Asia is still in its in-
fancy, especially concerning the
major future market in China.
MACHWÜRTH TEAM INTERNATIONAL • Dohrmanns Horst 19 • D-27374 Visselhövede
Phone: +49 (0) 42 62 / 93 12 - 0 • Fax: +49 (0) 42 62 / 38 12
Email: info@mwteam.com • Internet: www.mticonsultancy.com
Dr. Oliver Prüfer
MBA Fudan
University(Shanghai)
International
Consultant
MACHWÜRTH TEAM
INTERNATIONAL
Beijing
An example according to this
result: on the one hand the
question „Are your consultants Asia
able to cover the upcoming de-
mand for trainings sufficiently?“
has been answered by 59 per-
cent of the Asian companies 41%
with “No”. On the other hand 68
percent of the European com-
59%
panies stated to be able to suffi-
ciently cover the demand for
qualification skills by their own
consultants.
32%
68%
yes
no
Europe
Fig. 1: MTI-Survey: “Are your consultants able to cover the upcoming demand
for trainings sufficiently?”
university in the western world
This result… does not automatically result in
a total adoption of the existing
…is especially interesting due to cultural habits, in terms of still
the challenges arising for multi- emerging different perceptions
national European companies of successful work, business
operating in China: fast growing achievements and work habits.
markets, lack of qualified em- Western PD-models can easily
ployees (especially concerning fail in China. Therefore it is im-
professional managers) and a portant from a PD point of view
high employee turnover. Addi- to create a solid understanding
tionally, it is important to keep in of the impact of the Chinese cul-
mind that having attended ture on the work environment.
MTI Newsletter
Current projects of
MACHWÜRTH TEAM INTERNATIONAL
Organisational and Personnel Development
Characteristics of the Chinese
work ethic
The basic key for understanding
how Chinese organizations work
is the awareness of the impor-
tance of hierarchies. But how
can this be seen within Chinese
companies? Chinese managers
have a strong appearance and
are usually the only decision
makers, who will not be
doubted. Despite of all friendli-
ness they show to the outside,
there does usually exist a high
level of competitiveness which
makes teamwork processes
even harder. Personal relation-
ships between the CEO and his
employees are usually being
supported consciously. The per-
formance of the employees is
often seen as less important
compared to the quality of the
personal relationship to the
CEO. A loyal employee enjoys
the emotional and professional
support as well as the protection
of the CEO, even when dealing
with aid in private affairs. Long-
term work relationships usually
develop on this basis. De-
spite of the adaptation of
the western management
know-how the cultural dif-
ferences should always be
kept in mind in order to
gain a better understand-
ing of how to avoid prob-
lems arising between
managers and employees
with a different cultural
background. This also illus-
trates why personnel de-
velopment (PD) needs to
be designed differently
than in Europe.
A common problem of
western companies in
China is for example that
Chinese employees usu-
ally send a copy of all the
e-mails they write to their man-
ager. This aspect leads to an
overwhelming amount of mails,
almost impossible to handle.
MACHWÜRTH TEAM INTERNATIONAL • Dohrmanns Horst 19 • D-27374 Visselhövede
Phone: +49 (0) 42 62 / 93 12 - 0 • Fax: +49 (0) 42 62 / 38 12
Email: info@mwteam.com • Internet: www.mticonsultancy.com
This results from the fact that
Chinese employees try to hand China: focussing on “on-the-
over the responsibility for certain job” training
work processes (and results) to
the CEO in this way. It is normal The MTI survey does also prove
for the employees having a Chi- that in Europe mainly the HR
nese background that the CEO departments are in charge of the
makes the decisions and con- qualification and control of em-
trols everything, even when ployees, whereas in Asia and
dealing with minor aspects. This especially in China the manag-
usually leads to or is the cause ers are responsible for these
of related problems: One exam- matters.
ple could be that the driver of a
supply company, delivering ma- This also explains a further re-
terial for a huge construction en- sult of the survey: Within the
terprise can not find anyone will- questioned European compa-
ing to sign the delivery reports if nies qualification takes place in
the CEO is not around. This terms of seminars aiming at
shows how cultural aspects are teambuilding processes
directly linked to daily work whereas Chinese companies
processes in China. Therefore it concentrate on training-on-the-
is essential to find a way, from a job, communicating mainly pro-
PD point of view to perfectly un- fessional knowledge.
derstand and use the diverse
cultural logic at the Chinese
work place for creating and de-
veloping targeted training meth-
ods.
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Europe Asia
Training managers own the process
Is done by personnel department
Is organized by headquarters
Every manager sees to qualifications in his field of responsibility
Fig. 2: MTI-Survey: how is personnel development being organized within
your company?
MTI Newsletter
Current projects of
MACHWÜRTH TEAM INTERNATIONAL
Organisational and Personnel Development
Experience shows Chinese
managers noticing a weakness
of certain employees trying to
support them next to other
things themselves but only if
they want to. Internal trainings in
China usually take place as ex-
cathedra teaching resembling
the traditional Chinese teaching
methods also used at universi-
ties in terms of communicating
information rather than compe-
tencies.
The conclusion the MTI survey
shows a different and huge
need of personnel development
trainings especially in China
compared to Europe, where due
to an already existing profes-
sional basis in qualification the
questioned companies will be
concentrating on a higher level
of organizational development in
the future. Priority for
Asian/Chinese companies, how-
ever, will be the formation of
strategic personnel development
programs.
MACHWÜRTH TEAM INTERNATIONAL • Dohrmanns Horst 19 • D-27374 Visselhövede
Phone: +49 (0) 42 62 / 93 12 - 0 • Fax: +49 (0) 42 62 / 38 12
Email: info@mwteam.com • Internet: www.mticonsultancy.com
Strategic PD in China needs
to assess management levels
The training of managers there-
fore is of major importance in
China. On the one hand man-
agers are the ones in need of a
specific leadership education
and on the other hand they are
responsible to convey the quali-
fication and knowledge to their
employees. Last but not least
they are the ones to significantly
influence the Chinese working
culture and employees. Such a
diverse development of compe-
tencies should be fostered by
supporting and building up train-
ings for the employees. Sup-
ported by the survey results,
these directly addressed strate-
gic PD interventions are espe-
cially required in the fields of:
motivation, goal setting, plan-
ning and structure, „Thinking-
out-of-the-box“, work efficiency
and acceptance of personal re-
sponsibility.
Source: MTI Survey (2008): Key
aspects of managerial trainings,
an Asian-European comparison.
MACHWÜRTH TEAM INTER-
NATIONAL, Visselhövede.
MTI