My final report for a Human Resources class at South Western University of Finance and Economics (Chengdu, China). What is an efficient talent management strategy? Comparing French and Chinese approach

1. What is an efficient talent
management strategy? Comparing
French and Chinese approach.
2016
HUMAN RESSOUCES MANAGEMENT
2015-2016
Name: Kevin CECILE
Student number: 51500114

2. 1
Table of content
Background of the study ............................................................................................................2
The problem statement .............................................................................................................2
Research question......................................................................................................................2
Talent management in China .....................................................................................................2
Talent management in France ...................................................................................................3
Comparison China & France.......................................................................................................3
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................4

3. 2
Background of the study
Leigh Bailey, CEO of The Bailey Group, believes that CEO’s vision and talent
management go hand in hand. She said that “Today’s CEOs must be just as attentive
to the way people work and excel within their organizations as they are to market
expectations.”
Talent management is an important issue today, it is a tool for successful companies,
it allows companies to keep top talented people while increasing productivity.
What is talent management? First of all, we can say that talent is define as innate
ability, or aptitude, above average ability. In the Oxford dictionary* we can see that
talented people are defined as people possessing natural aptitude or skill.
Indeed, the problem for human resources management is how to manage a person or
people possessing such ability. How to find and keep those talented people and how
to manage them within a company that is to say combine the need of the company
(performance) and the need of the employee (self-fulfilment).
The problem statement
Knowledge, capacity, experience are the main elements that distinguish companies
from their competitors. The most skilled employees, talented employees are the engine
of those competitive advantages. That’s why talent management should focus on
attract, improve and keep talented people in a company. Talent is fundamental for a
company who wants to keep its advantages against its competitors.
Several studies*** showed that we will face a lack of talent in the future in developed
countries mainly because of the demographic issue. Talent management has become
an important question in human resources field and there exist different approaches.
Research question
My research question is what is an efficient talent management strategy? Comparing
European countries and Chinese approach.
Talent management in China
With the growth of China’s markets there is an increased demand for talent with
increased capabilities and skills. Chinese companies are in need of individuals who
can drive performance efficiency while maintaining a strategic view.
Developing the Chinese market is a top priority for many multinational companies.
Across industry sectors, however, they face a common obstacle — attracting,
developing and keeping the local Chinese talent needed to accomplish this goal.
International firms realized the importance of having local leadership. In fact,
companies with a demand for highly skilled workers struggle to find exactly what they
are looking for in the Chinese workforce.
We can say that in China there is the “War for talent approach”. With a population of
over 1.3 billion China has a deep pool of human resource, but it exist a war for talent
between multinationals because of a growing need for experienced managers and
leaders.
According to a survey of Chinese job seekers**** conducted in 2010 by Manpower, (a
human-resource consultancy), the number of respondents choosing Chinese privately
owned companies as their primary choice is up by 5%, with foreign companies down
10%, compared to four years earlier. Primary drivers for this change are better long-
term career development opportunities for 59% of the respondent and better

4. 3
compensation, benefit package for 43% of them. So the war for talent approach seems
to be efficient.
Talent management in France
Today in France, 60% of companies have a talent management strategy**. They define
talent as potential and also performance. Indeed talent management seems to be well
implemented in French companies nowadays.
In France there is the” Make talent, not war approach”. This approach is more about
developing, training existing talent.
But only 40.5% of French companies apply talent management to all employees, so it
is clear that in France talent management are for elites, top managers considered as
high potential. The first field in talent management is self-fulfilment for 75% of French
companies but also career and mobility in order to give perspective to the talented
people they want to keep in the company.
In talent management, it is essential to regularly evaluate the people. For respectively
85% and 74%, French companies are using annual interview and talent/ people review.
How are French companies actually developing talent? The main way of developing
talent is training according to 84% of them, it is a traditional way of improving talent,
more modern way like e-learning are not very used, only 26% of French companies
are using it.
Comparison China & France
I think that talent management should take the cultural aspects into account, when
comparing France and China for example. Geert Hofstede developed a cultural
dimensions theory. Here he describes national cultures as describable along six
dimensions.
The huge gap between China and France according to Hofstede theory are about:
Individualism:

5. 4
At a score of 20 China is a highly collectivist culture where people act in the interests
of the group and not necessarily of themselves. In-group considerations affect hiring
and promotions with closer in-groups (such as family) are getting preferential
treatment. Employee commitment to the organization is low. Personal relationships
prevail over task and company.
Uncertainty avoidance:
At 86, French culture scores high on Uncertainty Avoidance. The French don’t like
surprises. They want Structure and planning are required. Applied to talent
management that means that French employees like planned training and more
generally be sure about their future.
Indulgence:
China is a restrained society as can be seen in its low score of 24 in this dimension.
Societies with a low score in this dimension have a tendency to cynicism and
pessimism. So according to Hofstede, Chinese people have the perception that their
actions are restrained by social norms and feel that indulging themselves is somewhat
wrong.
Besides the cultural differences in the talent management strategy approaches. One
of the problem is that it is hard to measure the advantage of talent management. There
is also some limits to talent management within companies. For example it may be
difficult to get funds for it, lack of budget. Not enough people in the human resources
department or the managers won’t be enough engage in talent management strategy
and they may don’t have enough tools to implement an efficient talent management
strategy
Conclusion
To conclude, Talent management is a recent concept in human resource and it is
partially handled and that could make the benefit less clear and measurable. However,
those two approaches of talent management that we can find in China and in France
for example, we should not choose one or the other because they could be
complementary. Indeed, “War for talent approach” is good for attracting talented
people and the other “Make talent, not war approach” is very efficient to keep the
talented people in the company. But this is a really hard thing to do because of the
specificity of each country and company.
Bibliography:
*Oxford dictionary.com
** French study : gestion des talents dans les entreprises français –
*** "Global Talent Risk" World Economic Forum étude 2011
*** "Creating People Value 2011" Le Boston Consulting Group
**** 2010 Foreign and Chinese Private-Owned Companies Talent Competitiveness
Survey