Zhaopin, a leading career platform in China, announced winners of its “2015 Top 100 Employers in China” awards, with the award ceremony to be held in Beijing in December 2015.
The annual awards are based on a survey of more than 180,000 employees and job seekers across China, who are asked to nominate and vote for the nation’s top employers based on a number of criteria that they regard as essential for any workplace.
Jointly conducted by Zhaopin and Peking University’s Corporate Social Responsibility and Employer Brand Communication Research Center in August and September 2015, this year’s survey included 5,400 employers, a historical high and an 83% increase from last year.
The 2015 survey, titled “Transitioning to the New Economy,” drew attention to the sweeping changes that are taking place in China’s job market as it shifts from an employer-oriented model to an employee-oriented one.
This year’s awards reflect the popularity of manufacturing, TMT, and financial companies among China’s job seekers and employees, as well as the increasing role small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are playing in today’s economy. SMEs accounted for 80 percent of participating companies during the 2015 survey and slightly more than half of the Top 100 list.
Evan Guo, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Zhaopin, commented: “We are happy with the progress our Top 100 Employers in China awards have made over the past 10 years, having become what we believe is an important reference benchmark for employers, employees and job seekers. This annual award series for China’s top 100 employers also reflects the monumental changes underway in China’s job market.”
See: China Salary Guide 2015 for HR Professionals
As companies shift from employer-oriented to employee-oriented human resource strategies, “the strong growth of SMEs in the 2015 awards reflect in part the importance of talent towards success and sustainability, and the way in which they are using a positive workplace environment as part of their competitive strategy to gain popularity among job seekers.”
With low-cost and low-end labour being increasingly replaced by robots and other automated processes, competition among China’s employers will continue to focus more on quality talent who can drive innovation and disruptive changes.
This requires new approaches to recruitment and employee retention as part of their HR and corporate strategies. Job seekers are no longer satisfied with merely job security but are demanding more from their employers.
The survey ratings this year reflect the pressures created by the slowdown in China’s macroeconomic growth and structural economic changes. A number of workers for large enterprises and multinationals worry that the weak macro-environment is placing their year-end bonuses in jeopardy, and as a result expressed their intention to find a new job within these segments of the job market.
This view particularly applies to the state-owned sector, wherein many job seekers experienced a cut in compensation and employee benefits. “This makes our annual awards all the more important as it further underscores the need to appeal to job seekers in today’s job market in order to attract the best talent,” Guo added.
Also read: Rising Demand for English-Speaking Candidates in Multinational Corporations in China
Image credit: flickr.com
