The Gold Collar
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China goes on the road to lure "sea turtles" home
By Wanfeng Zhou They were the "gold-collar" workers: highly educated Chinese people working on Wall Street. Now, they are known as "sea turtles" as they head home to escape the financial storm. Nearly 1,000 would-be turtles in business suits packed the ballroom of a New York hotel last Saturday, where they pitched themselves at a job fair for opportunities in Shanghai, China's financial hub. Among them was Dong Shaw, who has worked on Wall Street for the last eight years after doing a PhD at Columbia University, and now uses an anglicized form of his last name. "The crisis in the U.S. is very severe. We're having a serious shock that will reshape the landscape of Wall Street," said Shaw, who is looking for jobs that match his expertise in model-driven stock selection. Shaw, who said he was in his 40s, currently does stock-picking at a hedge fund and has also worked at Scudder Investments, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America. Like many at Saturday's fair, Shaw is attracted to China's relatively unscathed financial sector and still healthy growth prospects. "As a new market, China is full of opportunities," the native of Shanghai told Reuters. The worst financial crisis in decades has left the U.S. economy mired in a recession since December 2007, claiming more than 2 million jobs so far. New York's securities industry has lost 16,000 jobs and could lose a total of 38,000 by next October, while another 10,000 could be axed in related fields such as banking, according to New York's state comptroller. Some cities and firms in China are quick to exploit the opportunity to lure back native talent. Saturday's fair was led by the Shanghai municipal government and organized by about two dozen banks, insurers and securities firms from the city, including the Shanghai Stock Exchange, one of the two stock exchanges in mainland China. New York was the last stop in the delegation's efforts to poach back up to as many as 170 seasoned specialists in such fields as risk management and private wealth management. Its two earlier recruiting sessions in London and Chicago attracted a total of 1,200 people. Earlier this month, Nanjing in Jiangsu province in eastern China held similar events in several major cities in the U.S., which attracted hundreds of people. Eager to become a major player in the world economy, China is working hard to expand its talent pool and overseas Chinese, who offer both international experience and language and cultural skills, have often become an ideal option for local firms. Of the 1.2 million Chinese people who have gone abroad to study in the past 30 years, only one fourth of them have returned, according to the Chinese government. It's been a tough year for many of the "gold-collar" Chinese on Wall Street. Some have lost their jobs and most have seen their personal wealth shrink. "This is an unusual time. For some, this is their first experience of being unemployed and they're under enormous pressure," said Tony Tang, president of The Chinese Finance Association (TCFA), a nonprofit group based in New York. "Now these Chinese companies are giving out positions and many are contemplating it." OPTIMISM OVER CHINA To be sure, the Chinese economy is also hitting a bump this year as export demand evaporates in response to the global economic slowdown. Sagging asset values are another cause of concern, with the local stock market down about 70 percent this year, one of the worst performers in the world. Beijing unveiled over the weekend another round of stimulus measures including increasing money supply by 17 percent to boost lending and consumption. It comes on the heels of a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) package announced last month amid fears growth could fall below the 8 percent considered necessary to create enough jobs. Indeed, so many sea turtles (hai gui in Mandarin) have returned home that the people of Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere have invented a new name for those returnees who cannot find a job: "seaweed" (hai dai). But, while unemployment is rising in China, there are still opportunities at the top of the labor market, especially for those with foreign education and experience. Zack Liu, who returned to China earlier this year after more than a decade on Wall Street, said he was impressed by the efforts made by Chinese fund firms to institutionalize and professionalize the industry. Liu started his career in finance in 1996 at Bear Stearns after earning an MBA from Cornell and a PhD degree in physics from Florida State University. Over the past year, he has watched two of the three firms he worked for either collapse or merge with others as a result of the credit crunch. "It's sad to watch all these big banks fail. Life is like a roller-coaster. I made the right decision at the right time to come back to China," Liu told Reuters by phone from his new home in Shenzhen. Patriotism is sometimes a factor, but economic interest is certainly a much more important consideration. Still, many "sea turtles" acknowledged that they're willing to accept lower pay if the job provides attractive career prospects. Career International, a leading recruitment firm in Beijing, said there has been a jump in interest from Chinese employees on Wall Street. Their potential employers in China, according to the company, mostly offer a base pay in the range of $100,000 to $500,000. "Before the crisis, we were receiving about five resumes per week on average. Now, it's two or three times of that," Jun Xu, director of the firm's financial services group, said by telephone from Beijing. "We're also trying to help their family through the transition. Unlike us (who only have one child), many 'sea turtles' have two or three kids and some also need a bilingual daycare center." Some in the United States, such as Ke Zhang, who works for a hedge fund after being laid off from Lehman Brothers earlier this year, are taking a wait-and-see attitude. "The economy here is terrible," said the 27-year-old who holds a masters degree from Columbia University. "Gaining experience in the U.S. is still very important. Besides, the employment situation in China is far from rosy either."
CATCH OF THE DAY HIGH-TECH INDUSTRY NEWS, COMPANIES, JOBS, INNOVATION AND TRENDS.
By Leah O’Flynn, Sales & Marketing Recruiter High Tech Professor Robert Kelley of Carnegie Mellon University coined the phrase “the gold-collar worker” back in 1985 describing a new era of workers whose value is brainpower. “Gold” referred to the hefty salaries and profits that their minds and skills garnered. Back in 1985, these gold collar workers were the young and college educated, who made up over 40% of the U.S. workforce at the time. Today, with increased outsourcing of manufacturing, the American workforce has increasingly become more service and value-added oriented. The gold collar workers may now represent 70% of the workforce. “They are a new breed of workers, and they demand a new kind of management. Intelligent, independent, and innovative, these employees are incredibly valuable. They are lawyers and computer programmers, stock analysts and community planners, editors and engineers…” (Per Wikipedia quote from Robert Kelly) This a new breed of highly skilled multidisciplinary employee is clearly what drives intellectual capital companies, they bring the innovation, change the game, build companies to the IPO stage, and are the life-blood of the American economy. We hear over and over about the tech talent war, as these highly intelligent, educated and innovative people move around between successful companies. But what does it take to secure the loyalty of gold collar talent? “Bottom line, for so-called “gold collar” workers, employers need to convince them of the value of spending their time / efforts on the employer. It’s not just a job, it’s a step in their career,” says Chris Merritt, Director of Solution Marketing at Lumension Security. “So the employment offer has to make sense and be compelling on many levels, which includes work/life balance, personal motivation, and strategic career movement.” Recruiting and retaining gold collars means offering competitive financial compensation, but nonfinancial workplace rewards and benefits such as a casual and informal work environment, flexible work schedules and even part- or full-time telecommuting are highly valued. Gold collars value the activity-based era; changing work process (from waterfall to agile); mobile, remote work; “We” spaces, not “me” spaces; and support for collaboration. They enjoy faster pace, distributed teams as well as multiple space times for multiple work modes. Redfish Technology primarily works with aggressively growing companies that are agile and hungry and they can attract those agile and hungry gold collar workers by offering them what they want. Whether that means crafting a job offer to meet the candidate’s personal motivations such as a custom title, additional responsibilities, reimbursed continuing education, or other career ladder opportunities. And while it sometimes comes down to salary in the end, there’s usually a whole combination of factors that motivate top candidates beyond the dollars. “It is one thing to recruit talent, but to keep that talent loyal and dedicated means offering evolving opportunities, challenges, and recognition,” relates Meredith Dean, Tech Recruiter at Redfish. “With the speed that technologies are changing these days, the development talent I work with wants to grow with rising stars and be part of pioneering of the latest and greatest technologies.” The portability of their skills and the widespread demand for them often allow gold collars to be opportunistic. If not properly motivated they will move on. “Gold collar workers want a transformational leader who has charisma, who represents an ideal they can assimilate and adopt, and who provides the stimulation and individualized consideration they need to become more than they were,” writes Michael E Wonacott in an Eric Digest. Gold collar workers need to constantly update their skills to stay current with emerging technology; this is a core value to them. Learning must be a continuous process, one that is afforded by companies on the job or through extracurricular opportunities. In the war for talent, tech companies especially are struggling with finding ways to create a loyal gold collar crew. Think outside of the box, that is what these folks do. Communicate and recognize, these are important intrinsic values of the gold collars. Provide learning opportunities and challenges with personal meaning and reward to motivate them. And remember that work/life balance is not only good for your employees, it is fundamental for having sharp, loyal employees.
How to Manage Knowledge and ""Gold Collar"" Workers The principal resource of the 21st century will not be labor, or raw materials, or even capital, according to such prominent business consultants as Peter F. Drucker, professor of social science and management at Claremont Graduate University. It will be knowledge: a fundamentally different resource from the other three.
By Steve Bunk The principal resource of the 21st century will not be labor, or raw materials, or even capital, according to such prominent business consultants as Peter F. Drucker, professor of social science and management at Claremont Graduate University. It will be knowledge: a fundamentally different resource from the other three.1 In science, especially in biotechnology, where the pace of gathering and transferring knowledge is rapid, proper management of this central resource is already a major challenge. Unlike information, knowledge cannot be computer-generated. It is born of cognition and insight, and it develops in the minds of human beings. Knowledge workers own the primary tool of such industries, and they take it with them from job to job. Companies in any knowledge industry must deal productively with the constant growth and change of that fundamental asset. Thus arises the liberal art of knowledge management. "Knowledge, unlike lots of other resources, is not static. It's dynamic," notes Mary Ann Rafferty, vice president of human resources at Onyx Pharmaceuticals of Richmond, Calif. "Unlike a lot of other assets, preserving it is not really our main objective." She explains that enhancing knowledge, exchanging it, and using it effectively are goals of Onyx, a publicly held company engaged in discovery and development of novel therapeutics based on the genetics of human disease. Citing an "explosion of knowledge" in her industry, she opines that the winners will be companies that use this abundant resource to maximize productivity. That entails proper management of what she whimsically calls the "gold collar" worker. Newer and smaller companies might not understand the importance of knowledge management, Rafferty thinks. "It really depends on how business-oriented [their] leadership is." But applying too much management methodology to gold collar workers could be stifling. "The more you try to systematize them, the more you stigmatize them." Onyx deals with this problem by using project review committees to monitor, track, and enhance achievements related to particular projects. Such committees include heads of project teams, patent counsel, and, whenever appropriate, information systems representatives, Rafferty herself, or various ad hoc members. Aside from project review, another purpose of the committees is "to make sure we don't fall in love with our own bench work," she adds. Concentrating on results by setting goals is essential, according to George Renton, vice president of human resources at The Liposome Co. of Princeton, N.J. "You have to know what you're trying to achieve and be able to measure it in a concrete fashion." Knowledge workers should not be controlled so much as guided, to ensure they don't stray too far from the goal. "Certainly at the research end, you want to give people enough flexibility to tinker. But you need balance," he says. "Good managing is intuitive to a degree, and it's also situational to a degree." Some knowledge workers can be given an overall objective and allowed great leeway, he elaborates, while others require a more detailed plan and regular updates to track their progress. "I think the good managers are the ones who can recognize the situation they're in." In small biotech companies, senior scientists continue their own research while developing these managerial skills. "What you typically have in a small biotech company is a couple of scientists with an idea," Renton says. "As that idea comes to fruition, you typically get people from big pharmaceutical companies with other ideas." Liposome, which develops lipid-based and liposome-based pharmaceuticals, has grown to about 300 employees and is a fully integrated company with finance, sales, marketing, and a management team of seasoned pharmaceutical executives. The challenge now, he suggests, is to focus on the few courses of action that are best to take from the many good ideas at the company's disposal. "The product life cycle in biotechnology is far larger than it is in perhaps any other industry," notes Ronald W. Eastman, chief executive officer and president of Geron Corp. in Menlo Park, Calif. "The time from product idea to market is extensive, often upwards of 15 to 20 years. If you don't manage knowledge during that time, you're putting yourself at a significant competitive disadvantage." He believes, "When it comes to knowledge management, the primary issues relate to managing the amount of information available." Escalating advances in genomics, and the application of technology to biology, have generated masses of information, much of it extremely important, and much of it irrelevant. "The companies that become the most successful are those that figure out how to combine the manual or human analysis of this information with the technological analysis." Geron discovers and develops products based on the biological mechanisms of age-related diseases, and Eastman warns that arrogance is a major threat in such information-intensive work. "You can't suffer from the illusion that you can come up with knowledge all by yourself. It's important to leverage the knowledge of others," he says. "The key to successful management is having leading scientists in the field working both directly at the company [on staff] and ... directly in line with the company." Geron regularly forms internal teams, as well as teams that include other organizations. Reviews of these teams' performances are conducted regularly. "What helps is a very clear focus on objectives." Eastman sees a big difference between the management of a scientist and that of a manufacturing employee, for example. "I think scientists, by nature, are explorers," he says. "You need to create an environment where you can make a tradeoff." Exploration is important, but so is fiscal responsibility. Decisions should be reached jointly between manager and scientist on the most productive directions in which to explore, the scientist should be made aware of budget limitations, and everyone should have a vested interest in outcomes. All Geron employees hold company shares, Eastman notes. "I think our industry, because it is so young, does suffer from not having a plethora of experienced managers." It isn't whether those managers have science or business backgrounds that interests him so much as their relative youth, a problem time will fix. Meanwhile, he offers a summation on knowledge management: "It's a combination of being very analytical, having expertise and, let's not kid ourselves, at the end of the day there's a certain amount of rolling the dice." For the pharmaceutical giants, abandoning outmoded organizational forms to embrace new ways of transferring knowledge can be a major challenge. In 1994, when Raymond Gilmartin joined Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based multinational Merck and Co., as its chairman, CEO, and president, he brought a business management background that differed from the research expertise of his predecessors. One of Gilmartin's first objectives was to break down functional barriers, as a step toward creating work groups that were more responsive to marketplace demands. Management supplemented the project teams of 30 or 40 people that for decades had dominated product development in the industry with "commercialization teams" that are smaller, yet provide wider representation of different functions within the organization. Technical, regulatory, manufacturing, process, planning, and marketing expertise are all included in each group. Findings and recommendations are then presented to Merck's senior management team, the composition of which mirrors that of the commercialization teams. "There was skepticism of this approach early on, but I think most people now have recognized its benefits," says Bob Bissett, vice president of business process improvement. "There's no question we've seen improvement in both the product development and strategy areas." Researchers have gained more knowledge of the marketplace outside their areas of medical and scientific expertise, learning about such issues as pricing and government reimbursement. Conversely, marketing and planning people have gathered important information about the science-based concerns of product development. As a result, different opinions or possible problems concerning a particular project can be identified earlier in the process, leading to quicker responses. A corollary to these commercialization teams are Merck's worldwide business strategy teams. They likewise are cross-functional, creating business strategies for franchises that are followed through in each area of operation. "Our industry is becoming increasingly competitive, and other companies beyond Merck are looking at ways they can improve the use of the knowledge they're developing," Bissett notes. "We're not alone in this."
Knowledge Graph
Examples
1 Senior business professionals, known as the "gold collar" class, have reached a new high of 342,000 in China, adding more to the country's rich people list, according to a leading Chinese market research company.
2 China sees growing "gold collar" professionals.
3 Gold collar' class expands in China.