China Enterprise HR Manager cheat sheet

Human resource planning formula: future HR demand minus current internal supply minus expected net internal mobility equals the external hiring gap for each job family and period.

Demand forecasting methods: trend projection (historical headcount ratios), ratio analysis (revenue per employee, staff-to-line ratio), managerial judgment (Delphi), and workload analysis (output volume divided by output per employee).

Supply analysis separates internal supply (current staff, promotion-ready pool, retirement and turnover attrition) from external supply (local labor market, graduate output, competitor poaching).

Turnover rate = separations in period / average headcount in period; voluntary turnover excludes layoffs, contract expiry, and retirement and should be tracked separately.

Labor productivity = output value / average number of employees; headcount planning should tie to productivity targets rather than to absolute headcount caps alone.

Succession planning distinguishes key positions (high strategic impact) from critical positions (hard to replace); a replacement chart maps at least one ready-now and one ready-later successor per key role.

Span of control and management layer count drive managerial headcount: wider spans reduce management positions but require higher subordinate capability and clearer delegation.

HR planning horizon rules: strategic plans cover 3-5 years, annual business plans 1 year, and short-term staffing plans quarterly; each horizon uses progressively more quantitative methods.

Scenario planning uses three cases (base, growth, contraction) with trigger thresholds (e.g., order volume change) that authorize predefined headcount actions.

Cost per hire = total recruiting costs (advertising, agency fees, referral bonuses, interviewer time, onboarding) / number of hires in the period.

Time to fill = days from requisition approval to offer acceptance; time to start = days from requisition approval to the employee's first working day.

Selection ratio = number of hires / number of applicants; a low ratio indicates a wide funnel and higher screening cost per hire.

Yield ratios are computed per funnel stage (applications to interviews, interviews to offers, offers to acceptances) to locate the bottleneck stage.

Structured interviews with job-related, behavioral, and situational questions have higher predictive validity than unstructured interviews; scoring rubrics must be fixed before interviewing.

A written job offer should state position, location, remuneration structure, probation period, and reporting date; probation length is set by the labor contract and cannot exceed the statutory maximum.

Internal recruitment channels (job posting, employee referral, talent pool) generally have lower cost per hire and shorter time to fill than external channels.

Recruitment advertising must not contain discriminatory requirements unrelated to the job (gender, marital status, ethnicity, religion) unless a genuine occupational requirement is documented.

Offer acceptance rate = accepted offers / offers extended; a declining rate signals compensation competitiveness or employer brand issues.

Training needs analysis has three levels: organizational (strategy and performance gaps), task (competency and standard requirements), and person (individual gap between required and actual competence).

Kirkpatrick's four evaluation levels: reaction (satisfaction), learning (knowledge and skill gain), behavior (on-the-job application), and results (business impact such as quality, output, or cost).

Return on training investment = (monetized benefits minus training costs) / training costs; costs include design, delivery, materials, trainee time, and lost productivity.

The 70-20-10 model allocates development roughly to 70% on-the-job experience, 20% coaching and mentoring, and 10% formal courses.

A competency model defines each competency with behavioral indicators at several proficiency levels; training design maps each gap to specific indicators.

Training transfer requires pre-training manager commitment, post-training application assignments, and follow-up reinforcement within a defined period (commonly 30-90 days).

Onboarding milestones: day one (compliance, access, introduction), first week (role clarity), 30 days (basic competence), 90 days (full performance and retention check).

Statutory continuing-education obligations apply to specific roles (safety, special equipment operation, accounting) and must be tracked with records of hours and certification expiry.

Learning evaluation data sources: level-1 surveys, level-2 pre/post tests, level-3 supervisor observation checklists, and level-4 before/after performance metrics.

A performance cycle has four stages: goal setting, ongoing coaching and monitoring, appraisal and rating, and reward/development linkage.

SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound; each goal should carry a weight and the weights across a role must sum to 100%.

Forced ranking and forced distribution assign fixed proportions of top, middle, and low performers; they raise differentiation but carry legal and engagement risk and require strong evidence.

Behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS) anchor each rating level with concrete behavioral examples, reducing rater subjectivity compared with simple numeric scales.

Common rater errors: halo/horn effect, central tendency, leniency/severity, recency bias, similar-to-me bias, and contrast effect; calibration meetings reduce these.

A 360-degree appraisal collects feedback from supervisors, peers, subordinates, and self; it is a development tool and should be weighted cautiously for pay decisions.

Performance improvement plan (PIP) elements: specific gap, measurable targets, support provided, review dates, and consequences; documentation is essential if termination follows.

Key performance indicators should be few (typically 5-8 per role), leading as well as lagging, and derived from the organization's objectives through line-of-sight decomposition.

Appraisal results distribution should be reviewed against business unit performance before finalization to prevent inconsistent standards across departments.

Total compensation = base salary + variable pay (bonus, commission, incentives) + statutory benefits + supplementary benefits + non-monetary rewards.

Job evaluation methods: ranking, classification, point-factor, and market pricing; point-factor scores jobs on compensable factors (knowledge, responsibility, complexity, impact) to build a grade structure.

Compa-ratio = actual salary / midpoint of the salary range; values below 0.8 or above 1.2 typically require review.

Range spread = (maximum minus minimum) / minimum; midpoint progression between adjacent grades is commonly 10-20% depending on grade width.

Salary survey positioning uses percentiles: P50 for a market-following policy, P75 for a lead policy, P25 for a lag policy with non-cash differentiation.

Statutory social insurance and housing fund contributions are calculated on a declared contribution base bounded by local upper and lower limits that are adjusted annually.

Variable pay design ties payout to measurable formulas; sales commission plans must define quota, rate, accelerators, clawback conditions, and payment timing in writing.

Pay equity review compares pay for equal or comparable work controlling for grade, tenure, performance, and location; unexplained gaps require documented correction.

Benefits cost per employee = total benefits spend / average headcount; benefits utilization rate = employees using a benefit / employees eligible.

A written labor contract must be concluded within one month of the start of employment; failure to do so triggers double wages from the second month up to a maximum of 11 months.

Probation limits are tied to contract length (e.g., up to 1 month for contracts of 3 months to under 1 year, up to 2 months for 1 to under 3 years, up to 6 months for 3 years or more); only one probation period per employer is permitted.

Open-ended contracts arise by operation of law after two consecutive fixed-term contracts or after 10 years of continuous service, subject to the employee's request.

Notice for resignation during probation is 3 days; after probation it is 30 days in writing. Employer termination with notice requires 30 days' written notice or one month's pay in lieu.

Economic layoff affecting 20 or more employees, or 10% or more of the workforce, requires 30 days' advance explanation to the union or all staff and reporting to the labor administration.

Severance pay = years of service multiplied by one month's average wage, with at least 6 months counting as one year and less than 6 months as half a month; the wage base is capped at three times the local average monthly wage.

Collective consultation and employee representative assemblies are the formal channels for rules affecting employees; internal rules must be publicized or communicated to be enforceable.

Working-hour limits: generally 8 hours per day and 44 hours per week averaged; overtime is capped at 3 hours per day and 36 hours per month, with premium rates of 150% (workday), 200% (rest day), and 300% (statutory holiday).

Labor dispute resolution sequence: negotiation, mediation, arbitration (mandatory prerequisite), then litigation; arbitration must generally be filed within one year of the dispute arising.

Strategic HR alignment means HR practices (staffing, rewards, development) are configured to execute the business strategy; a differentiation strategy favors innovation and long-term incentives, a cost strategy favors efficiency and variable pay.

The HR scorecard links a workforce driver to an HR practice to a business outcome, e.g., competency coverage to time-to-competence to customer satisfaction.

Organizational design choices: functional, divisional, matrix, and network structures; each trades coordination cost against responsiveness and specialization.

Levers of organizational change (a McKinsey 7S style view): strategy, structure, systems, staff, skills, style, and shared values must be mutually consistent for change to hold.

A three-phase change model (unfreeze, move, refreeze) implies that change programs need a readiness step, an implementation step, and a stabilization step with new norms.

Employee engagement is measured with validated survey dimensions (e.g., advocacy, intention to stay, discretionary effort) and tracked as a trend, not a single snapshot.

HR analytics maturity stages: operational reporting, benchmarking, predictive modeling, and prescriptive decision support; most organizations should establish clean headcount and cost data first.

Culture is operationalized through observable artifacts, stated values, and underlying assumptions; interventions must change artifacts and leader behavior, not only slogans.

Workforce segmentation (core, flexible, contingent) determines which HR practices are invested in and which are standardized, and should follow from business criticality.