A shocking video of employees at a Rural Commercial Bank in Changzhi, Shanxi province, getting spanked on stage for not “exceeding themselves” has gone viral online, sparking outrage about how employers in China treat their employees and abuse their power.
The video, which caught everyone’s attention on Monday, shows a trainer publicly punishing four male and four female employees at an outsourced staff training session. Before they receive their spanking, the manager asks the eight employees why they deserve to be punished for performing poorly in the day’s activities:
“I have not exceeded myself,” one employee said.
“I am not brave enough,” another replied.
“Get your butts ready!” the manager warns. While he repeatedly strikes the employees on their butts, other trainees off stage are heard gasping in shock as they watch their coworkers jump up in pain.
After three times around, one woman tries to shield herself from the coming blow, but the man warns her to “remove your hand!”
Shanxi Rural Credit Cooperatives made a public announcement yesterday responding to the shocking video. They clarified that the video was shot at a “Breakthrough in Performance” training session held on Saturday for over 200 staff members at the Zhangze Rural Commercial Bank. The bank said that it had canceled the sessions and suspended two of its executives for failing to investigate the training program thoroughly, People’s Daily reports.
According to SCMP, the spanker in the video is a trainer from the Shanghai Hongfeng Leadership Academy named Jiang Yang. He has since issued a public apology for his behavior and explained to the Beijing Times that he was simply trying to “improve students’ way of thinking and to encourage them to be more competitive.”
Unnamed sources also told the Beijing Times that Jiang charges 100,000 yuan a day for his training sessions, which also included employees being forced to shave their heads.
Netizens on Weibo have lashed out against the bank and the training company for their shameful methods:
“The training companies are at fault. There are a bunch of training companies in the market, chanting slogans and promoting different kinds of punishments everyday,” one netizen wrote.
“This kind of training makes me think they were punished for heresy,” responded another.
“More and more employees are being brainwashed nowadays by this kind of crap,” another Weibo user agreed.
Watch the video below:
Sadly, this isn’t the worst thing that Chinese employers have done to help “motivate” their under-performing employees. Employees who have fallen short of expectations have also been made to crawl around a lake, kowtow to their bosses and kneel on the ground for 60 minutes as punishment.
By Katie Ngai
[Images via Weibo // Video via People’s Daily]