China

As is true with all professions in China, the domestic HR talent base has been stretched in recent years in its efforts to keep up with the country’s breakneck speed of development. Relatively junior HR practitioners have been able to command managerial positions much earlier in their careers in China than in other areas across the Asia Pacific Japan region.

As the China market grows and as multinationals expand deeper into the country, some companies are starting to split off the China market into a separate ‘region’ in its own right, with HR Directors in China reporting directly into Global or International HR Heads rather than into regional headquarters.

On a sub-regional level, China is also sometimes home to the 'Greater China' headquarters for HR, with responsibilities covering neighbouring areas such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Mongolia. 'North Asia' regional HR roles have a greater catchment that includes Korea and Japan. These sub-regional roles usually report into the regional headquarters in Hong Kong or Singapore.

Other multinationals have relocated their entire regional headquarters wholesale into China, almost always to Shanghai or Beijing. While this move can make sound business sense, many multinationals have struggled to find internationally-minded local HR talent to take on key HR leadership roles out of China. In these cases HR Directors have needed to be hired from elsewhere around the region, especially from Mandarin-speaking pockets of talent in Hong Kong and Singapore, or sent in from global headquarters.

The Industrial & Manufacturing sectors have been the principal areas of growth in the past, but all industries are now well represented in China.

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