While the city has been experiencing a gaming downturn and economic contraction, casino operators become increasingly prudent in their hiring process and bonus payout. Meanwhile, the demand for sales and marketing professionals, especially at managerial level, is still high this year with employers willing to offer big pay rises to retain talent, says Head of Recruitment at Links Recruitment Consultants (Macau) Ltd. Las Rodrigo In the 2016 Salary Snapshot report, experienced store managers and retail area managers are still in particular demand this year. Yes, but the majority are for juniors. We’ve seen an increase for managerial level within retail actually. And the reason for this is that it requires an interesting skill set, and it is quite difficult to find that sometimes. In what respect? And what does local labour still fall short of? I think for retail a lot of the international companies here base their standards on international – so not just Hong Kong but within Europe and America as well. I think what they find over the years is that the standards in Macau probably fall short of those particular standards. So that’s where the skill gap is perceived to be lacking. And for the local population you’re referring to it’s not only the frontline staff but also the managerial people? Yes, absolutely. You mentioned a gap in terms of what the company wants the local staff to deliver. What happened to training? Why haven’t they been able to meet the standards? There’s an element of two points, from my perspective. There is a high level of turnover here, as opposed to Hong Kong and certainly as opposed to Europe. So I think anybody starting in a company – to understand the culture and really understand the training – normally takes six months. A lot of junior frontline staff probably don’t actually get to six months. So if you always have that retention problem in terms of retaining staff you’re never going to have a strong base in terms of training and development because the message kind of gets lost, and it doesn’t really get delivered in the way that it should be. Another reason may be – and I get this from candidates as well that we interview at all levels – it’s actually with the training that’s delivered and the way it’s delivered as well. When somebody is delivering a message and it’s going out company-wide, normally they get a trainer from Hong Kong or from the West. But to get that message across consistently over a certain time cannot be delivered over one day. You can’t have somebody coming from Hong Kong saying, “Right, we need to do this. It needs to be done in this way. Go away and do it.” It needs to be shown. And that consistency is probably lacking as well because there’s clearly a time element. So we find that message is also probably not as strong as it should be because they don’t have the time to deliver that, or they haven’t invested the time to deliver that. The Snapshot Report mentions a higher percentage of respondent employers saying they’re willing to offer employees a 10 per cent pay rise or a 6 to 10 per cent pay rise. Who are these employers and why are they willing to offer such a sizable pay rise? We got this information as a median average from the clients that we have worked with, a majority of whom are from retail. One of the key factors they’re willing to offer this pay rise is retention because they cannot afford to lose good people. A lot of these companies actually have good training plans in place, which definitely helps in the good progression plans for these particular individuals. It’s predominantly the manager level getting these pay rises. The report also says Macau employees, namely in the segment of marketing and retail, received large percentage increases in salaries in 2015. How big are these increases? Prior to the increase this year, they got [a pay rise of] between 6 per cent to 10 per cent plus last year. It’s not been anything huge – that might be the odd case where somebody is going to cross for 20 per cent [increase] because maybe they are headhunted, or there’s been a direct approach. As employees get more competitive, they have to try to keep people. But obviously the danger with that is that if you keep paying more then these individuals will be priced out of the market. Then you’ll have a false economy. You have a real problem. To an extent money does talk here. But I don’t believe it’s a total driving factor in Macau. If you get the element of training and development right, staff retention will become less of an issue. Nearly half of these marketing and retail employees are expecting year-on-year salary increases of 10-15 per cent this year, the report said. Is it affordable for the employers? Employees see it as an employer’s responsibility. There’s a real belief that they own that, they deserve that. Forget any downturn. The locals know this is a tough market as well. Macau is unique in its proposition. And they also know that local talent is hard to come by as well. Strong self-worth. So why not? But for these staff, the extent of pay rise that the companies can afford to give is less than 10 per cent? Yes. The ways the companies manage that: whether they stagnate, whether they look into their half-yearly reviews, whether they offer other benefits – it’s just not all about salary nowadays, there are other benefits to consider. Whether the companies are offering more holidays or early finishes sometimes. It’s just the way that these packages are presented to employees. That’s becoming more and more prevalent nowadays. The active use of sabbaticals for long service, if they want to partake in that . . . Holidays are the big thing here. Employees value time off. If it’s not going to be salary enhanced, it’s time off. Has the economic contraction alleviated the high turnover issue? Yes, because the performance [of employees] in particular is being measured and managed now. A lot of companies have been managing that very closely, especially with junior staff. A lot of junior staff think, “Well, I’ll just go across the road and get a bit more money with less stress”. But in three to six months’ time that problem might manifest itself again. That’s an issue that has to come to an end at some point. But you always have that turnover at junior level and the way to address it is engagement right from the start. So these problems are not only happening in the retail sector? No. We’ve seen it with retail but we also see it with the casino operations. And that’s probably not having to do with the training element with the casinos, it’s just because they could go from one to another – it’s purely money-driven. If you get somebody on the [gaming] floor working for one company, they can quite easily be offered 20 to 25 per cent increase to go to another. What other sectors are in need of experienced managerial personnel here? We’ve got the hotel industry – I think they struggle as a whole to attract and retain talent. Casinos, generally, as well, across the board. For retail, the junior management retail level [is in demand]. You have sales, you have supervisors, and then you have the junior [management] level – there’s a skills gap because it’s normally three to four years of experience they have in managing people. Then it’s the senior manager level where they’re managing top ten people. They need this middle strata but there’s just simply not as many people for those vacancies. For that middle strata, the local labour pool has already been exhausted? Yes; I would say that, actually. And it’s whether companies can take the risk because obviously the companies also have the responsibility to promote them. But it’s whether they feel they’re ready to be promoted from sales supervisor to junior management level. A lot of the companies that we work with are probably not ready to do that. The process for arranging ‘blue cards’ [work permit for foreign labour] has got more difficult since last year? Yes. It’s always been quite difficult to hire externally for the last number of years, actually. But blue card applications and people on the blue card were at an all-time high in the second quarter of last year. After that there was a significant decline in terms of applications and approvals, and also blue card renewals. I do know that they have reduced them for whatever reasons – people have come to the end of their contract, there’s a restructure in the company – so the reasons are more on the focus of the government to look at local talent to say who do we have that can fill these positions. Because there is an element of protection. So, I was quite surprised. I thought the blue card number was reducing. But they’re pretty strong, actually. I think to get a blue card nowadays is probably more challenging now than it was two to three years ago. You say the process for hiring foreign labour got more difficult last year. Do you believe that has to do with overall employment conditions and in particular the gaming downturn? Yes, I believe it’s linked. But I also believe that the government is looking at companies’ internal talent procedures and ensuring that they’re fully maximising opportunities in the local market, and that’s probably being scrutinised in a lot more detail. Hence, why a lot of companies now are introducing performance appraisals. I do know there are a lot of companies, a lot of casinos, appraising staff on a number of systems now to show that they’re ready for the next level. If they’re not, they can at least show the government “we’ve got this individual in place, but they’re not quite ready yet”. They can actually show what they’re doing rather than just saying that “this person is not ready yet, that’s why we’ve brought somebody else in”. So the government, I believe, is looking a lot more closely. But it’s an ongoing issue. The [gaming] downturn, with the market at the moment, probably causes additional pressure on obvious cost-cutting. Has the gaming downturn resulted in the fact that casino operators have got stricter in their employee appraisals, and link them to remuneration? Yes, I believe so. I know of a case of that happening at the moment. That’s the way the companies have to save money somewhere. But as long as the process is transparent in the way they do that, I don’t think employees can have any issues with that really. When it comes to a bonus the keyword is discretionary. That’s the word that can be interpreted in many different ways. In the past, a bonus and right to a bonus has always been seen as, okay, one full month. But when things change in times of downturn, that’s when the word ‘discretionary’ is used even more so. From what the companies say we don’t necessarily mean a bonus as in one month, but that it might be less, or might be a percentage. I think as long as the employee is being given notice of that, then they have to accept that. Of course, it causes discontent. When people are used to that, it’s like war. But if the word ‘discretionary’ is used the companies’ senior management has the right to exercise that especially in times of downturn. There’s an argument that these companies are still making a lot of money, but still they need to protect that. Even though the casino operators are opening new casino-resorts in Cotai they’ve been a lot more prudent in hiring and screening the qualifications of candidates since last year . . . Absolutely. We have certainly seen they got more stringent in interviews. There are a lot more processes. References are being proactively done. This is going to be the norm now. Another highlight from the 2016 Salary Snapshot report says demand for skilled marketing professionals at all levels is high in 2016 in all industries. Which sectors in particular? It’s a trend we’ve seen cross from Hong Kong. We’re in the digital age now and there’s a need for digital marketing managers and online marketing managers to deal with social media. We find that a lot of companies are very interested in meeting these [digital marketing] people, even speculatively, and then something normally gets created from that. So, certainly from an online perspective there’s a need across the board for these marketing professionals. In the context of Macau, are these digital marketing professionals available here? No. When it comes to search engine optimisation, you’re getting quite technical; we just haven’t seen that [local] talent coming through. It’s normally people who have worked in Hong Kong or in Europe. That’s the skill set you only get ideally by working abroad. A lot of companies look to Hong Kong because it’s not far away. And actually they are looking at returning Macanese who have worked abroad. They’re actually in high demand. Because again, even if they find a really good online digital strategist from Hong Kong they have to go through the whole working visa [procedure] again. That can take a minimum of three months. Companies don’t want to wait that long, and neither do the people. What is the range of remuneration that employers are willing to pay online marketing professionals? In terms of salary bracket it depends on experience. Somebody with four to five years of solid experience can probably command a salary of MOP65,000-plus in Macau. If you’re a junior, then you can probably command MOP35,000 to MOP40,000. But companies are looking for the experienced, and they’re paying for the experienced – and then they’re paying for retention.
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