By Albert SHANG Zhenbo

Today I want to share some experience about the globalization and HRM support. Those experiences are from the company where I had worked for 5 years. This company is a Chinese private company and already established about 25 factories outside China.

This company started its globalization from 2000, and they experienced two stages. The first stage was the first 5 years. Every employee in China was very excited to work overseas. Second stage is in the following years: Seldom did employees want to go overseas.  Why is it the case?

• Most of the its factories are in the third countries, where the security, language, and other aspect are very different from China.
• The salary is not good. But in the first stage, because very rarely employees had been abroad, the employees are willing to work overseas without much salary. But now they are bored with the overseas working experience and these feelings have spread into the factories.  So it very difficult to find someone to work overseas now.
• The overseas worker usually cannot work for a long time in that country. They are willing to come back to China, but there is no such a position for them after they return home.

Because this company produces industrial goods, their issues are not are not so much limited in other aspect. Now their biggest problem is Human Resources practices. I give some advices to this company:

• They should make a great updated to their HR management practices. Not only train Chinese workers but also train the local worker.
• They should localize* their overseas factories as deeply as possible. By this way, they only need one or two Chinese to handle the factory. And other people can be from local country.
• They should increase the salary for the Chinese employees who work overseas.
• They should prepare well for those who want to back to China. If this problem can be solved well, I believe most employee would again have an interest in overseas work.

I believe the Globalization is the future for every company, so we need experienced HR to look for the qualified General Manager and employees and develop policies that work.

*Editor’s Comment: In China, “localize” means replacing a foreign employee in a job with a national employee, not putting the foreigner on a local compensation package.

About the author

Albert SHANG Zhenbo is a fulltime student in the international MBA program at Lingnan (University) College, Sun Yat-sen University, in Guangzhou, ChinaBeforejoining this MBA program, he worked overseas establishing factories for his company. He has worked in Kenya, South Africa, and Brazil.