Human capital planning in China. 

Globalization’s effects are being more notable every day; one of the biggest changes we can see is how companies are now expanding to other countries to settle down there and therefore need nationals to work for them. One of the countries that is experimenting a tremendous growth in many of its industries is the Asian country China, which has a population of more than 1.3 Billion people as stated in the CIA world fact book; in theory, this allows organizations to have a wide poll of prospects to choose from, of course depending on what they look for of course.

   Nevertheless, with growth comes complications, not everything is sunshine; international employers in China are having a hard time to fulfill the leadership capabilities in the organizations, this is among many other reasons because people have a lot of opportunities and they are constantly looking for better opportunities which makes it even harder for organizations to work on plans to develop the leadership skills the organization needs.

            Moreover, because of the population policies and gaps in the education system not everyone is capable to work for the well-being of the organization in an optimal way, it is common to see people with eight or ten years of experience obtain a position for someone with 15 years of experience. This is all happening because of the rapid growth of the industries and to the countless opportunities that people have as mentioned above.

Today, not finding enough qualified people to place in the key positions of the organization represents a major issue, not everyone can be considered a leader. If there are no leaders in an organization, then there is no one to guide the employees in the establishment of the corporate culture, as mentioned in the course readings, when working in China leaders must be able to achieve the goals established by the American (or any international) companies knowing that the employees have been educated in a totally different culture.  Leaders are needed in order to guide the team in the complexion of the plan it has designed. 

In china, the situation is delicate as there are so many opportunities people can jump from one job to another without even thinking about it. This is bad organizations as they cannot grow leaders inside the organization, also the high percentage of people who do not have strong educational background make it harder for companies in regards to training, if employees have not been well educated in the past, it will be more difficult to present them new knowledge in the future. Another effect that this trends will have is that if companies do not address the problem quickly it might result in some companies not going to china because of the difficulty to find suitable leaders who can guide the team and therefore accomplish the company’s goals which is why the move to countries like china where they can obtain the same results for a lower cost. If this continues to happen then companies will spend many of the money they save in recruiting and hiring process. This can be avoided if managers develop efficient ways to work around the leadership issues present in China nowadays.

However, increasing leadership competency is not an easy task, leadership is something that grows in the morning and works in the afternoon. It is something that needs to be instilled in the people before you expect them to use it in many cases. What I propose for managers in China (in this case for the long run) to do is to start since now just like Cisco Systems creating alliances among educational institutions and their organizations so that people can be educated aligned with the same values that the company has. In this way, companies will have more prepared people than what they need and they will be knowledgeable about the companies’ culture and the way they do things which is an advantage for them and will eliminate the deficiency of leaders in the not so long run. While in the programs, the educational deficiencies can be enforced and leadership skills can be identified in people. Some people have an innate ability for leadership, when they are found in an organization; this should be used in order to benefit the organization

 Nevertheless, as one of the problems is that people do not have enough experience by letting them access the organization ideals before they even start their careers is a great technique for employees to develop their soft skills and competencies. Competencies can for sure be learned by employees, once the organization determines what benefits them then they can work towards having the employees show these competencies in what they do at the organization. Training is effective; they should also work closely with HR in order to hire people who are not likely to leave the organization at the first chance they have, they can determine that through the work history if the employee is very young then they will know that higher positions are not to be considered in this case.

Moreover, as we all know, companies have different leadership styles because every corporate culture differs from one another. What companies can do is to develop effective leadership program where the employee in involved since they become part of the organization, not only leadership programs but also employee engagement programs, as also one of the trends is that employees do not feel as part of the organization and that is something that allows them to leave the organization faster; if an employee feels like the role he/she does is vital to the organization he/she will feel the efforts are worthy. 

In conclusion, I would recommend developing effective leadership and employee engagement programs for the existing employees, also they must work on retention programs because if good intentions are nothing without actions. Also, form strategic alliances with educational institutions in order to give the population access to be prepared to work for the multinational companies in the future, for now they could work with these institutions and prepare leadership oriented training. Wherever there is growth there are challenges and good managers know how to face them, if they do not at the moment, they will find a way.