On Wednesday 18th March, Bloomberg, with support from Elliott Scott HR, hosted their first Thought Leadership Series on People and Performance in APAC, at their offices in Hong Kong. The leadership series brings in thought leaders to discuss the challenges that are most pertinent for HR in the region.
Senior HR leaders were given the opportunity network and hear about key trends and challenges for HR in emerging markets, with a key focus on China.
Keynote speaker Dion Groeneweg, a partner at Mercer, identified that human capital is a number one challenge faced by CEOs globally, with 60% of companies investing in more talent, yet only 24% saying they’re effective at it. Some key findings from his talk include:
- Emerging markets are moving from the economic periphery to the centre, changing the distribution and character of global jobs.
- Advanced economies’ working age populations will shrink, and there will be insufficient supply of skilled workers even with full employment rates. This means businesses are selecting from an increasingly depleted talent pool.
- Population booms in emerging markets lower the average age of the workforce, making worker expectations increasingly divergent.
- Countries in emerging markets have increasingly different priorities regarding talent supply and management. It is no longer feasible to envision them as a single entity separate from mature economies.
Following this, was a panel discussion led by Brad Adams, Head of HR Research Asia, at Corporate Executive Board, on attracting and Developing Talent for the Global Multinational in China. Panellists included Kate Whealtley, Regional Head of HR, Bloomberg; Claire Storey, Executive Director, HR, Morgan Stanley; and Greg Morley, Vice President, HR, Hasbro. Topics discussed included:
- How the foreign employer premium is mostly gone, and how talent in China increasingly prefer working for domestic companies over foreign companies, though American and German firms hold particular favor in the mainland China talent market.
- How local leaders in China want fundamentally different things from their Employment Value Proposition compared to other employees, requiring significant EVP and candidate engagement segmentation.
- The issue of leadership transience in China. How the vast majority of our global business leaders are ‘just passing through’ China, while many local leaders are unlikely to ‘stick around’. As a result, local market strategies are at risk of being disconnected with the reality on the ground, maintaining local leadership pipelines is very costly, and the business disruption of the revolving leadership door is significant.
- How CEB research shows that network performance is key to enterprise performance, but MNCs struggle to get employees in China to go beyond individual performance. A considerable proportion of employees in China (and Singapore, India, and Malaysia) admit they resent when others succeed, hindering their ability to ‘network perform’.
After the success of this event in Hong Kong, Bloomberg, with support from Elliott Scott HR, will launch the series in Singapore in July.
For any marketing or PR related enquiries please contact Marketing and Communications Manager, Malinda Zerefos on +852 2526 500 or mz@elliottscotthr.com.
