Pollution in China has been a hot topic for a couple of years now, following the Winter of Doom here in Beijing a while back and a similar bad run of polluted days in Shanghai later on. Scary stuff, and the PR has led some MNCs to address the issue within the context of retention and recruitment. An Op/Ed in China Daily on the subject comes out against pollution hazard pay:

Giving expats a bonus for enduring living conditions in a city would be an affront to local employees, as McKinsey Asia Chairman Gordon Orr wrote in one of his recent blog posts. In addition, there are plenty of “perks” for living in Beijing or other cities in China, which would make it unnecessary to offer extra incentives.

I agree with Orr’s specific point about fairness. If you pay the expats extra because of living conditions, what does this say about your local staff?

Ultimately, though, the fairness argument may tend to be shoved aside if you are having difficulty with recruitment and retention. Some expat transfers still get benefits like housing and paid schooling for the kids; some of this is arguably necessary as these guys are temporary transfers, but even if you control for that, expats are often simply treated better than local staff. If you don’t like it, try being an HR Manager for a while and see how you do with your expat staff.

However you come down on the fairness issue, at least it’s arguable. The China Daily Op/Ed didn’t go the fairness route, deciding instead to try “But China is so cool!” Hilarity ensued:

China is still a land of opportunities with a steady influx of international workers. It is doubtful that any of them came with a “hazard pay” dangling in front of them. Money made in China, in yuan, has the potential of appreciating. By the time an expat leaves in a few years, his or her savings in yuan will exchange into more dollars or euros. When I left China a decade ago, 8.3 yuan fetched you one US dollar; today only 6.2 yuan can do that. Coupled with financial benefits is the relative low cost of living.

Uh, was this written 15 years ago? Yes, I still remember when the RMB was hugely undervalued and the cost of living here was really low. That was a long time ago. These days I spend as much on food as I would if I was in the U.S. (possibly more). And I won’t even talk about food safety. The RMB ain’t going anywhere, at least not significantly; and even if I accumulated a mountain o cash, it’s not like it’s easy to transfer it overseas or anything. Next?

Getting around in China is affordable and easy. Public transportation is developing at a shocking speed. The high-speed trains are highly impressive and have made travel in the country very easy. A high-speed train ride from Beijing to Shanghai takes about 5 hours, often less than flights that require security checks, layovers and stressful rides to and from the airport.

Seriously? Transportation? I live in Beijing – need I say anything else? Yes, I like the airport train as much as the next guy, but that hardly outweighs the traffic, crowded subways, and lack of taxis, right? I’ll admit that public transport here is much better than in most American cities, but come on, that bar is pretty low. And if we compared transport here with European cities, the picture would look decidedly different, wouldn’t it?

China is also a rather safe place to work in. Though untoward incidents are reported at times, most big cities in China are fairly safe, even at night. More importantly, China is also a friendly place for expats. As an expat in China you get to learn a different culture, which is important to lead an interesting, enriched and productive life.

Yes, it’s a safe place. So are a lot of cities around the world, unless the comparison is to Detroit (or to any U.S. city, for that matter). But yes, you can put general safety in the “win” column. What about culture? I think the definition of “expat” implies that you are operating in a different culture. I believe that holds true for expats in any country, not just the ones in China.

No surprise, I’m not buying the “China is so cool!” argument as a reason why pollution hazard pay is unnecessary. The pollution here sucks, there is no doubt about it. If I was HR God, however, I wouldn’t pay it as a matter of fairness to local staff, but I do admit that sometimes reality forces companies to treat staff differently.

via Do expats need pollution hazard pay? (China Daily)

© Stan for China Hearsay, 2014. |
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