China's Talent Shortage: Human Capital Development - Training as an Effective Tool

This was a recent article on the Fiducia Management Consultants which describes the talent shortage that is engulfing China and the ways in which different companies have begun to try and make sure they hold on to their valued talent.

The unabated influx of foreign investment to set up new production facilities as well as to expand existing projects continue to exert a high demand for skilled and talented human capital agent" results inst a very limited pool of talents, be it on the managerial, professional or skilled labour level. The consequential "war for tale in turn-over rates of up to 30 percent and "employees’ life spans” of less than 12 months in specific areas and professions. Under these conditions RETENTION MANAGEMENT is a must and sets in from day one to retain talent within a company. But retaining talent within a growing organisation is only one part of the equation and not enough, considering the sheer volume of demand seen against the acute shortage of skilled talents.

How can this situation be overcome? When we look at the present educational system – generally the tool to remedy the above described imbalance, we find that the system is – at least for the next few years – not in a position to do so because of the following reasons. Firstly the present educational system is mainly based on academic learning thereby providing little practical skills and this accounts for the technical as well as the managerial sector. Although significant efforts are being made by the relevant authorities to change that it will take a number of years to adapt to the quality and numbers demanded, e.g. today we have 20 foreign invested enterprises sharing one MBA graduate. Exacerbating this situation even more is the fact that the local private sector and since recently even the state owned sector are more and more competing for the same skilled talents and we therefore see the situation worsen before it is gradually getting better in the next few years.

A shift to human development - More and more the human resources departments see a shift from the formerly purely recruitment orientated activities to human development activities. Human development meaning the introduction of internal and external training and coaching programmes for staff to develop existing talent within the given human capital base of each company. So with relatively little effort and input an employee’s latent talent can be easily tapped and brought up to higher levels. This improves the human capital potential of the company but also the performance, and – very important for every Chinese employee – also enhances the career development prospects.

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