-Why HR needs to think like marketers? “What’s in it for the employee?”

This is how Oxus China Managing Director, Mark Baldwin, simplifies the complicated concept of ‘Employer Branding’. Baldwin, a co-founder of Chinese online recruitment website and HR service provider, Zhaopin, has since side stepped out of the mass recruitment game and into the delicate field of building brands, but not for potential consumers, rather for the potential workforce.

companies in China seem to be constantly trying to improve their talent base and identify employees who have leadership potential. Why are leadership related issues such a major challenge in China?

This article will look at some of the recent research that was conducted by Universal Ideas in their 2011 Annual Training Directory in China in the hope to identify key research findings around leadership . We will also draw on further insights from executives who are faced with the challenge of developing leadership in one of the fastest growing global economies.

HR Business Partners (HRBP) need to manage or be involved in projects. Today, most business activity takes place in projects, and HRBPs need to understand that environment. But just as importantly, most HR product and service improvements take place through project work. The better you do your project work, the more you will be respected as a business partner. So, let’s talk about some good project management principles.

First, let’s consider some of the characteristics of a project. The Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide describes a project as “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service.”

Foreign language education has come a long way. While the study of foreign language broke out of the university and “went retail” with the founding of Berlitz in the 19th century, private foreign language learning then was an adult affair, training business people and tourists who planned to travel or live abroad. Also, those early foreign language schools were exclusive operations, catering to upper class Westerners who wanted to smooth their European experiences with passable French or German. Needless to say, foreign language learning today bears no resemblance to these quaint beginnings. Today, though foreign language education remains compulsory for university graduates everywhere, its private incarnation hass become big business all over the world. And nowhere is private foreign language study more ubiquitous than China.