Recruiting in China

The selection process for the China Best Employer Award 2013 (best.zhaopin.com), an event hosted by Zhaopin.com (www.zhaopin.com), China's largest recruitment website, came to a successful conclusion recently in Sanya, China. At this HR industry event, co-hosted by Zhaopin.com and the CSR and Employer Brand Communication Research Center of Peking University, China's top 500 and other large companies were the biggest winners. Noticeably, though, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) nationwide have made great strides in brand building, and despite their gap with larger companies, their excellent performance deserves a closer look.

The development of Chinese SMEs has become a hot topic. SMEs, constrained by their smaller size, have paid increasing attention to brand building. Relative to large Chinese companies, SMEs may be better situated to play to their strengths through brand-building efforts to survive in a competitive market. For SMEs, a good brand image not only enhances their market share and customer loyalty, but also attracts the most qualified job seekers. The latter is especially vital for Chinese SMEs wishing to eliminate bottlenecks that stand in the way of development, and even survival.

At the award ceremony, Guo Sheng, CEO of Zhaopin.com, explained his firm's analysis of the growth trends in employment during 2013 among companies of different sizes. It was inferred that in comparison with conglomerates with 10,000 or more employees, in 2013, China's SMEs experienced significant growth in recruitment needs. They expect to boost their brand image as an employer by building a good brand and, in doing so, attract the best that the job market has to offer, accelerating their development.

According to Zhaopin.com's best employer survey, the opportunity for self-improvement ranked first among the key characteristics of the best SME employers, this mainly being driven by the relatively extensive division of labor and the simple structure of Chinese SMEs. Employees expect to have more opportunities and a larger platform to demonstrate their personal abilities and to further enhance those abilities. Furthermore, employees of SMEs also attach importance to the respect they get from superiors, to the fulfillment of employers' promises and to the provision of a proper employment contract and social insurance package. It is clear that China's SME employees have reasonable expectations of the best employers and are well aware that despite no hard indicators, SMEs have their own unique model in terms of "soft power", giving SMEs unique advantages in attracting talent.

The survey revealed that the prospective growth in salary ranks second only after the opportunity for self-improvement among the characteristics of best employers. After getting a few years of experience, employees will have higher income expectations and hope to receive better treatment as a reward for their contribution, something that is undoubtedly a weak point for SMEs that lack competitive advantage when it comes to what they can offer as compensation. It therefore behooves Chinese SMEs to start thinking about and planning ahead on how to retain employees and stimulate the initiative and cohesiveness of their workforces.

Given the aggressive momentum of large well-established companies, maintaining a delicate relationship between "humanity" and "human" is key for Chinese SMEs wishing to enhance brand image. Numerous Chinese SMEs offer excellent examples on how they "fought back" by taking the high road to enhance their brand image. Zhaopin.com, through the China Best Employer Award program, looks forward to bringing more publicity to lessons gleaned from the success stories of SMEs that made the effort to enhance their brand image.