Recruiting in China

THE Shanghai Red Cross Association yesterday launched a service hotline (6323-7380) to recruit volunteers to serve in the city's 10 Red Cross institutes as part of its celebrations for the 60th Red Cross Day today.

The association stipulates that volunteers must be available to offer their services at least once a month and work for more than two hours every time. They are also required to keep up their service for at least a year.

Foreign volunteers are also welcomed to the join the activity but so far a foreign language hotline service is not available.

The association will interview candidates and provide free training to those who pass the interview. Volunteers will get a certificate from the administration.

The administration unveiled 10 Red Cross service centers yesterday, including one at Fudan University's Children's Hospital and at Nanhui Central Hospital.

A small business owner was looking for a few good employees for his alarm company. In the past, he advertised in the classifieds. Then, it dawned on him that the kind of employee he wanted probably wasn't sitting at home reading the "help wanted" ads. His best workers had always come to him with personal recommendations. That's when the first brainstorm hit. He chose a select group of customers and sent them a letter asking their help with his recruitment drive. He got his referrals and the unexpected benefit of engendering goodwill with his customers, who were flattered to learn he thought so highly of their opinion.

In just 60-seconds, you will learn how to recruit and hire good employees.

0:60 Take Recruiting & Hiring Seriously
The lesson here is to treat your employee recruitment efforts as seriously ¡ª and creatively ¡ª as you would any other business-related endeavor. A new employee is a major investment. There¡¯s the cost of training and the cost you want to avoid ¡ª the mistake of hiring the wrong person.

0:46 Use Your Network to Find Good Employees
When you set out on your candidate search, do as the small business owner did and solicit referrals from customers. Ask acquaintances, colleagues, and current employees as well. Other avenues include college placement offices, trade and professional associations, and employment agencies.

0:38: Set up an Interview Schedule
When you begin receiving resumes, you'll want to contact the best candidates and set up an interview schedule. Prepare a list of questions to ask each candidate. By asking everyone the same interview questions in the same way, you will be able to more fairly compare their responses.

0:20 Pay Attention to Your Initial Impression
Check the candidate's references, but be warned that you may not get an accurate picture. Sometimes people will give positive references because they fear legal action. It's better to rely on insights you glean from the interview and by paying attention to your own gut feeling. Ask candidates you are impressed with to come back for a second interview.

0:11 Be Clear About Responsibilities
During the hiring process, be clear about the new employees' role within the company. Set expectations by defining job responsibilities before hiring the candidate. A job description clarifies everyone's duties and heads off confusion about who is responsible for what tasks.

0:03 Make the New Hire Feel Comfortable
Put your best employee in charge of training the new hire, and consider starting off with a three- or six-month trial period. If you approach your employee recruitment efforts with the same creativity and drive you do other business projects, chances are you won't have a thing to worry about.

There's an old saying¡± ¡°Your actions shout so loud I can't hear what you're saying.¡±

Many managers feel constrained by the rules and regulations of their organizations. They feel that their hands are tied when it comes to rewarding their people ¨C that their actions are controlled by others, and there is little of any real value they can do to motivate their people. Leaders understand that recognition and reward applied on a one on one level is essential to success.

They understand the greatest sense of accomplishment and importance often comes from non ¨C monetary actions and rewards, and from positive recognition from the person who is the boss.

What are the ways to make your people know they are important?

Way #1 ¨C You have to believe the work performed by your people is important. This may sound pretty basic, but if you do not really believe that, there is simply no way you can convince your people that what they do is important.. How often have your heard ¨C or been guilty of saying ¨C or thinking ¨C ¡°Oh, she¡¯s just the receptionist¡± or, ¡°He's just the janitor¡± or ¡°They're just trainees¡± or ¡°They're just a staff weenie¡±?

Way #2 ¨C Expect the best from everyone, and settle for nothing less. Nothing makes people feel more important than high expectations for their performance. Just make sure they share in setting the expectations.

Way #3 ¨C Create goals that are shared and that show the tie in of individual work with the success of the organization.

Way #4 ¨C Select the best ¨C in every opening you have. Use every tool you can to ensure that you have made a good decision on who you select.. Your people watch carefully to see who you pick ¨C involve them in the selection process. If your actions communicate that you are not careful about who you select, your people will see that as a direct reflection on themselves.

Way #5 ¨C Make sure you are your people¡¯s institutional champion! What's that mean? When their pay is wrong, you act to get it right. When their reviews are scheduled, you act to ensure they are done accurately and on time. When their raises are due, you make sure they are handled properly and on time. Jealously guard your relationship as the go to person for your people ¨C the institutional support people can help, but you are the person you want your people to seek out.

Way #6¨C Be absolutely intolerant of unsafe, disruptive or other negative behaviors. Act on them quickly and decisively, and never let your people see you knowingly ignore a bad situation. It will not go away, regardless how much ¡°wish'in and hop'in and pray'in¡± you might do.

Way #7 ¨C Remember that trust and respect are not the same thing as being liked. It is nice to be liked, it is absolutely essential that your people trust and respect you. As a comedian said: ¡°If you want to be liked, get a dog.¡±

Way #8 - Cultivate a climate of civility for your people. In your relationships with your people, ensure your actions and theirs reflect a fundamental respect for each other, and for all the others they come in contact with.

Way #9 ¨CGet everyone of your people some form of self development activity on a regular basis. It may be a seminar, it may be tuition refund, it may be a book, it may be a CD set, it may be a Community College course ¨C it does not have to be expensive and time consuming, but the act of creating added value through the investment of personal effort supported by organizational resources is a powerful way to say you care.

Way #10 ¨C Respect your people's time ¨C it's their most valuable asset. Start meetings on time, end them on time, keep meeting commitments. Do what you have to do to ensure your people have access to as much of their work time as possible.

Way #11¨C Keep the rules and policies to an absolute minimum. If you have a workable set of cultural and organizational ¡°Way¡¯s Of Doing Things¡± you have the basis for treating your people with individual regard. If you have managers that are not comfortable doing that, either they change or get different managers

Way #12¨C Celebrate all the successes ¨C create the opportunity for group recognition to happen all over the place ¨C if Safety is an issue, create a Safety Award process that celebrates progress.Make the events frequent, and the rewards modest ¨C but do it all the time. Frequency of awards and the opportunity for celebration are as important, actually more important, than the annual lunch or dinner or whatever. Make it fun. Make it part of your enterprise.

Did you notice one thing about all 12 Ways? Not one of them deals with lots of money, or more capital, or new policies or procedures. All do require beliefs and behaviors ¨C and they are the most challenging, most high leverage efforts we can make to improve our organizations. It's always tempting to do a feel good seminar, or buy something ¨C or take some action that shows just how committed we are. But the truth is that the way to greater success is through a focused, day to day effort to improve the level of commitment of the people in an organization, and that takes hard work and the acceptance of change. If you can see Ways that can help you organization or your work group or yourself in this article, take them and run with them ¨C they are the basis for successful managers becoming successful leaders.

FEMALE employees will earn the same salary during pregnancy and while nursing, according to amendments to a women's rights law.

The amended law was adopted at the 35th Session of the 12th Shanghai People's Congress which sat yesterday.

The Protection of Women's Rights and Interests states that pregnant or nursing women can be moved to a new post but must keep the same pay.

"The previous law just stipulated that their basic wages must remain the same and their work contracts cannot be terminated," said Song Zhongbei, director of the female affairs division in the Shanghai Trade Union.

"So some enterprises reduced salary to the minimum wage after arranging a new post for the pregnant worker.

"But nowadays the basic wage only accounts for a very small portion of the total salary, so it is necessary to amend the law."

The law also states that pregnant or nursing workers are entitled to have their work load and work time reduced.

Employees should also get at least 80 percent of their salary when on maternity leave.

The amendments state that enterprises should hold women's health checks at least once every two years, and the government will organize regular checks for retired women.

The incidence of breast cancer in the city has increased in the past 30 years, Song said.

In 1972, 17.7 women out of every 100,000 developed breast cancer. In 2004 it was 55.66 out of 100,000.

"So we suggest enterprises hold health checks for women every year if possible, in order to ensure treatment for the disease, which is a major cause of death among women," Song said.

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The law also suggests enterprises sign a special contract with female employees to guarantee their rights and interests.

"The special contracts represent the different cultures of enterprises," Song said.

The Shanghai Diesel Engine Co gives women employees more than seven months' pregnant an hour's extra break time a day.

More than 30,000 enterprises have signed special contracts with female employees, covering about 700,000 women in the city.

THE city's top universities will be assisted in funds and human resources by a Swiss science organization.

Fudan and Tongji universities are on the recipient list, according to yesterday's Science and Technology Forum, which has the theme "Innovation for the Future."

The event was hosted by the Consulate General of Switzerland in Shanghai and the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality. The Swissnex Shanghai, a science and technology center founded by the Swiss Education and Research Institution, an affiliated organization with the Consulate General of Switzerland in Shanghai, will begin operations in autumn.

About six Chinese and six Swiss scientists will work in the center, promoting cooperation between the top universities in the two countries.

The center will set up a foundation to award outstanding scientists from the universities. Students who make innovations in science and technology will also be rewarded.

"It's the first time that we have set up such a science and technology center in Shanghai," said Charles Kleiber, secretary of the institution.

"We chose Shanghai as the priority city because it has many common grounds with Switzerland, a place with a huge population and little resources, but always making efforts to promote innovations in science and technology."

The business success is about taking right people to the right place on right time. So what is the problem? Actually, if you need to manage not one, but five employees or better five groups of employees, then you face the problem of measuring and control. It's hard to tell whether one group is performing better or not, it becoming hard to compare one employees success against other one, it's hard to see the unique features of people. So what the solution is? The key metrics and key indicators, which will tell you how to manage your stuff right.

There are two approaches I suggest to take into account when thinking about human resources (HR) at your company. First, you can think in terms of process, second you can think it terms of how do employees affect the whole business.

The processes of working with employees include: hire, education, management, retire. All the stages must be processes carefully, as they could fully change your business. For instance, if you will have the best system to hire stuff, but it will be working slowly, then you will fail. If your education system will allow to train everyone, but will not allow to check the actual performance generated by training processed, then you will fail. If your best people will retire, then you will lose.

So, that's why it's really important to measure and control all processes involved into employees relationship. People who you work with, should understand what your goals are and how they will help to achieve these goals. This is the key idea of manage and control in employees management processes.

Another approach is focusing on how someone's job affect the company. It's obvious that even if someone works in a Sales then he or she will affect not only the financial part of the business by generating sales, but also all other parts.

For instance, sales person will be involved in entire company processes, such as education and knowledge sharing. This person will also work directly with customers, so he or she might not just sale, but get a valuable feedback from end users of your product. These people will also help your company to grow not just in terms of sales, but in terms of better business processes and business efficiency.

So how to measure and control HR department at your company. The answer is very simple - you should develop some key indicators that will represent company business and then pay attention to what is working good and what should be changed. There are many names for this system, for instance KPI (Key Performance Indicators) or Balanced Scorecard. The result is having the clear view of what is going to happen in company and how it will steam-line your business.

What should be the first step? Actually, I think you have already had some important information for scorecard. For instance, you have document called "mission", this is a general definition of your principles, you can some business goals, you have business processes described and formalized. What you need now is to gather all this important information into a easy to manage system, which will take in account the importance of each metrics. This system (Balanced Scorecard or KPI) will help to manage and control the performance of your HR department.