在華外企加大對員工吸引力

When Ioan Gornic suddenly starts blasting out 1990s dance hit “No Limits”, the assembled group of about 20 European factory managers shift nervously in their seats and try to avoid eye contact.

當伊萬•戈爾尼克(Ioan Gornic)突然開始播放上世紀90年代的熱門舞曲《無限》(No Limits)時，聚在一起的約20位歐洲工廠經(jīng)理在座位上不安地挪動著身體，不敢抬頭看。

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to sing,” says the Shenzhen-based general manager for Zobele, an Italian maker of air freshener and insect repellent. “I just want to make the point that the only limits are the ones we put on ourselves.”

“不要擔心，我不會唱，”意大利空氣清新劑和殺蟲劑制造商沙彼高(Zobele)的這位駐深圳總經(jīng)理表示，“我只是希望讓你們明白，唯一的限制是我們給自己設(shè)置的限制。”

Mr Gornic, a manufacturing veteran, is running a workshop on “talent management” for executives in China’s factory heartland, where fast-rising wages, changing demographics and the differing needs of millennials are forcing companies to rethink the way they handle their workforce.

戈爾尼克在制造業(yè)有著豐富的經(jīng)驗，他正在中國的制造業(yè)心臟地帶主持一個面向高管的“人才管理”研討會，在這個地區(qū)，快速上漲的薪資、變化中的人口結(jié)構(gòu)以及千禧一代的不同需求，正迫使企業(yè)反思各自的員工管理方式。

Rather than treating workers like an unlimited, easily replaceable resource, he argues that factory managers “need to understand better who they are, what they need and how to make them more efficient”.

他主張，工廠經(jīng)理不能把員工看做無窮無盡的可以輕易替代的資源，而是“需要更清楚地明白他們是誰，他們需要什么以及如何讓他們變得更高效”。

Unlike their parents, who saw a factory job as a rare opportunity to get ahead, today’s young Chinese workers have more options, especially in the fast-expanding service sector, and want more control over their lives, rather than being forced into long overtime shifts.

與父輩們把工廠工作視為難得的出人頭地的機會不同，如今年輕的中國員工擁有更多的選擇，特別是在迅速壯大的服務業(yè)，他們希望對自己的人生具有更多控制，而不是被迫長期加班倒班。

The flow of migrants into the factories of Shenzhen and other parts of Guangdong province has also been falling because of China’s ageing population, giving workers more bargaining power over pay and conditions.

此外，隨著中國人口步入老齡化，流入深圳以及廣東省其他地區(qū)工廠的農(nóng)民工近年開始減少，這讓員工在薪資和工作條件方面獲得更大的議價權(quán)。

As wages of unskilled factory operators have risen as high as Rmb4,000 ($580) a month in Guangdong, some companies have responded by investing in industrial robots and automation, while others have moved to areas with cheaper labour such as western China, Southeast Asia or Africa.

鑒于廣東制造業(yè)低技能員工的月薪最高可達4000元人民幣(合580美元)，一些企業(yè)開始投資于工業(yè)機器人和自動化，還有一些企業(yè)則轉(zhuǎn)移到中國西部、東南亞或非洲等勞動力成本更為廉價的地區(qū)。

But many international factory managers say they would rather stay in Guangdong, which produced more than a quarter of China’s exports last year, to capitalise on the deep skills base and the well-developed infrastructure and supply chain.

但很多跨國工廠經(jīng)理表示，他們愿意留在廣東，以利用這里深厚的技能根基以及發(fā)達的基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施和供應鏈，去年，廣東占到了中國出口的四分之一以上。

“You have to improve productivity, that’s the root cause of the problem,” says Thierry Jamet, who manages 450 workers at the Shenzhen factory of Altra Industrial Motion, a US maker of clutches and brakes.

“你必須提高生產(chǎn)率，這是問題的根源，”美國離合器和剎車設(shè)備制造商奧創(chuàng)動力傳動(Altra Industrial Motion)深圳工廠經(jīng)理蒂埃里•雅默特(Thierry Jamet)表示。他管理著450名員工。

As foreign manufacturers face ever greater competition from cut-price Chinese rivals, he says the only way to beat them is to take a more enlightened approach to developing the workforce.

他表示，隨著外國制造商面臨成本較低的中國競爭對手越來越激烈的競爭，擊敗這些對手的唯一方法是采取更開明的培養(yǎng)員工隊伍的戰(zhàn)略。

“People, not machines, are the best capital we have,” says Mr Jamet, at the workshop organised by the European Chamber of Commerce in China.

雅默特在這個由中國歐盟商會(European Chamber of Commerce in China)組織的研討會上表示：“我們擁有的最好資本是人才，不是機器。”

Mr Gornic, whose company produces for demanding multinationals such as Reckitt Benckiser and Procter & Gamble, says factories need to do more than simply provide workers with accommodation and sports facilities.

戈爾尼克的工廠為標準苛刻的跨國公司制造商品，例如利潔時(Reckitt Benckiser)和寶潔(Procter & Gamble)。他表示，工廠需要做的不僅僅是為員工提供住宿和體育設(shè)施。

He has developed one programme that brings in graduates and trains them for the top management posts and another designed to help the best of the unskilled workers on the factory floor move into senior supervisory roles.

他開發(fā)了一個引入畢業(yè)生的計劃，培訓他們成為高級管理者，還有一個計劃旨在幫助工廠內(nèi)最優(yōu)秀的低技能員工擔任高級主管職務。

He is also implementing the Japanese concept of kaizen, or continuous improvement, creating teams of managers and workers that try to shave vital minutes and costs off the manufacturing process.

他還在實施日本的“持續(xù)改善”(kaizen)理念，組建管理者和員工團隊，試圖從制造過程中節(jié)省珍貴的分分秒秒和成本。

Mr Jamet says that he was able to significantly simplify production in just one day after setting up such a team.

雅默特表示，在組建這樣一個團隊后，他只用一天就顯著精簡了生產(chǎn)過程。

“You need to lead by example,” he says. “If the top management are involved in the kaizen, then the operators are really committed.”

“你需要以身作則，”他表示，“如果最高管理層實行‘持續(xù)改善’，那么員工就真的會盡心盡力。”

Susanne Choi, a sociology professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who studies migrant workers in China, says the expectations of young workers are very different from their parents.

香港中文大學(Chinese University of Hong Kong)社會學教授、專門研究中國內(nèi)地農(nóng)民工的蔡玉萍(Susanne Choi)表示，年輕員工的期望與他們的父輩非常不同。

“They are no longer willing to just accept anything on the table,” she explains. “The younger cohort typically have a higher level of education and better family background.”

“他們不再愿意接受任何現(xiàn)實，”她解釋道，“年輕一代一般教育程度較高，有更好的家庭背景。”

Factory managers say they are having to take a more thoughtful approach to their staff, offering overtime to those keen to boost their spending power while letting others do routine shifts in order to have more of an outside life.

工廠經(jīng)理表示，他們不得不對員工采取更體貼的方式，讓那些希望擴大自己購買力的員工加班，其他人則正常倒班，讓他們在下班后有更多自己的時間。

Paris Hadjisotiriou, a Shenzhen-based executive for Oberthur Technologies, a French group that makes credit cards and other payment-related products, has tried to win over his workforce with matchmaking.

法國信用卡及支付相關(guān)產(chǎn)品制造商歐貝特科技(Oberthur Technologies)駐深圳高管帕里斯•哈吉索蒂里奧(Paris Hadjisotiriou)試圖通過相親贏得員工的心。

Many young workers prefer to return to their home town after a few years to meet a marriage partner. So he has organised social events to help male and female workers from different factories meet because “it is easier to retain them if they can find a boyfriend or girlfriend”.

很多年輕員工更喜歡在工作幾年后回到家鄉(xiāng)找婚戀對象。于是他組織社交活動，幫助來自不同工廠的男女員工相遇相識，因為“如果他們能找到男朋友或女朋友的話，留住他們會更容易一些。”

Ultimately, Ms Choi says, companies will have to develop factories that are much less like the sweatshops of old and more like their counterparts in the developed world, where workers are taken more seriously and imbued with a greater sense of pride.

香港中文大學的蔡玉萍表示，最終而言，企業(yè)必須把工廠變得不像過去那種血汗工廠，而更像發(fā)達國家的工廠，那里的員工得到更認真的對待，而且被注入更強烈的自豪感。

“Employers need a more segmented strategy to control their workers,” she says. “This may be new in China but not in other economies.”

“雇主需要更加細分的戰(zhàn)略來控制員工，”她表示，“在中國，這可能算是新鮮事物，但在其他經(jīng)濟體已不新鮮了。”