No wonder then, the experts say, that a salary system in line with national or international standards goes a long way in retaining good employees. Liao Yiwen, an expert with the Chinese branch of Watson Wyatt, says human resources managers should consider the competitive market salary before evaluating their employees.

It's important that human resources managers know that they should not reward people with a certain proportion of their basic salary because such a practice could be frustrating for many employees, says the expert with one of the world's leading human capital consultant firm. "In such a system, excellent employees don't always get what they deserve. Instead, senior employees end up getting more than excellent youngsters."

Although it's very important for all employees to know their companies' salary mechanisms, 30 percent of the respondents said they had no idea about them. And even though 40 percent did, they said too much personal feeling was involved in their implementation.

Surprisingly, a clear salary system doesn't necessarily mean employees will ask for an increment, simply because most Chinese are introverts by nature. The survey shows 51.3 percent of the respondents never ask their bosses for an increment. The fear of being rejected stops 42.7 percent of them from doing so, even though they are unhappy with their pay.

More than 26 percent of the respondents don't seek a raise because they think they have over-evaluated their individual contribution to the company, and 22 percent prefer to wait for the bosses' reaction to their colleagues' requests before deciding what to do. Almost one in every ten (9.5 percent) employees is afraid that a request could make his boss think he wants to switch jobs, for because that could create trouble for him in future.

Yi Cheng, an expert with Bailing Consultancy, a Beijing-based human resources consultancy company, says the doubts and hesitation exist because the country still doesn't have a mature salary market. China began its shift from a planned to a market economy in the 1980s. Under the planned economy, workers in a unit generally used to get the same pay, or were paid according to the number of years of service. So many employers and employees are still not used to evaluating people's performances periodically and rewarding them accordingly.

"This is also the reason why many Chinese companies still don't have a clear salary and reward system," Yi says. "It's different from the practice in developed countries, where seeking an increment is natural. A person can get a raise every time he changes a position or gets a new or added assignment."

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