China Staff articles from March 2009

China Staff archives from March 2009

HR in shining armour: the current economic crisis has placed numerous companies under threat. HR can save the day.(Cost-effective HR)(human resource)
March 1, 2009... It's a tough time for HR. The current economic recession is the deepest one experienced since the post-Second World War period. It is producing cuts and layoffs, as businesses everywhere seek to reduce costs and maintain profits. As the new...

Built to last: leadership development and succession planning are often conceptualised as separate entities. Spansion China demonstrated that the two can--and should--be closely connected.(Leadership and succession planning)
March 1, 2009... Spansion China, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Spansion, the world's largest high-tech company headquartered in California, started its semiconductor production business in Suzhou Industrial Park 12 years ago. The company, which currently has...

Blogs of talent: wikis and blogs have experienced exponential growth over the last two years, but HR professionals have been slow to recognise their potential.(Recruitment Strategy)(human resource)(Survey)
March 1, 2009... An increasing number of job seekers--especially the tech savvy younger set--are abandoning raditional job search strategies in favour of social networking sites. Even job boards--which were once thought of as an efficient way to search for...

Don't just talk business: conversations at high-performing companies are never dry. Employees enjoy frequent opportunities to converse about topics outside work, and managers enliven corporate discussions by the use of Socratic methods.(Communications Management)
March 1, 2009... There may have been a time when high-performing individuals, or even high-performing teams, could make a real and lasting difference on their own. Now, much of the value creation and innovation in companies takes place as a consequence of the...

Reap more of the benefits: Hong Kong companies still fail to wholly appreciate employee benefits as an engagement driver, the latest Towers Perrin survey findings reveal.(Compensation & Benefits)(Survey)
March 1, 2009... Towers Perrin conducted the first pulse survey for its HR Council (HKHRC) members on Work Life Balance Benefits, Programs and Arrangements in August 2006. The response to that survey was very positive, indicating that there has been much...

Survival in the Labour Tribunal: employers who become involved in a claim at the Labour Tribunal cannot instruct private lawyers to represent them. Minter Ellison explains what is permissible under the Tribunal's procedures.(Hong Kong Employment Watch)
March 1, 2009... Q: Our company received a notification from the Labour Tribunal that a claim for wrongful termination has been brought against us by a former employee. The basis of the claim is that we did not have sufficient grounds to justify a termination...

The price of termination: methods of calculating severance pay and compensation for untaken annual leave are prescribed by law, but regions differ in how they interpret the provisions. Graham Brown and Wei Xin discuss the general principles.(Labour Law Forum)
March 1, 2009... Q: Our company is located in Shanghai. We intend to terminate the employment contract of an employee, who has several days of untaken statutory annual leave. Do we need to compensate the employee for untaken statutory annual leave? How should...

Three stages of expatriates' value propositions.(Data Page)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Business focus varies at different business stages--setting up the business in the development stage, growing the business, and optimizing profit in the mature stage. And at the same time, the value proposition that expatriates bring is...

Subsidies planned to create graduate openings.(Hong Kong News)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... Subsidies for firms offering short-term internships for graduates are being planned by the government in an attempt to ease unemployment among students who complete their studies this summer, reported the South China Morning Post. It is...

New attempt to enable firms to survive crisis.(Hong Kong News)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... The government is to resume stalled legislative work to enact a corporate rescue law to offer a cooling-off period for troubled companies to restructure and survive the financial crisis. Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen said that such...

Retail, catering workers denied extra pay for public holidays.(Hong Kong News)(Survey)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... More than 80% of Hong Kong employees surveyed in the retail and catering sectors who worked during statutory holidays were not given double pay, reported the South China Morning Post. Of the 125 employees interviewed by the Hong Kong and...

White-collar fears grow for jobs.(Hong Kong News)(Survey)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... More than 42 percent of white-collar workers, including those in the banking and finance sectors, were worried they will be sacked during the economic turmoil, reported The Standard. A survey by the Hong Kong Clerical and Professional...

Big Chinese firms squeeze payroll of top executives to cope with crisis.(China News)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... More Chinese firms are slashing executive pay and practising tighter budgets to get through the economic crisis, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Shanghai said. Nine state-owned enterprises in Shanghai,...

Bonuses shrink in financial downturn.(China News)(Survey)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... According to a survey conducted by leading job portal 51job.com, about nine percent of the companies interviewed said they would maintain their previous annual bonus plans, reported Xinhua News. Twenty-one percent said they would make...

China announces new measures to boost service outsourcing.(China News)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... The Chinese government announced that it will give tax breaks and subsidies to encourage the growth of service outsourcing nationwide. The details to boost the development of service outsourcing were outlined in a document drafted by the...

No payroll cut, vows 200 Chinese firms in eastern China.(China News)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... 200 firms in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, endorsed a joint proposal vowing not to cut payroll amid the sweeping financial crisis. Shen Jinrong, board chairman of the Hangzhou Rubber Group, promised to 2,000 employees that their...

Obama signs equal pay law.(World at a Glance)(Barack Obama)(Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... UNITED STATES -- President Barack Obama signed his first bill into law on January 29, approving equal-pay legislation that he said would "send a clear message that making our economy work means making sure it works for everybody." The law,...

US caps CEO pay at banks.(World at a Glance)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... UNITED STATES -- On February 5, the US government placed strict limits on the pay of the top executives at big financial firms that stand to benefit from government bailouts. "This is America. We don't disparage wealth. We don't begrudge...

90-day hire-and-fire bill becomes law.(World at a Glance)(Employment Relations Amendment Act)(Brief article)
March 1, 2009... NEW ZEALAND -- From March 2009, new workers in small businesses can be sacked within 90 days of starring their jobs. Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson said the Employment Relations Amendment Act would encourage small businesses--with 20 or...