Interesting conversation on Xmas eve

While partaking in the Xmas eve gathering at Pu Dong, I had an opportunity talking to the husbands at the table. All of them had been in Shanghai for ages - late 90's. Two were in the HR recruitment field and one ran/is running an Australian food restaurant called Mesa.

The two in the HR field were talking about a possible slowdown in Shanghai; the leading indicator - of hiring Executives is slowing down. This will lead to a slow down in hiring the subordinates - GMs, Managers, assistants. So next year things may look like a very lean year. Also, they were talking about no corporate culture in Shanghai or China at large; people do not stay at one place longer than one and a half year. Employees only want to make big money; only go where they get pay more; and they expect to be pampered and "cared" for. Employees expect the CEO, the managers dropping everything and "worship" them. This is inline of what I see; kids want to get the "top jobs" without going thru the 'proper training". This is sad; the get quick rich scheme. The two HR guys said there were companies wanting a recruit with "super" qualifications; you just cannot have that. But companies still want it; this has indicated top management still not mature or not knowing what it needs. Also, HSBC a big client from a HR recruitment firm, wants to have 600 new employees with a specific qualifications. Well, it just cannot be done in China. So, companies are stealing from each other for employees from a limited pool of resources.

As to the restaurant owner, he was expressing frustration in dealing with the local food inspectors; forget about the rhetoric of how improved the gov't has come in to accommodating businesses. There are still corruption. A certain "quanxi" (relationships) must be maintained; he rather pays up front then gets surprises, No matter if you follow the food guideline to the letter, you still need to pay a little of "penalties". Doesn't matter; the "paying scale" is based on how much your business' ability to make money. Obviously, the foreign owned restaurants will get levy more than the local ones. This restaurant owner told us a story:

Last year, at 7pm one evening, 7 food inspectors stormed into the restaurants without any announcement; grab all the tables and chairs and sat in the middle of the restaurant; smoking and talking. So, the owner sent out the chinese speaking local manager to inquire. One of the food inspectors rose and walked into the kitchen; after a while, came out and served a notice of RMB$5,000 for rule violation. The owner had to appear at the food inspection office to pay the fine and "explained". After those inspectors left, the chinese manager laughed. The reason there was such a dramatized "show of force" moment before was that those inspectors wanted to extort money from the owner; they wanted to show up during peak customer hours. Well, they were off by an hour as the Westerners usually didn't come in until 8pm.

That's one of many stories you can hear from businesses. Doing business in China is still.....