Be willing to pay for your employees to be rewarded

As the saying goes: "If you are willing to give up, you will have to give up." Xiao Gang, general manager of Blue Star Technology Co., Ltd., has a deep understanding of this. In 2000, seeing the opportunity of upgrading the surveillance market from analog video recorders to hard disk video recorders, he joined 10 partners to raise 10 million yuan to set up this company, and began to develop products and introduce them to the market.

There were many companies entering the industry at the time, most of them small. Some relatives were asked to help, and some employees were recruited with low wages, and everyone worked in a simple workplace. This was a common situation in this type of company at that time. However, Xiao Gang took a completely different path. "From the very beginning, I made up my mind to rely on the strength of my employees." They work in high-end office buildings and pay high salaries to hire employees. A few years have passed, and those companies that did everything possible to reduce costs on employees and office spaces have almost disappeared, but Blue Star has grown rapidly with an annual performance growth rate of 100% to 120%. 6 series and more than 30 types of products have been widely used in many industries and fields such as finance, transportation, buildings, communities, venues, etc., especially in high-end markets such as the financial industry. Annual sales have exceeded 300 million yuan.

Summarizing the past experience, Xiao Gang said, still have to be willing, not only willing to invest in employees, but also willing to spend time communicating with them, encouraging them, and making them feel that the success of the company is inseparable from their own efforts .

Want to invest in the working environment

We found an interesting phenomenon: the desks of employees here are significantly larger than the average desk. Why is this?

It is true, and many people who come to our company will notice it. Some people even said: Your employees' desks are too big, a waste of space. I've been to a lot of companies and I've seen that they are generally "saving" in this regard, including some large companies, where they have a large open area outside, but the space for employees to work inside is actually very small.

But I don't think it's a waste, it's worth it. Why? Employees come to work here 8 hours a day. At least you should give them a comfortable office environment. A larger desk can not only meet the needs of the office, but also make the employees feel that they have a spacious office space and make them feel better. Work.

A larger desk is actually just one aspect of how we provide a good working environment for our employees. When an employee comes to work in the company, how can he have full enthusiasm for work, and can take root in the company and make stable and long-term contributions? This is a question that every company's management should think hard about. After much deliberation, we have to meet three conditions:

First, employees do the work they like; second, employees have a good working environment and atmosphere; third, employees are satisfied with their income .

Why is it so important to give employees a good working environment and atmosphere? The reason is very simple. If this one is not met, really good people will not be willing to come. Even if they come, they will leave quickly. The industry we are engaged in is an emerging industry, and research and development is very critical. So do you think that a high-quality person will ride a bicycle every day to go to a remote place without a subway, and the environment is very poor to go to work? Does working in such an environment give the company a sense of pride and belonging? So from the very beginning of the company, our office space is always in a very stylish office building, and the office is also very well decorated. We are also equipped with LCD TVs, special wardrobes, refrigerators and microwave ovens. We also regularly buy drinks such as cola, coffee, and tea. Every month we buy cakes for employees who have birthdays. Every Friday afternoon, the company organizes employees to exercise. , we also organized the company's own football team. All this is to create a comfortable and relaxed working atmosphere.

I heard that the move to the current office building was a vote of the staff?

Because of our rapid business development last year, the original office space was not enough, so the company decided to rent a new office space. Originally, there were two choices. In fact, I still prefer the other place, not because it is cheap, but because the whole first floor is a large room, which is very transparent. I prefer that style. But the workplace is closely related to each employee, and it is something they care about very much, so we decided to let everyone vote to decide. Beforehand, we also used a car to pull a lot of employees to look on both sides to have a comparison.

When the result was voted, everyone was more inclined to stay in the current office, because the transportation here is very convenient, and it is closer to the homes of most employees. In fact, in terms of cost, the cost of decoration here is higher, but since everyone likes it here, we are very happy to listen to everyone's opinions.

You just talked about making employees happy with their income. How do you do that?

A few days ago, we saw a third-party industry salary level report. The salary of our R&D personnel is 15% to 20% higher than that of the IT industry on average. If we look at the monitoring industry, it is even higher. The average is nearly 100% higher. 50%.

Never avoid the issue of employees' income and work atmosphere. I pay them high wages because they do a great job, and I think it's worth it. We have a lot of employees who were underpaid when they first joined the company and are now earning a lot more. For example, there was an employee who came shortly after the company was founded. His education was only technical secondary school. At the beginning, his salary was only more than 2,000 yuan per month. Later, I found that he was talented in programming, but he was just a little irritable. The director of a project, his level has risen quickly, and now his salary has reached more than 12,000 yuan. We have cultivated a large number of such people, and most of these young people have bought houses.

Have you encountered any difficulties in the development of the company? Would you still invest so much in your employees at a time like this?

The development of the company has been relatively smooth in recent years, but there are times when it encounters pressure. For example, we launched the networking project last year. This is a large project with a long construction period and some pressure on the company's cash flow. We have also discussed how to cut costs, but in the end we all agreed: not to reduce the investment in employees, but to find solutions in other areas, such as strengthening the management of office supplies, canceling management parking spaces, etc.

Wanting to spend time communicating

Wanting to invest in the office environment and paying high salaries for employees can be seen as a real "hard" investment, so should you be willing to invest in the "soft" aspect?

A company's management should be willing to spend time communicating with employees. Blue Star is a fast-growing company, and new employees are constantly joining. The number of employees has grown from a dozen people at the beginning to 230 people now. How to make these twists together and move forward? In addition to being willing to invest in employees, be willing to spend time on them. I always emphasize communication and communication with management now, which is too important for us.

And communication starts with me. The door of my office is always open, any employee can come in and talk to me, and the employees are not afraid of me. I have a very good way of communicating with employees, which is to play football with them. Our company organizes its own football team and often plays against other companies. Although I am much older than the team members, I am very happy to play with them. This football team not only attracted a large number of people to play football, but also attracted a large number of employees to come and cheer, adding a lot of color to the business life of employees. Every time I finish playing football, I have dinner with everyone. You talk to me at the dinner table, everyone will talk about a lot of topics, and I will also get a lot of information from it. I attach great importance to the opinions of the big guys, what are you thinking? What are you most concerned about right now? How are you feeling now? Much information is learned in such informal settings.

Are managers in the company willing to spend time communicating with their subordinates like you do?

First of all set an example by example, and secondly, it must be guaranteed by the system. Our human resources department has requirements for each manager, specifying how much time they should spend on face-to-face communication with how many subordinates each month. It turns out that such communication is really necessary.

For example, there was an employee who expected to be an architecture engineer when he first came in, but what the company needed most at that time was development personnel. We hoped that he would work in the development department for a while and then turn over. The time promised to him at that time It was half a year, but it turned out that the project was overtime. More than half a year passed. Seeing that the employee hadn’t transferred it to him, he had an opinion in his heart. He thought that the company thought he was not suitable to be an architecture engineer and decided to leave.

Later, his supervisor understood this when he communicated with him, and reflected it to the supervisor. The crux of the problem was found, and the solution was there. The management explained to him why he had not given it to him. Switch to architecture, tell him that the company needs him, and will let him do the work he likes in the future, and ask him to stay. Then he happily stayed.

I also spoke to this employee once, and managers often asked me to be a "lobbyer." However, I think it's worth it if you can keep a person after a talk.

We also use our internal network to communicate with employees, which has a "suggestion folder" where every employee can comment. For example, at the beginning of the company's establishment, there was no complete performance appraisal system. Since 2005, we have piloted a complete performance appraisal system. Employees are more concerned about this issue and have expressed many opinions on the intranet. On the one hand, we answered questions, on the other hand, we made adjustments based on these opinions after 9 months. At the beginning of this year, we made some adjustments based on the specific situation of the development department. After these communications and adjustments, the system has become more and more reasonable, and has been generally accepted by employees.

I always feel that communication, as long as you spend your time and energy, can always achieve good results. For example, we have a lot of R&D personnel, who are easily immersed in the technical world, but are less able to communicate. In order to strengthen internal communication and collaboration, we decided to take them on outreach activities. At first, they were asked to sign up, but very few took the initiative to sign up. I was quite disappointed. Later, the managers split up to persuade them, but many people went. The results were very good, and everyone thought it was very interesting. Later, for the second time, everyone signed up very enthusiastically, and almost all of them went.

Wearing to encourage and praise

What else is important in investing in "softness"?

I once named the names of two technical service personnel at the company's annual meeting. I said that without you, the company would not have developed today. It is your continuous efforts that have earned the company a reputation. The two of them are only small technical service personnel, and the technical service department employees are also relatively low-ranking, but they do make a great contribution to the company's brand and reputation. So I took an opportunity to call out their names at the company's conference, so that they felt that the development of the company had a lot to do with them, and their hard work was recognized.

At the 2006 annual meeting, I named another employee. This employee is a new employee from the Network Department. He spent more than 40 days in Xinjiang to help customers debug equipment. He came back to rest for a few days, but he kept going until he had done his job well. I specifically mentioned at the annual meeting that I would like to thank him on behalf of the company.

Employees have made efforts and made achievements. They should be willing to encourage and praise, let them know that their work is closely related to the development of the whole company, and let them realize the value of their hard work.

I often say to managers: As a leader, you must be able to "paint the cake", you must always encourage your subordinates, let them move forward and develop to a higher place, and tell them that they have this ability. Gradually it becomes real. I used to chat with the staff in the technical service department. They are very young, have low positions, and work very hard. I just told them: You can do management in the future, you can do sales in the future, etc. These employees feel very encouraged, and they have really developed a lot later.

So firstly, we should encourage everyone and make them feel that they will have great development in this company. Second, when they make achievements, we should praise them, tell them that they have helped the company, and let them I feel that the development of the company is inseparable from my own efforts. This sense of achievement and pride will make them love their work even more, which actually goes back to the first of the three conditions for employees to make long-term and stable contributions: employees love their work.

The author writes and edits for CEConline Magazine.