China is starved of senior managers with western experience - and expat executives willing to take the great leap forward can expect packages of around €270,000, writes Gerald Flynn

AFTER TWO weeks watching the Olympics, perhaps you have toyed with the notion of working in China but are daunted by the concept of a huge country with hundreds of millions of employees and little prospect for a decent job for a foreigner.

As it happens, China has a severe shortage of senior managers who are comfortable with westernised business practices. Opportunities abound for those eager to enhance their global experience.

McKinsey Co forecast that Chinese companies with international aspirations will need up to 75,000 senior managers between now and 2020 compared with fewer than 5,000 working there just three years ago.

Some foreign managers are recruited as part of a "localisation" project to train and build Chinese talent in specific business sectors but most are hired at good, often tax-free, rates to accomplish specific roles.

This has led to a keen market for senior managers with experience of operating in a western business culture and environment and, in some cases, local Chinese managers are dissuaded from even applying as expatriate talent may be considered a bonus.

This mirrors, somewhat, the strategy of early foreign assembly and manufacturing firms in Ireland in the 1960s which brought in their senior management team before realising that building local talent and exposing them to experience in the corporate headquarters can be more productive and cost-effective.

In China today, an expat senior executive could expect a package of €270,000 or well over three times what a local resident senior executive or head of function would earn, according to a Mercer executive pay study. It found that expat managers arriving from abroad would have a package of around €128,000 compared with €36,000 for a local person. (see table).

These vacancies attract more than fancy-free Irish managers who have a born-again interest in China after 16 days of gold, silver and bronze on their HD flat-screen television. Managers with Chinese language skills in the Asia-Pacific region, often ethnic Chinese from Malaysia, Hong Kong or Singapore, have the edge in securing these positions.

China is no different to many other economies in seeking to deliver competitive advantage and profitability. But, unlike many more developed economies, senior decision-makers in China have developed their skills in an authoritarian commercial environment and have not developed the skills of talent management and development of potential management.

They may be short-term problem-solvers but not necessarily "people managers" though that is also beginning to change.

A comparative study by the Institute of Leadership and Management into US, French, British and Chinese managers found significant differences in approach.

Generally the Chinese managers were more humble and open to acknowledging that they needed to learn new management practices. The European and Americans were more cocky and two-thirds felt that they had no shortcomings which could impede business development.

The study of 327 functional managers, called The Global Management Challenge, also found that, in general, the Chinese participants were better educated and had received more in-house training than the westerners. The Chinese manager cadre was found to be a lot more sophisticated and to have a high regard for customer value and social responsibility in contrast with the popular grim image of sweatshop managers willing to nearly flog their employees to ensure productivity at prices which would undercut all the competition.

Research for Mercer's Attraction and Retention Study of Greater China found that companies with a high profile or good employer brand seem to have an easier time attracting candidates.

They then rated competition with high profile companies as the second major barrier to attracting employees in China.

This is an interesting finding considering that considerable money is invested into high profile advertising and marketing campaigns, but less into related HR programmes or "employer branding" which, handled well, can complement a good consumer marketing and brand image campaign.

In other words if an international organisation has a good reputation for management development, it should be your first option to seek out any vacancies it may have in China.

• Gerald Flynn is an employment specialist with Align Management Solutions in Dublin.