We’ve heard of companies rewarding employees with massive bonuses, but giving out the money in cold, hard cash?
In China, employees recently took turns to go on stage and collect their year-end bonus from a two-metre-tall ‘mountain’ containing 61 million yuan (S$11.8 million) worth of banknotes.
This was the scene of a viral video posted on Jan 17, which has been circulating around Chinese social media.
According to South China Morning Post, 40 employees from a crane manufacturing company in Henan were handed a minimum of one million yuan each in cash at the company’s annual party.
As for the three top-performing sales managers? Each of them walked away with a whopping five million yuan.
“They are all doing sales and the longest-serving employees have been working at the company for about seven years,” Feng, a spokesperson from the firm’s public relations department, told The Paper.
“They are mostly in their 40s and had great work performance in the past year”.
When asked how many cranes one has to sell to get that hefty bonus, he said that it all depends on the specifications of each crane, explaining that advanced models will be more expensive.
“Nonetheless, the three top performers brought in more than a few hundred million yuan, and one of them brought in sales worth over three hundred million yuan,” he explained.
In the viral video, staff were also seen walking away with stacks of 100-yuan notes after taking part in a money-counting contest at the party.
The one with the deftest fingers took home 157,000 yuan, and the firm reportedly spent 12 million yuan was spent on this competition alone.
As the party was held before Chinese New Year, the company also gave all employees red packets averaging at 3000 yuan per individual.
According to The Paper, Henan Mine has used cars and pure gold medals to reward employees in previous years.
Publicity stunt?
In the video, employees were seen walking down from the stage with armfuls of cash, with one even dropping a stack of banknotes on the floor because his hands were full.
For the top prize, the cash was placed on a tray with a red cloth on it. It was so heavy that several people reportedly had to help carry the money.
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The flashy party caught the attention of netizens, many of whom were envious of the employees and cheekily asked if the firm was hiring.
Feng confirmed that the company received many resumes on the first working day after Chinese New Year, with more than 20 individuals filing registration forms on the spot.
Other netizens were less enthusiastic, dismissing the event as a publicity stunt.
“Isn’t this too much?” one asked.
“I can’t understand this. They bothered to get all the cash from the bank and give them out, but the recipients need to bring the money back to the bank to deposit it. I don’t like such a corporate culture,” another wrote.
According to Henan Mine’s official website, the firm, which was founded in 2002, has more than 5,100 employees and recorded 9.16 billion yuan in sales revenue in 2022, a 23 per cent increase from the previous year.
Despite China’s economic slowdown and strict Covid policies during the pandemic, the company has not retrenched anyone in the past three years. The average salary of each staff member has instead grown by 30 per cent annually.
ALSO READ: $1,750 salary but $87,000 bonus: Taiwanese company gives employees up to 52 months in bonuses
wongdaoen@asiaone.com
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