Chinese company has staff collect $9 million in bonuses from 6.5-foot-tall mountain of cash
By Ines Shin
A Chinese crane manufacturing company distributed 61 million yuan (approximately $9 million) in bonuses to employees from a mountain of cash at its annual party.
On Jan. 17, Henan Mine posted videos of its employees walking onto a stage to collect their year-end bonuses from a 6.5-foot-tall mountain of cash and walking off with their arms full of banknotes.
An unnamed manager from Henan Mine’s public relations department told Jiemian News that three of the top-performing sales managers from the company were awarded 5 million yuan (approximately $740,000) each.
More than 30 other employees were presented with at least 1 million yuan (approximately $150,000).
“We held a sales year-end meeting on the night of January 17, giving 61 million yuan in total to 40 sales managers,” the manager said.
“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.”
In the viral videos, men wearing black suits and red scarves can be seen walking off stage with their arms full of bricks of cash.
The top cash awards were too heavy to be lifted alone and had to be carried on trays by multiple people.
The banknotes were reportedly secured into bricks of 100,000 yuan (approximately $15,000).
According to the company’s publicity manager, surnamed Feng, the company also held a money-counting contest the next day.
Employees were allowed to take any amount of cash from a table covered in 100-yuan (approximately $15) notes as long as they could give an accurate count of the money within 15 minutes. The company spent 12 million yuan on this competition alone, with one employee collecting 157,000 yuan (approximately $23,000) from the table.
“They are all doing sales and the longest-serving employees have been working at the company for about seven years,” Feng told The Paper. “They are mostly in their 40s and had great work performance in the past year.”
The company also gave ang baos — red envelopes — containing 3,000 yuan (approximately $440) to more than 5,000 employees as the party was held a few days before Chinese New Year.
In previous years, Henan Mine awarded employees with cars and medals of pure gold.
On the first workday after the Chinese New Year, many people called to submit their resumes to the company, reported Feng. He added that he received more than 200 calls and online inquiries in two days.
According to the Henan Mine website, the company has more than 4,500 employees and 428 sales and service agencies on a national scale. Despite the slowdown in China’s economy during the pandemic, the average salary of company staff has reportedly increased by 30% each year.
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