Pay raise and strike?

On March 1, 2011, Guangdong Province once again raised the minimum wage standard for enterprise employees. The original intention was to give full play to the guarantee role of the minimum wage and increase the income of low-income groups. However, less than a week after the salary increase, serious strikes broke out in a number of manufacturing companies one after another.

Scene 1:

Unexpected strike

The first strike was the factory in Guangdong of a US-funded enterprise founded in 1960, providing cutting-edge power supply design and production solutions to the world (below A factory for short). There are more than 800 production workers in the factory, these workers are divided into 3 levels, the new employees who just joined are level 1, and the level increases with the increase of working years. The salary for each level is clearly defined, and the higher the level, the higher the salary. After the introduction of the new minimum standard, Factory A has formulated a differentiated salary adjustment policy based on the current situation and relevant regulations:

Add 150 yuan for the first-level employees to meet the minimum wage standard; for the second-level employees, the increase 100 yuan, making their wages 20 yuan higher than the minimum; for level 3 employees, it will increase by 50 yuan, making their wages 30 yuan above the minimum.

However, on March 3, 2011, on the third day after the implementation of the salary adjustment policy, on a Thursday that was supposed to work normally, three-quarters of the employees suddenly went on strike and gathered at the factory that morning. The entrance, the lawn in the factory area and the road next to the factory.

The management of Factory A, who faced the strike for the first time, was caught off guard. The relevant personnel from the Human Resources Department they dispatched to coordinate lacked experience in mediation. Deduction of wages for the post” threatened the employees, so that the employees became more excited and shouted slogans to carry out the strike to the end.

The trigger of the strike—salary adjustment

An employee said the trigger of the strike, "They (the company) forced us to strike. Last Friday, we received an adjustment from the company. Salary notice, I am an old level 3 employee, and I only got 50 yuan more, and my apprentice also got 150 yuan! Why does the longer the working years, the less the salary increase? Isn’t our contribution much greater than theirs?

After seeing the notice last Friday, the disgruntled old employee went to the person in charge of the human resources department responsible for the design and notification of the salary adjustment plan, but he simply responded, "This is the company's decision, you guys Don't need to know why!' Such words angered the old employees. So they decided to strike an excuse for themselves.

Faced with the employee's strike, the HR director felt unbelievable: "As a manager of the company , we have always made a decision and informed employees directly in the form of notification. This time is no exception. From the manager's point of view, I don't think it is necessary to explain too much to them. We make a decision and they can implement it.

The person in charge of HR also believes that this salary adjustment is based on the employee's level and the existing salary level, and has nothing to do with the employee's qualifications (new employee or old employee). Therefore, this salary adjustment policy must be It will not change.

A week later, the labor bureau and the judicial department intervened and coordinated, breaking the deadlock between the labor and management. , the new employees remain unchanged), the strike ends.

Scene 2:

Repeat the mistakes of Company A

One day later, another foreign-owned luxury goods manufacturing factory with nearly 4,000 production employees (B Factory), repeating the scene of Company A. They adopted a similar salary increase policy as Factory A and faced the same strike as Factory A.

March 4th was the fourth day after the company raised its salary. Workers at the factory also protested in the form of a strike. Unlike Factory A, the shutdown of luxury goods will bring greater losses to the company. Therefore, this strike not only triggered the intervention of the company's human resources department and production department, but also alerted the company's top management.

At the beginning of the strike, the top management of the company quickly pulled out 3 members of the human resources department (including a manager in charge of employee relations, a manager in charge of compensation, and a clerk in charge of communication with the production department) and the internal psychology of the company. The consultants formed a coordination group to understand the reasons for the strike on the one hand, and to appease the strikers on the other, hoping that they could return to work quickly.

After interviews with some of the workers on strike, members of the coordination team found that the reason for the strike was surprisingly similar to the one at Factory A: dissatisfaction with the salary adjustment.

One striker said: "Before the new salary standard was issued, why was there no news from the company at all? I have been working here for so long, and I have not left because I was looking forward to a salary increase. It is not as many as new employees after only adding so much, why is that?”

The salary manager explained: “This salary adjustment is a result of the Human Resources Department’s comprehensive consideration of the company’s cost, employee rank, and existing employees of each rank. It is designed for the salary level. On the basis of ensuring that the salary level of all employees is not lower than the minimum salary level stipulated by the state, it must also ensure that there is a certain difference in the salary of employees at different levels, and at the same time, it cannot increase too much company manpower. Because of the cost, employees at different levels will be increased by different rates. And this is only implemented after the unanimous agreement of the company's senior management."

The employee relations manager reassured the workers: "We now know that you are on strike. We will discuss with the top management and come up with a solution. But during this process, I hope everyone can return to their positions and wait for the company's solution while working, okay?"

Due to coordination The team only unilaterally explained the company's policy of raising wages to appease the workers' emotions, but did not propose any solution to the adjustment of the wage policy, so the persuasion and appeasement did not achieve the expected effect. The attitude of the strikers is still very firm: "If the company does not adjust the salary standards and meet the requirements of the employees, it will never resume work." Negotiations were conducted with 4 representatives sent by the striking employees after the opinions of the employees.

During the negotiation process, an employee representative said excitedly: "Why have I been here for 3 years, and now I have been promoted to a senior employee, but my current salary is similar to that of the new junior employee this year? And this time Salary adjustment, low-level employees are transferred more than high-level employees, so what's the point of doing this work for an old employee like me? And it's not like this for me alone, it's like this for all old employees, then we The old employees don't have to do it, let the new employees do it!"

In response to this statement, the compensation manager further explained: "This time, the use of differentiated salary increases is not a simple one-size-fits-all approach for new employees and old employees. You The reason for this feeling may be that the current salary level of new employees is relatively low and needs to be increased more. In fact, the salary of some old employees is already higher than the minimum salary level. If they do not increase, it will not be illegal, but the company I still considered you guys, so I’ve changed you guys too, but it’s only a small increase.”

When the employee relations manager asked the workers why they didn’t report any problems to the human resources department first, the employee representative was even more indignant Said: "On the first day (after the salary adjustment), I told our boss (manager of the production department) that he would report it to the company and let us work first. We believed it at the time, but we waited for a day yesterday. No feedback has been received. Today is the fourth day and there is still no feedback. The company does not solve the problem, so why do we need to work?"

However, the human resources department claimed that it had not received any relevant information before.

As a result, the coordination team suspended the negotiation and went to the production department manager to understand the situation. The manager said: "I didn't realize the seriousness of the problem when the employees told me about the problem. They have approached me to complain before, so I can comfort them. So this time, I still comforted them and let them They went back to work first, but they didn't expect them to be so serious this time..."

Then the negotiation continued, the coordination team apologized to the employees for the manager's behavior, and hoped that they would understand and return to their workstations as soon as possible to resume production.

But the employee representatives are still unwilling to compromise, and even believe that the coordination group has no actual decision-making power to bring satisfactory results and commitments to their demands. They demanded that the company send higher-level managers to hold the conversation and promise corresponding salary adjustments based on their demands, or they would never return to work.

As the strike continues, the company's losses continue to mount. As a last resort, the company dispatched an executive who has worked in the company for nearly ten years and has a solid mass base, and asked him to represent the company: "The basic principle of salary adjustment cannot be changed, but it can be adjusted through other methods, and it is promised that within a week A solution will be given within.” At this point, the employee returned to work.

Give employees a sense of fairness

The two strikes are strikingly similar: most of the strikers are old employees, and the main reason for the strike is dissatisfaction with the salary increase, and this dissatisfaction is not an "absolute value of the salary" "Dissatisfaction, but dissatisfaction with the "relative value" of pay. Instead of giving them psychological satisfaction, the pay raise led to more sense of injustice.

The fairness theory put forward by management psychologist John Adams in the 1960s states that employees judge fairness by comparing their own input/output ratio with others. If these two ratios are not equal, employees will feel unfair. Different employees have certain differences in work proficiency, contribution size, and job responsibilities. Employees will judge whether their efforts and gains are consistent by comparing with others and their own past situations. When they find the same investment situation When the output (return) of others is too long, employees will be extremely dissatisfied. As far as the compensation system is concerned, when the compensation results do not reflect the difference in the contribution and ability of employees, employees will feel unfair. "I don't care about how much money I make, but I will never tolerate people who do the same job as me get a few more dollars a month than me." This is the mentality that has led to the recent repeated strikes.

In fact, such a sense of unfairness can be eliminated through strategies such as active and effective communication, fair and transparent decision-making, and increased corporate trust.

Communication first

Before the two strikes, employees communicated with the management through normal channels, but they did not receive timely feedback and treatment, which led to the employees resorting to extreme measures. Evidence from both academic research and practice shows that communication is especially important during organizational change and institutional adjustment.

From a psychological point of view, "process fairness" can affect the standardization and procedural management of enterprises more than "result fairness": when the distribution results are unfair, as long as the distribution process is fair, just and open, Employees do not behave negatively. If the distribution process is unfair, employees’ basic rights to know and speak cannot be satisfied, and employees’ demands are not reflected in the distribution process, and employees are prone to nitpicking on the distribution results, and even lead to dissatisfaction with the entire organization.

Therefore, it is important to increase the dialogue between managers and employees in the decision-making process. Such dialogue can effectively reduce employees' insecurity, let employees understand the challenges facing the company, and understand the company's intention and direction for change. In the process of communication, it is also necessary to ensure the right of employees to speak, which can reflect the respect for employees and greatly alleviate the negative results brought about by the change measures. In the 1980s, Jack Welch carried out a series of major changes at GE. The reason why there was no resistance from employees was because communication came first.

Managers need to win the trust of employees

The root cause of "salary raises lead to dissatisfaction, dissatisfaction lead to strikes" is that managers break the trust of employees in them.

In the above two strikes, managers did not respond to employees' grievances in a sincere, transparent and fair manner, so employees no longer believed them. but against them in extreme ways.

In organizational management, trust plays an extremely important role in promoting the cooperation between labor and management, and is an important prerequisite for the continuous development of enterprises, the growth of employees, the harvest of economic returns, and the win-win situation for both parties.

In actual business operations, managers are the representatives of the business. If a sufficient trust relationship can be established between managers and employees, even if one party makes some mistakes and damages the interests of the other party, the relationship between the two parties will not be substantively damaged, and it will not lead to large-scale resistance. Behavior. Conversely, even if a party acts in good faith, it may be misunderstood, resulting in damage to the relationship and respective interests of both parties.

An IT company in Zhongguancun encountered such a misunderstanding. They proposed a plan for employee career planning in 2006. However, due to the long-term estrangement between managers and employees, this move aimed at pursuing a win-win situation between the organization and employees has led to large-scale employee turnover. Some employees are because the manager did not fulfill the promise made to him before; some employees suspect that the company's sudden change is to "fire people", so they have the mentality of "it is better to fire yourself than to be fired"; some employees think that career planning is only Some managers want to show their own practices and will not provide any help to employees... This kind of distrust of enterprises and managers has caused a well-intentioned career planning plan to cause an "earthquake" , the company fell into disarray, resulting in significant losses.

Respect employees from the heart

The assertion that "employees are 'economic people' or 'social people'" is already an outdated management assumption. In China's labor market, there are more and more employees of the new generation. They are well educated and do not have too much financial pressure. They hope to gain more respect from others, especially managers, in their work. They are more willing to express their own ideas, and at the same time, they are more inclined to protect their rights and interests through legal means. As a result, today's employees are self-actualization seekers. Managers need to pay attention to the psychological feelings of these employees. The old "I pay you, you work for me" philosophy of the past is sure to become increasingly unworkable. In the future management process, managers need to be responsible to employees, respect employees' opinions, and maintain employees' dignity.

As a manager, when your employees put forward opinions to you, no matter whether the opinions are constructive suggestions, dissatisfaction and complaints, and whether the opinions are in line with the actual situation of the enterprise, whether it is feasible or not, you should be positive Treat with sincerity. As long as employees "give opinions", they should be respected and valued. When the behavior of employees' opinions is respected and valued, they will develop a mentality of fulfilling their mission, and their work enthusiasm will be particularly high. On the contrary, if the opinions raised by employees are not respected and do not receive any feedback, it is likely that dissatisfaction with the company and the managers will appear, which will lead to low morale, accumulated resentment, and even extreme resistance.

In addition, it is necessary to create a culture of fairness in the business. Fairness is a steel scale of the human heart, and it is quite subjective. The fairness in everyone's mind, including the methods and results of measuring fairness, may be different. Different people may put different weights on a fair scale (such as seniority, age, education, length of service, skills, performance, position, etc.). Therefore, enterprises should take the initiative to create a fair culture, and clearly explain what kind of fairness is advocated and what factors can determine a person's return. For example, managers need to help employees realize that when measuring fairness, they should measure their own investment and income reasonably. Moreover, the income is not only reflected in the material returns, but also in the training opportunities, development space, and working atmosphere provided by the company. wait for immaterial rewards. In addition, it is also necessary to continuously improve the employee participation system. Research by Thibuat and Walker et al. shows that employees' participation in the management process can not only significantly improve the sense of fairness, but also alleviate the negative effects caused by the sense of unfairness. Employee participation can also improve the relationship between superiors and subordinates and increase mutual understanding between them.

A salary adjustment for the purpose of improving the treatment of employees has brought about a strike by employees. This result is probably not expected by the managers. The root cause is that managers have an overly simplistic understanding of the organization-employee relationship, only treat employees as workers and labor payers, and do not pay enough attention to the process of employees' psychological changes. Psychological effects are not given enough attention. In the future, company managers should strengthen internal communication within the organization, strive to win employees' trust in the organization, respect employees, fundamentally improve the relationship between the organization and employees, and avoid similar incidents from happening again.

Same salary increase with different results

A manufacturing enterprise in Guangzhou has successfully raised its salary in this salary increase wave, realizing the happiness of both employees and the enterprise. The company's secret to success lies in its dual-track compensation system. On the one hand, for all production employees, their basic salary is clearly stipulated according to the position level, and gradually increases with the promotion of the position level; the allowance part will also vary according to the position level of the employee. The position level has nothing to do with the employee's working years and is generally recognized by the employee. On the other hand, the company also has clear regulations for the incentives for old employees. The long-term service award, which increases by X% of the basic salary for every full year of service, has nothing to do with the position level, but only with the working years. This dual-track salary structure not only reflects the differences in employees' abilities, but also reflects the differences in employees' working years and work experience, which can better reflect the differences in salary.