China Then, China Now

Sometimes working in China can feel like pushing an elephant up a steep slope but at least with the elephant you will get to the top eventually.

You just have to try reeeallly hard.

Most of the time, however, China is like herding cats. Because the culture is synchronous, you are never sure when anything will end, and often you canít even say for sure where the ending is.

Patience, and a toleration for ambiguity, are necessary traits for survival.

After two of months of non-stop mayhem all around the country it might a good time to pause and reflect, and have a look at the context of these events. We can do this by looking back at what China was like all those years ago.

Obviously, China has come a long way since it opened up in 1979 and the current narrative of China-in-a-Big-Mess actually misses much of the good that has been achieved.

But first a little personal history.

When I came to China way back in 1995 I had no real idea what to expect. I didnít work in recruitment (I was a strategic planner), and to be honest there was little in the way of recruitment services on offer. There wasnít much ëHRí either, and most company practices seemed to be more akin to old fashioned Personnel, which meant lots of regulations and little staff development.

Here is a purely personal picture of 1995, with 2007 in brackets (I may add to this later if the mood takes me):

- Total cost for a mobile phone was about RMB30,000 (Now you can pick one up for RMB400)

- Landline phones took 6 months to install (China mostly skipped landlines. Everyone has a mobile)

- HR used paper & spreadsheets (Now they use an ATS, HRIS, Performance Management System Ö)

- Fax machines were illegal except for registered businesses or government offices (What was a fax machine again?)

- Virtually all HR staff were English language graduates (Now HRMs are often accountants and engineers)

- Internet access was only possible if you worked for a multinational (Restricted broadband is the norm now)

- There were only HR Managers and HR Assistants
(Now there are C&B Specialists, Recruitment Managers, Organizational Development Supervisors, Talent Managers Ö. )

- Wine and cheese were impossible to buy
(Now Chinese companies buy French wineries to impress their clients)

- Tupolev planes still took routine flights & air-conditioners often didnít work (Our only issue now is íservice qualityí)

- The labor law was covered by a 20-page document (Chinaís new labor law entends the scope well beyond just the number of pages)

- Only foreign General Managers & government officials had cars (Traffic is horrendous in virtually every Chinese city now)

- Taxis had no meters, and you had to negotiate the price every-single-time (Fixed price is the norm in all retail)

- Chinese citizens didnít have passports
(Chinese tourists are the big opportunity worldwide)

- Staff training was done in China (Staff training is done wherever the training skills are to be found, worldwide)

- There was a dual pricing system; local and foreigner (Still remnants but I wouldnít know where)

- Many cities were actually closed to foreigners
(Huh?! Who even remembers these details?)

- Everyone turned up late for meetings to show how important they were (Oops, some things never change.)

- At meetings there was a lot of talk & much less action (MNC HQs are now the bottleneck in decision-making)

- There was virtually no where to go after 6 pm
(There are too many distractions in main cities but still not much to do in smaller cities.)

- Subways hardly existed (A significant portion of professionals in the main cities rely on subways for their transportation)

- Banks didnít have queues, and loud, protracted arguments were common (Banks have automated queuing systems, and only occasional loud, protracted arguments)

- You had to speak Mandarin because few people spoke English (There are more people studying English in China than there are Americans)

China still has a long way to go and there will be speed bumps, even complete arrests in forward momentum. But whatever big jolts are on the horizon, at least the system is better equipped to handle it.

Hereís hoping Ö.

Email frank.mulligan@recruit-china.com
Frank Mulliganís blog - english.talent-software.com