Managing Your Employees

Managing employees anywhere is challenging. In China, it’s even more so because the Chinese workforce is experiencing growing pains as it adjusts to a more market-based economy. To properly manage employees in China, you generally have to be more hands-on than in the West. For this reason, telecommuting isn’t usually an option in China for employees (nor for their bosses, unfortunately).

Setting your expectations for basic training

The first challenge with managing employees in China has more to do with yourself: You need to have reasonable expectations. In many cases, comparing Chinese workers to U.S. or European ones is unfair because of the differences in background and education. On the other hand, managers who’ve worked throughout Asia say that Chinese employees often compare quite favorably to those in some parts of Asia.

Don’t expect your employees to know all the basics that Westerners take for granted, such as proper phone etiquette, how to behave in front of customers, and appropriate workplace attire. Most of them are able to pick up the basics easily if you train them. Think about all the functions a new hire will perform — large and small — and be ready to instruct. You may have to offer training for even the most mundane tasks, such as taking phone messages.

Helping employees manage their work

One of the areas Chinese employees commonly need help in is organizational skills. If you’re assigning multiple tasks to your employees, you need to stay on top of them to make sure they’re handling their tasks. Don’t expect them to come to you for help if they’re feeling overwhelmed — they may be afraid of losing face.

General questions such as “Is everything under control?” may not get you good answers. You probably need to ask about the status of each task the employee is supposed to handle. Ask each employee for such updates until he or she shows the ability to multitask effectively.

Earning respect

Although you don’t want to be an emperor (see the earlier section “Passing up the Chinese imperial palace”), you do have to be more autocratic in many ways than you’d be in the West.

When employees lose respect for the boss, they lose their motivation to perform assigned tasks. They don’t want to do this, and you don’t want them to, either. Regaining lost respect is difficult — in the end, you may have to get rid of the employee! Ignore this section at your own risk.

Many (but not all) of your Chinese employees need you to be a strong leader in order to earn their respect. Put another way, you should be clear that there’s a separation between you as the boss and them as the employees. You should of course be friendly with your employees and treat them well; however, you shouldn’t cross the boundary into being friends with most of them.

Creating a clear separation between you and your employees would chafe on many Western management experts. However, China is a very Confucian society. Confucian values stress subservience and respect to leaders and elders. In the minds of some employees, if you don’t act like you’re the boss, then you’re an employee just like they are.

Creating that separation without going crazy and becoming an emperor is fairly easy:

✓	Always be conscious of maintaining your face in front of your employees (see Chapter 11 for details on face).
✓	Take a personal interest where appropriate in their lives, but don’t share too much of your personal self with them.
✓	Don’t ever reveal too much of what you’re thinking.
✓	Don’t be overly apologetic (or apologetic at all) for giving them an assignment that’s unpleasant.
✓	Speak sternly when the need arises (do so privately in most cases).
✓	Have employees come to your office most of the time instead of going to their desks or offices to speak.

Creating the boss aura doesn’t mean discouraging employees from publicly stating opinions that differ from yours. Always encourage them to speak out, even if they disagree with you. Insist that they do so respectfully, though. And when you’ve ended a debate, make sure it’s over.

Maintain your aura around all new employees until you feel that a particular employee doesn’t need it. The employees who don’t need that aura may come to resent some of what you do to create the aura, just as a Western employee would. In general, more educated and experienced employees are the ones who fit into this category.

Using the boss aura on your expatriate employees isn’t a good idea. They’ll definitely resent it. If that means that you openly treat your expatriate and Chinese employees differently, Chinese employees will usually accept that (unless the difference is enormous).

Managing office politics

Your company can become pretty political when you have Chinese employees. Watch out for employees who are looking to unnecessarily involve themselves in coworkers’ assignments or trying to assert authority over each other. For example, your office administrator may start insisting to other employees that they get his or her approval before doing something. Don’t be surprised to see this happen even though you never spoke about the idea with a single employee! This maneuvering is part of the great bureaucratic tradition of China — people and organizations constantly jostle each other to increase their areas of responsibility and thus their power. Again, you have to be very hands-on and vigilant as a manager.

To preempt political behavior, provide training that stresses teamwork and cooperation. The training should stress Western management models and methods. See “Cultivating an ideal culture” for details.