Gemini July Newsletter

With the heat being turned up ever so slightly, Summer appears to be in full bloom across Asia. I have spent a great deal of the recent weeks in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, as we are in the midst of opening one of our newest offices in the Futian district of Shenzhen. Shenzhen has always intrigued me as city built to mirror the growth and prowess of Hong Kong. My first visit to Shenzhen over ten years ago impressed me, but yet it was still a very rustic if not dangerous place to go.

Now that we are opening an office in the middle of the business district, I see some of the most amazing buildings housing multinational firms from every corner of the globe. The infrastructure is solid, well planned and despite the fact Mandarin is spoken instead of Cantonese, one can still communicate and traverse the city without too many problems.

This new office should be opening in September, and I will keep you posted as to the progress of this, as well as the contact points to keep record of. I will be quite pleased when all the renovation work is completed, as the temperature in our office there appears to be significantly hotter than in Hong Kong. I trust the same can be said for the business we gain in the coming months.

In this month's newsletter, I found it interesting that many firms using social media to find staff, are cutting back on the use of corporate websites as a method of communication. They are still visible, but certainly the move to third party applications and services are taking hold, although worry the control over such branded services such as facebook and twitter could leave us in a difficult position if any of these firms take a turn for the worse. (Anyone remember MySpace?).

As usual, if I can assist, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.

Callan Anderson

Group General Manager

Gemini Personnel

callan@gemini.com.hk

How do you find your staff?

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In a world that seems it is in constant flux, the hiring model and what we thought we knew is always in a change.

We used to depend on brochures, letters, typing pools and paper memos. Now, its email, websites and typing our own correspondence. (why were there typing classes at school and university after all?)

Strangely enough, even the most tech-savvy of us are now finding that what we thought were the ways to progress our hiring strategies and communication to our clients is quickly changing. The corporate website we once saw as a must have, is slowly being trimmed back further and further.

Shutting down your website to communicate solely through social media channels might seem like a crazy idea for any large organization, but then again, there is some logic to it. The Wall Street Journal reported that Starbucks receives over ten times as much traffic to its Facebook page (19.4 million unique visitors each month) as to its corporate website (1.8 million). For Coca-Cola, the divergence is even starker: 22.5 million visitors on Facebook vs. just 270,000 to its website-over 80 times as much traffic.

But before you rush out to pull the plug on your own web site, it's worth considering the benefits of each approach.

Benefits of Social Media

1. Inherently interactive. That's where the term "social" comes from. Unlike a static HTML website, designed to read and click, social media like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are designed around sharing, responding, and interacting.

2. Where people are spending time. With over 500 million active users on Facebook, most Web audiences are spending more time there than browsing company sites.

3. Easy to acquire. Clicking a "like" button on Facebook or "follow" button on Twitter is a lot easier than filling in the sign up form on a web page. So it's no surprise that many companies find it easier to build a large following on social media platforms.

4. Virality. When your audience interacts with you on social media platforms, it is instantly visible to their own friends and contacts. This digital "word-of-mouth" can be one of the most powerful tools for reaching new audiences.

Benefits of Your Own Website

1. Control the design. Have you ever tried designing a page on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube? The experience is like trying to swim with one hand tied behind your back. Having your own website allows you complete control, which may be essential if you have a lot of content or options that you need to organize for different audiences.

2. Own the data. Social media platforms are owned by the companies that run them, and, as such, they are the only ones holding all the data on your customers and your interactions with them. On your own website, you own all the data.

3. Targeting and personalisation. Owning data and controlling design allow for much more targeted interaction with your customers than is possible on social media platforms. If you know which emails a customer in your database is clicking on, you can ensure her follow up emails, Web landing pages, and ecommerce experiences are much more suited to her particular interests.

4. Reach all your audience. Unlike Facebook, Twitter, or other services which might reach large segments of your customers, your own website is available to 100% of them. (That is, as long as your website has been optimized to work on a mobile phone.)

So, unless you are so small (e.g. a one-person enterprise) that you lack the resources to maintain both a Facebook page and a website, you almost certainly need both.

Do you have time for coaching?

These days you would be hard pressed to find a leader who does not know that a large part of his job is to coach his employees. Nor is it hard to find evidence that the companies with the strongest leadership cultures are those that develop people at every level.

And yet you don't have to look too far to find managers who ignore this vital part of their job description. Why? The culture in which they work may not insist on it, and many managers also find the idea uncomfortable. The idea of talking one on one to an employee about how she is doing and what she could be doing better makes them uneasy. So they develop rationales for not coaching.

Here are the most common excuses I've heard, and my rebuttal to them.

1. "I don't like getting personal with my employees."

Reality: Coaching is a conversation. It focuses on how an employee is performing in the workplace. It need not get into an employee's personal life. The focus should be on what is happening on the workplace.

2. "I am a manager, not a therapist."

Reality: Coaching is not therapy. Behavioral issues that affect performance are a manager's concern but it is not your role to solve them. You should coordinate with human resources to find a licensed therapist or executive coach to provide assistance. But if the behavior is affecting other employees, you have an obligation to intervene and ensure the safety and welfare of direct reports.

3. "I don't have time for it."

Reality: Your job is to make sure the right things get done on time and on budget. How will that occur if don't make the time to find and develop the right people for the jobs?

4. "I don't like to dwell on the negatives."

Reality: Whenever I hear this excuse, I ask, "How long can you afford to carry a person who is not doing the job? " Subpar performers are a drain on time as well as resources-and the entire team.

5. "I don't want my people feeling too secure about their jobs."

Reality: Exit interview surveys reveal that employees often leave their jobs because they have the impression-often mistaken-that they are undervalued. As long as compensation needs are met, your staff is working for recognition. Coaching is one way to show it.

It's important for organisations to address the reasons people give for not coaching. Only when the company treats coaching as a priority will it create a culture in which coaching is not something managers ought to do-but something they do.

What reasons have you given-or heard others give-for not coaching at your company?

Gemini Monthly Salary Survey

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