The Reflection on the Informational Interview with Yongan Futures Human Resource Manager

Human Resource and Industrial Relations Interview

The Reflection on the Informational Interview

with Yongan Futures Human Resource Manager

Zhongao Sun

HRIR 3021 – 003

Amy Simon

11/30/2017

Introduction

When I received the interview paper assignment, the first company that came into my mind is Yongan Futures Co Ltd. Headquartered in Hangzhou, Yongan Futures is a leading Chinese futures brokerage company who provides a wide range of financial services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, and individuals. It provides innovation consulting, consumer research services, and strategic planning such as hedging strategy. It also offers futures brokerage services such as commodity futures brokerages, financial futures brokerages, futures investment consulting, and other services. It is one of the greatest future companies in China and received more than 400 million RMB (i.e 70 million U.S Dollars) of net profit. Founded in 1994, Yongan Futures with the registered capital of 860 million RMB is regulated by China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). The company’s registered capital is now increasing to 1.31 billion RMB. Yongan futures has been leading the Chinese futures market by its scale of operation for a long time (company website, 2017). I chose this company not only because it is a leading company in Future industries but also because I had a great internship experience in Yongan Futures this summer in Shanghai. Therefore, I already know the company’s structure, human resources or other information much better than other companies. I worked in Research & Consulting Department as an industry analyst assistant. Also, I want to know whether the knowledge that I learned in human resource class in United States can be applied to Chinese companies, where they have a slightly different working environment from American companies.

The HR professional that I choose to interview is Liqiong Deng, who is the HR manager in Yongan Futures. She also interviewed me for my internship position and we have a great connection. I think she would be the most suitable person for me to interview with and would like to share her experience working in human resources department with me. Liqiong Deng graduated from Fudan University in 2004 and she majored in human resource. She had two-year experience in Bank of China as a human resource assistant and then joined Yongan Futures in 2006.  She is the manager of Human Resource Department and will be in charge of the whole department including recruiting process and training etc. We used Skype for interview since she was in China.

Questions 
Question: During my two months internship in here, I noticed that more than three employees in my department left the company. How do you tackle with the employees’ turnover？

Answer: In Chinese futures industry, it is very common that employees leave the company. Most of our employees work less than five years. As a leading future company in China, many other future companies are looking at our employees. Sometimes they would offer higher salaries or higher job positions. Also, because of the high living expense such as rent expense and heavy traffic jam in Shanghai, many employees decide to go back to their hometowns for their future careers. The government regulates that employees who transfer to other companies should have letters of identification from previous companies to prove their employment status.  We require that each employee who wants to leave Yong Futures should notify the company at least one month in advance to ensure the transition of work. When we receive notifications from our employee about their leaving, if the employee is so important for our company that he or she is difficult to be replaced, we would first attempt to guarantee a salary increase or a higher job title to satisfy the employee. If the employee insists on leaving the company, we will have at least one month to hire new employees.

Question: As we know, Yongan Futures is a large future company with many employees. How do the company plan for the workforce?

Answer: At the end of each year, our data analysts need to project the revenue of our company and other important statistics for next year and long terms. If there is a tremendous increase in our projected revenue, we would consider hiring more employees to our company. Because future industry in China is a new industry with only about 25 years history and grows rapidly after 2000, our company’s revenue increases every year since 2000. We currently have approximately 200 employees in Shanghai Branch, and we predict that the number of employees in our company would still increase at least next five years. Also, as I mentioned before, like many future companies in China, we are experiencing high turnover rates of our employees, which also affects our strategy to plan workforce.

Question: I noticed in my internship that different employees have different working schedules. What’s the policy of working schedules in our company?

Answer: You are right. Different employees have different working schedules.  Shanghai is a large city with more than thirty million people, and it has heavy traffic jam. Sometimes our employees take more than one hour to go to work or go home during peak time such as from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Therefore, we want to reduce our employee’s time on commuting. Our company has a very flexible working schedules: they only need to be in the office from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. We use employee time card to track their attendance. Employees need to swipe the time card when they arrive and leave the office. They could arrive early and finish the work early or they could arrive late and finish the work late to prevent the traffic peak time. In addition, they could do their work at home besides the required working time in office. We also offer employees great incentives. If the employee has a business trip for more than two days, they have the opportunity to have one day off with salary in the calendar year. If the employee has a business trip for more than five days, then they could have two days off.

Question: I know you take over the whole recruiting process. Could you tell me about the whole process of recruitment? For example, where do you post the recruiting information? How do you decide to hire the applicant?

Answer: When we decide the job vacancy and the number of employees we should hire, we start to post the job description, as well as applicants’ requirements, including knowledge, skills, ability and other characteristics, in our official website or other recruiting websites such as Zhilian and 58 jobs. We also go to university job fairs to introduce our new job openings.  After we receive the resumes from applicants, we will look at those resumes. Based on applicants’ experiences, college GPA and other criteria, we start to invite qualified applicants to interview. There are two rounds of interviews. I will be the only interviewer in the first-round interview, and I will ask questions about their resumes and questions about how to handle the situations in the previous experience so that I can know the applicants’ better through their explanations of their experiences. Then, based on their performances in the interview, I will decide who can be selected to the second-round interview. In the second-round interview, both I and department manager will be the interviewers. We will ask technical questions from their areas of study. After we finish interviewing applicants, I and the department manager will make the final decision. Then, our company will send offer letters to applicants that we select. They have one week to decide whether or not to accept the position. If some of them deny the offer letters, we will then choose the applicants that are in the waitlist until all the positions are fulfilled.