What assessments do the "do evil" companies use?

Foxconn employees?

Summary of Post: Foxconn is an unpleasant Taiwanese company. I do not know if they do anything illigal. But they probably improperly use assessment tests… which does nothing good for anyone. Also, this post constitutes blogging about a blog about a blog. And commenting on a comment on a comment. But hey… that’s what the internet is for (and the internet is also for porn, but that does not need to be said) . I do hope to add a little something original to this discussion.

Stan Abrams at China Hearsay wrote this post about Shaun Rein’s post concerning Apple’s apparant lack of supply chain EHS (environmental health and safety) control in its largest vendor, Foxconn. Stan also brings up a China Daily post about this issue, which in Stan’s opinion, is a pro-Foxconn white-wash.

I had previously posted my thoughts on Apple’s vendor-compliance issues in China. I myself don’t think Shaun’s article is particularly interesting, but that may be because Shaun’s audience is a more general business audience. I find comments on Shaun’s article very interesting however. A lot of people rush to defend Apple and Foxconn. I can’t help but think…what would the same people think if Foxconn’s China factories were actually located in the United States… would they have the same opinion? Furthermore, the commentors don’t know anything about supply – chain control issues. But that’s nothing new.

Stan brings up today’s China Daily article about this issue, in which the paper notes that investigators of Foxconn’s factories found nothing illegal. Stan’s conclusion: “Very disappointing outcome. Yet another epic fail by a local government.” What got me interested in this whole blog-on-blog-on-non-news issue are the quotes which Stan took from China Daily (concerning the recent suicides at Foxcon):

[government investigator noted]…both the suicides and attempted suicides exposed defects in the company’s management system and philosophy, particularly where the changing demands of a new generation of workers was concerned. … Foxconn “developed a kind of quasi-military management system”, which, along with tight production schedules, emphasized assessments that were at odds with a new generation of workers who cared more about their quality of life than their parents.

First of all, I agree with China Daily. Stan is wrong. Investigators didn’t find anything illegal therefore I will assume that nothing illegal happened. After all, I am from a country which believes in the principle “innocent until proven guilty”. I would never ever think that Foxconn’s management pays the local labor union representative money so that he would take the side of management in disputes. Could not happen in China. In other news… I have some land I’m selling Southern Florida state. If anyone is interested, please leave a comment here.

iPhone girl. Just another lazy post-90s generation slacker!

There are several things I find interesting about the China Daily comment. First, it focuses on the suicides as a failure of 90s generation work ethics. I find that amazing. They young people who took their lives must have done so because they didn’t have a balance between work and play. Wow. Today’s youth are a bunch of lazy fcks!

Stan remarks about the “military” nature of Foxconn and dismissed this. In truth, many Taiwanese companies adopt a sort-of quasi military culture in their factories.¹ Factories in China are all a little militaristic, but Taiwanese companies often take it to extremes. As in…extreme 5S crap….role-calls… everyone in company uniform, etc. General Managers in Taiwanese companies always talk about increasing “the ability to implement” (执行力). Whatever that means. I’ve talked to Taiwanese managers about this. Several have told me that they adopted their corporate culture from Japanese companies. That may be true, but Japanese companies in Japan put a lot of emphasis on people development. Not so in Taiwanese companies.

The thing is, having a militaristic corporate culture is not illegal. Sure…its unpleasant. It down-right sucks. It is not “aligned” with the public face of Apple. And despite what Taiwanese GMs, or Apple apologists might say…it is NOT intrinsically Chinese. But its not illegal.

Finally, I am most curious about the assessment system mentioned in this post. They did not say “appraisal” system, or performance management systems. I have visited several Taiwanese company HR people in the last three years who were interested in purchasing psychometric assessment tests which could be used to forecast a worker’s work performance. BTW, there is no such thing.

This is a sales meeting report from a visit to a Taiwanese-company HR Manager 2 years ago:

Ralph [the HR Manager] is looking for a simple test which can identify the candidates’ EQ level, their motives at work and personality type. Moreover, he wants to use this test as a short-listing tool before the interview, a predictor of future work diligence and competence. He wants the results to be simple and, ideally, can be used to enhance the first cut decision. Ralph said he does not like the [brand name] IQ tests because he already knows who is intelligent and who is not based on what university the candidates graduated from.

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Jesse agreed to send him [brand name] IQ tests. suggested use it with two groups; one group no tests, an another group tests. Thereby they can see the difference. Ralph said he wishes to use it on existing employees in order to see if the test can be correlated with employees performance. Jesse explained that there are too many other factors to see a correlation, but if Ralph wishes to use the test in this way that is his business. Jesse will send the tests in exchange for introduction to training manager, however, he does not have hopes of doing business with this Taiwanese company.

I’m so happy I don’t have to meet this type of customer anymore.

Anyway, my point is that it is quite possible that a large, semi-militaristic high-pressure / low wage company like Foxconn may use performance management tools, as well as selection tools, in ways which would create class-action lawsuits in the United States. If I was a government investigator looking into Foxconn’s organization…or if I was an Apple supply-chain compliance manager… I would definitely check out how there performance management system effects employee compliance issues.