By William Dodson

Good Help is Hard to Find

The most difficult staff to find for our manufacturing operations have been good QC people and good financial managers,” a British manager said recently during a round of beers at the local Blue Marlin. We were bemoaning the point that QC managers with draconian approaches to imposing quality processes and testing on production tend to drive away the good engineers, while QC managers that just want to fit in get nothing achieved.” Meanwhile, “We’ve had four Financial Managers, and they all trust the computer,” the Brit said. “You’ll look at their reports, and you’ll say, ‘hang on here a moment, these expenses look way off.’ ‘Oh, no, can’t be,’ “they’ll say, ‘the computer said so. They trust Hyperion more than they trust common sense.”

“Guess they never heard of ‘Garbage in; garbage out,” I summarized.

Another British fellow offered, “Our financial guy is pretty good. Sharp. He also drives a BMW and has a house out by Yancheng Lake.” He paused. “I guess he came from a wealthy family,” he said quietly.

“Either that, or he’s a very creative financial adviser!” one of the other guys and I called out. Good laugh.

BYO GM (Bring Your Own GM)

The former GM of a Canadian company recently told me he’s leaving China at the end of the month. “The Suzhou operation’s closing up. I’m going back home in a couple weeks.” I was disappointed to hear it, since I rather like the fellow and his Chinese wife and their energetic son. “There’s just no jobs around here.”

“But what about all the new factories opening up in SIP?” I asked.

“I guess they must already have their own people lined up the positions,” himself at a loss for the apparent dearth of opportunity in one of the fastest growing cities in China.

No joy.

Salary Cartels

“I’ve interviewed four people for a QC position, and three of them wanted 40,000rmb per month for the job,” a Western production manager said over a round of beers. Not only was that a sobering amount for the position, rivaling salary levels found in the States for the same job, but the consistency of the request was also jolting.

“I talked with my HR manager about the outrageous request,” he continued. “She said that local QC managers and engineers in some industries get together a few times a year. They compare salaries, then agree to an amount they should ask for during their next round of interviews.

“I have had some cracking candidates, though. One guy – who’s really good – first required 40,000; then 20,000; and now he’s down to the more reasonable 7 or 8,000rmb per month. We’ll see if he accepts the offer.”

William Dodson, This is China!