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Monday December 12, 2005

A View of Asians at Work - What Keeps the Buzz Going

Mercer Human Resource Consulting

Asian organizations largely do not understand what drive their employees’ commitment or what factors generate motivation and loyalty at work. There is emerging evidence to show that employees will more often than not leave their jobs when there are alternatives due to a lack of commitment.

Employees in Asia are motivated by different factors but a common thread is their wanting to be recognized and rewarded for their efforts. Asian employees also view their managers and senior management through a different looking glass.

In places such as Japan and Korea, where massive restructurings have taken place, there is more evidence of employees’ mistrust of management. While the Koreans struggle with the concept of “trust,” Chinese employees tend to place great trust in their leaders and managers.

Although employees in India and China are generally happy with their work environment and infrastructure, they are less happy with their companies’ lack of focus on their training and development needs or career development needs.

These and other findings can be found in Mercer Human Resource Consulting’s What’s Working™ studies. The study is aimed at providing organizations with insight into their workers’ attitudes and factors that drive their engagement.

The results are based on data collected from a statistically valid sample from a broad cross-section of industries. The survey’s 125 questions elicit views in areas such as training and development, work environment, leadership, performance management, work/life balance, communication, compensation, benefits, commitment and engagement among others. Country reports are available for Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore and the US.

Then there is always the problem with pay

Across Asia, there seems to be a need to better address pay issues – the need to build better links between reward expectations and how performance is being measured or communicated. Employees in all the countries surveyed -India, China, Singapore, Korea, and Japan – had low ratings on how favorable their pay was.

China China stands out - only one in 10 felt that their performance was not rewarded for a job well done.
A total of nine out of 10 said they were motivated by their company’s reward/incentive plan.

India Indian employees were also motivated by pay. They however gave their managers low rating in terms of being able to properly differentiate performance and to make sure the rewards matched the performance. Employees in India also felt left out in training and development opportunities to match their career development needs.

Japan High level of dissatisfaction with the reward system. Only 35% said their performance was recognized while 21% said they were properly rewarded for their performance.

Korea Three out of four employees felt that their pay level was not competitive compared to other organizations and one in four felt that they were not properly compensated for their performance or contribution.
Korean employees also valued respect beyond financial rewards.

Singapore 40% of those surveyed felt they were compensated for their performance. Only about 35% said their pay was equitable or competitive with the marketplace.
An overwhelming 94% said reward factors influenced their commitment and motivation at work.

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