Bottom-up strategy can be tricky in corporate Asia
- By Yan Zhen
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, October 12, 2013
Haidilao is by no means the only success story of the employee engagement model in China and Asia.
Frank Wu, executive vice president Siemens Ltd China, adopts the same people management strategy in his company and says the meaning of zhong yong is widely misunderstood.
“Zhong yong does not discourage people’s active involvement. When you study Confucius’ ideas more deeply, you find that it actually means, ‘Do the right things at the right time’.” The core value here is people,” Wu said last month on the sidelines of the Singapore Human Capital Summit 2013.
Despite the impression that many East Asians, because of their natural reserve, lag behind in interpersonal communication skills, modern technology and social media enable people to express themselves more easily in the digital world.
According to Mano Ramakrishnan, head of research for the Singapore-based Human Capital Leadership Institute, Asian people might be not good at publicly voicing their dislike of a policy or decision, “but they can text the boss and say, “Hey, I don’t like it.”
Getting engaged
Hence, the real key to employee engagement lies in a proactive approach — the key question is how to motivate employees to get engaged.
Without motivation and incentive, why should a sales person spend time thinking about product strategy, rather than pitching 10 clients or making 10 sales orders?
Incentives and disincentives should be used in tandem.
In Morning Star, blue-collar workers are able to buy any equipment, but if their purchase fails to pay off, they may well be fired by colleagues. At Haidilao, waiters and waitress who improperly discounted a bill will get a pay cut.
As business leaders observed at the summit, what companies need to do is set up a mechanism that makes rules and benefits clear to all employees.
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