In a recent BlueSteps study of over 100 senior executives working in China, seventy percent stated that executive pay had become more competitive over the last 5 years, and 89% indicated their intent to stay in China for over 3 years. The majority of respondents were expats working in China (77%), in general management roles including CEO/COO (63.4%), earning over USD $150k (74%).

In a comparison of six nations, senior executives ranked China as the fourth highest paying country, ahead of other emerging markets, Brazil (5th) and India (6th), yet behind developed nations Germany (3rd), UK (2nd) and USA (1st).  70 percent of respondents indicated that compensation in China has moderately or significantly increased in competiveness in the last 5 years.  

"BlueSteps is the exclusive service of the AESC (Association of Executive Search Consultants) that puts senior executives on the radar screen of over 8,000 executive search professionals in over 74 countries. Be visible, and be considered for up to 75,000 opportunities handled by AESC search firms every year. Find out more at BlueSteps. " 
As a career consultant for BlueSteps, I can offer you a 20% discount on the one-time membership fee. BlueSteps, a resource for senior executives, provides a wealth of resources in addition to access to the top search consultants worldwide. 

To join BlueSteps and receive the 20% discount, just click on the this registration link https://www.bluesteps.com/Registration/Default.aspx . 

When you get to the purchase page, input the following code: PattiWilson20. Your membership fee will be discounted  by 20%. BlueSteps is well worth the one-time fee and you can receive a free consult from me as part of the package.

My good friend Andreas Ramos just sent me a long email going into detail and great length describing how Facebook is once again changing things around. But, this time they are going after the Pages.

Now that they have decimated the groups, and made Pages into a living hell of a lifeline, the Pages will be eviscerated and remade.

If you setup a page you will need to redo it and it won't be as cool. This includes me and many of my clients as I used FB Pages as great online professional brochures for them. However, they were in addition to their websites not in lieu of them.

Here is the ending summation from his email:
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In Summary:
The change is radical. FB has abandoned pay-per-click advertising and switched to interaction based on messages. This makes sense: Social media is engagement, so the new model works with that. And advertising didn't work anyway.

Companies and social media experts are going to have to change directions (and horses). It's no longer about polls, games, contests, and other gimmicks. It's no longer how to get the most fans. It now becomes a matter of writing messages that engage.

It's a good question as to what this means for other social media companies. Their results were also equally bad. Will they continue on a ad-based model? Or switch to FB's new strategy?

Don't abandon FB. Millward Brown found that Facebook was the most efficient form of media at driving desired brand perceptions and overall brand equity when compared to other online, out-of-home and television advertising. It's just not clear on the best way to do this.

Finally, this is the perfect example for why you should not use FB as your main digital platform. FB, which is run by kids, owns your company's presence in FB and they can do whatever they like and they won't even notify you. You spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, hire people, etc., and then FB changes everything. Build your own website. Don't rely on FB.
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I couldn't agree more with Andreas. I have been building inexpensive, beautiful websites as branding vehicles for my clients for the past few years now with great success. A professional website is the sole means to fully and completely controlling your message. You cannot, in the end, count on Linkedin, Facebook, or any other social profile site to keep your brand intact and give you access to your network. It is not your network it is theirs as it is on their site not yours. Anyone that relies on Linkedin or Facebook brand visibility and network connection management is trusting fate.

With a professional website, you own and control your brand message, the image you project and your Google ranking of your name's URL.

If you want to see examples of client's websites, email me at [email protected]. Check out my Facebook Page in the new confusing layout..it looks  just like a Facebook Profile...virtually identical.  Please Like Me while you are there. You get no prize or bonus for doing so, just my thanks.

Andreas goes into great detail in his email to me and if you are interested just click on the read more link below. 

These trends may seem not new to many in the career coaching field or in Silicon Valley but  this article does an excellent job of covering and updating the take on these dynamics in global work:

5 Trends Driving the Future of Work
by Chris Jablonski

Summary: From legions of independent consultants to cities dotted with coworking facilities, the future of work is virtual, online and global.

Trend 1: Independent consulting to see hockey-stick growth curve
Trend 2: Order books, movies and now … workers online
Trend 3: Coworking moves beyond early adopter stage
Trend 4: Adaptive lifelong learning the norm
Trend 5: Jobs of the future will either retrofit and blend existing jobs, or solve entirely new problems.
Read more at ZDnet.com,

Yes, we know that the jobs of the future will be different, even with the same title, from what they do now. Who would have thought that a car mechanic would need some computer skills to diagnose and repair the inner mechanics of an automobile 50 years ago? But they do now. Certainly, marketing exists more and more online than off.

Challenge: predict where your job/field/function is going and how going are going to mutate into those changes yourself. One solution includes applying #4 and being continuously learning new skills before you need them.

Coworking suits the Contract Nation USA just fine as more and more of the labor force is on a just-in-time basis. Banding together for company, economy of scale, and collaboration yet remaining independent entities is one very useful technique to survive working as Me Inc.

Challenge: finding the right co-habitation work space with people who create synergies of opportunities and networks with yours. This is more critical than finding your soul mate.

But the article does well in painting in tangible living color brushstrokes just how fast we are moving to that Me Inc. world with the visceral image of the hockey stick. Fan that I am, it also brings to mind the brutality of that game as an apt analogy to the sometimes cutthroat competition for projects and gigs.

Challenge: to differentiate yourself and keep from becoming a commodity price-driven member of a herd of contractors chasing business. This is another place where #4 learning new skills and acquiring new knowledge would help.

We know everything will be online as it seems like most of it is now. Of course recruiters live on Linkedin and deploy Google searches to find talent. Resumes are rapidly becoming obsolete in favor of more copious dossier on you in the interweb. Workers online using the various sites such as guru.com, elance, etc is now the norm.

Challenge: to by-pass the 3rd party brokers that add on 20-30% to your hourly rate and market yourself directly to potential employers making copious use of online branding and marketing. Using a website, blog, social profiles (lots of them), etc, build visibility to promote Me Inc.

Good trend spotting means good responses on all our parts. If we see it coming we can do something about it. Moreover, these trends are global. We compete, work with, network and collaborate across borders, timezones and countries. Opportunities can be anywhere and so can you.

Email me if you want to find out how I can help you be a guru consultant and look like a thought leader online. I have done it for others and can show you how too. [email protected]

The Labor Market Bites Chinese Factories As retention of factory workers becomes a problem for companies in China, wages and benefits are increasing. But employers still face a labor shortage -- and their potential responses to it may have big implications for China and the rest of the world.
By Peter Cappelli the George W. Taylor Professor of Management and director of the Center for Human Resources at The Wharton School.
Read entire article

This fascinating article reiterates some of the themes I have blogged about concerning the global economy. The free market for wages and labor has finally arrived in China. Coming back from Spring Festival, workers are delaying their return to shop around among factories for the highest salary and best perks.

Foxconn, Apple's i-everything manufacturer, has announced wage increases that bring the Chinese factory worker on par with their counterparts in Mexico. This is coming faster than I expected in terms of a rising tide raising all boats (countries) closer to wage parity. And this will eventually budge the USA off the salary sandbar where wages have been moored for more than a decade of steady declines.

Cappelli expresses hope that this turn of events will help usher in modern management practices into China such as employee retention. Wow! I never thought that I would mention that and China in the same sentence.  This all bodes well for long term technology manufacturing coming back to the USA with the rising wages and costs of fuel driving that return. Steve Jobs was wrong on that one.

On the other hand, there is a glut of new college grads without employment opportunities as they lack experience and  training. They might be potential converts over to factory jobs according to Cappelli. However the increasing number of college grads in China will apply more competitive pressure to that same demographic sector here in the USA.

Once again, this is another action call to new grads in the USA to gain internship experience, add to their portfolio of marketable skills, learn languages and build a career sustainable network to launch them well.

Companies in the USA, especially the big dogs, the global multinationals need to develop immediate contingency plans  to secure ongoing stable cost of goods produced including labor costs. Short-term Vietnam, other Asian nations, or Latin America will provide those options. However, long-term might look like North Dakota next to that tar sands oil pipeline.

Fuel and supply chain costs to deliver to markets and cost of labor will be the deal makers or breakers in the next 5 years.



 

Here is an excerpt from an article about Facebook moving to Menlo Park and the hardship to the city:

"On the other hand, Sun used to generate annual sales taxes of $431,000 to $827,000 for the city. That's because the state levies taxes on physical goods like computers that it doesn't levy on virtual services like online ad sales. Having more employees on the campus means the city is going to have to expand services to accommodate them, such as hiring more police officers or clerks. And while new high-income Facebook employees moving into the area might send property assessments soaring, Proposition 13 will limit the amount of additional property taxes."
Read  Chris O'Brian's story in the San Jose Mercury News

You want Facebook to move to your city right?
Think of all the job creation and tax revenues! The City of Menlo Park has mixed emotions about Facebook bringing its entire workforce into one mega campus formerly occupied by Sun Microsystems. Yes, there will be some upfront fees and revenues collected with the move-in but the long term liability is increased demand on city services with little increase in ongoing sustainable tax revenues.

What is Menlo Park doing? Why asking Facebook for a handout to subsidize low-income housing in one of the most expensive cities in the Bay Area. Facebook is more than obliging. It is truly being a good citizen and why not? It certainly is getting off virtually scott-free compared to actually paying taxes. 

The issue is one of unequal and unfair burdens of taxation on different types of industries and sectors in the California economy. This is an antiquated tax code that does not respond to the realities of a new economy and the Bay Area's economic base moving from computer and semi-conductor products to the Internet.

The State of California is fighting to get Amazon to charge sales tax to residents of the state. But compare that tax income, to the revenues that could be generated by the virtual services of local Internet companies. 

Facebook is a $500,000,000 company (I put all the zeros in to make a visual point). Why are they, and Linkedin, Groupon, Yelp, Zynga, and others  not paying tax on their virtual revenues as Sun did on their computers and Apple does now on its iPhone, iPad and iPod?

The law needs to change and now. How ridiculous that a city is reduced to begging for a handout from a company. Let Facebook hire its own fire department, police force, street maintenance workers.