Usually, when people at companies don’t perform up to the company’s expectations, they have a word with their managers. In protracted cases of under-performance, they’re made to undergo a performance improvement plan. Worst case, they’re fired.
However, a bank in China has its way of dealing with its underperforming employees.
A recent video that’s been doing the rounds in China shows employees of the Changzhi Rural Commercial Bank being publicly spanked on stage by a trainer. The employees totalling 7 in number can be seen cowering on the stage, dreading what’s coming, as the baton-wielding trainer goes from employee to employee, hitting their bottoms with the baton.
“Why you ranked the lowest today?”, the trainer is caught on tape asking, and the employees waited in a row to answer, “Because I have not exceeded myself”. Then the trainer spanked them from behind. One employee could be seen apparently in unbearable pain that she jumped out of the row.
Soon enough, the video went viral, and the bank in question is under investigation.
The bank said it has stopped the training session, asked the Leadership Academy and its trainer to openly apologize, and suspended several managing personnels from the branch. Economic compensation is in discussion for the spanked employees, said the announcement.
Another company in China had made news when it hired female “cheerleaders“ to help improve the morale at an all male engineer intensive company. While another Chinese company offered a porn star for a night as bonus to its well performing employees.
It does look like Chinese companies have found some interesting, if questionable, way of dealing with office and HR issues.