Who will save the grassroots employees of operators who are almost unable to bear it?

The article "Come and see: Which of the three major operators has the highest employee salary" published on China Communications Network hurt the soft hearts of many employees. In the comments section under the article, various average statements accounted for the majority. As people with grassroots front-line work experience, we are very familiar with the real situation of the front line and deeply understand the feelings of the grassroots. In fact, many leaders are also aware of the situation at the grassroots and the front line. Now everyone's common question is - who will save the grassroots employees who are about to collapse.

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1. Frequent changes in leadership and constantly updated indicators

Unlike the saying "the army is always changing, but the staff is always changing", within the operators, the situation is "the staff is always changing, but the leaders are always changing". From county companies to municipal companies, from municipal companies to provincial companies, and from provincial companies to group companies, most of the operators have clearly defined a three-year term of office, but there is a common problem of replacing people within three years.

Why is it that transfer within one term becomes a prominent problem? The reason is actually very simple. In order to show their superior ability or to thank their superiors for promoting them, the new leaders will naturally work hard to "achieve targets", whether it is real development or relying on various tricks to participate. Because "achieving targets" can lead to a better or higher position.

In fact, the phrase "achieving targets" often used by employees explains everything. "Achieving targets" has long become a normal task for everyone at the end of each month and quarter. There are two unwritten sayings circulating within the operator: "As long as you can't catch it, it doesn't count as fraud" and "If you are caught faking, it means your ability to fake is too poor."

Some smart leaders of cities, provinces and municipalities have invented the practice of monthly audits of operating indicators in order to stop their subordinates from cheating. They have carried out monthly audits of operating indicators with great fanfare, and have deducted performance penalties from units found to have cheated. This "killing the chicken to scare the monkey" not only shows their own hard work, but also explains the requirements of their superiors for pragmatic development.

In fact, monthly and quarterly audits of operating indicators are simply unrealistic. After all, the performance appraisals within operators have been detailed to the monthly level. Some municipal companies even use weekly appraisals, and even more so use daily appraisals. People audit their own people. There was once a municipal company that audited its own county company. In fact, everyone knows that the county company's poor indicators lead to poor indicators for the municipal company, and the provincial company's assessment of the poor indicators of the municipal company will eventually affect everyone. After all, without indicators, there will be no performance-based salary.

In addition, the three major operators generally implement the practice of leaders serving in different places in county companies. This situation of outsiders doing local affairs is no longer suitable for the actual situation of operators. Especially for county companies where leaders frequently change positions, they face the problem of transfer just after they have become familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of employees and local political and business relations. The new leaders are faced with the process and problems of getting familiar with themselves again. This also invisibly increases the cost of enterprises.

At the county level, whether it is the development of government and enterprise information technology business, or the construction and maintenance of base stations, it is still a society of acquaintances. Especially now that personnel power, financial power, and procurement power have been collected by municipal or provincial companies, county companies have no other power except execution. The problem of local small officials with huge corruption that was easy to occur in the past is no longer a problem. In this case, the inter-regional exchange of county company leaders should be gradually cancelled.

2. There is nothing more to say than to visit.

At the district and county level, especially in economically underdeveloped areas, user development and maintenance still mainly rely on offline agents (in fact, in economically developed areas, operators' online channels are not much better). Visiting and supporting physical channel agents has long been the most important task of the marketing area.

Giving out number cards, promotional materials, marketing materials, and explaining marketing policies are the basic duties of channel managers or district managers. In the past, when policies were relatively relaxed, channel personnel at all levels could brag to agents and help them with some marketing materials. Now that operators are going to completely cancel agent remuneration, employees in charge of physical channels can only persuade agents to work for operators verbally.

All three operators are facing the pressure of canceling agent remuneration at the end of 2021. In this limited two-year period, how should the employees at the grassroots level face the indicators that are placed on them? Especially in the current transition period when the scale of agent remuneration is constantly being reduced and business indicators have not yet been adjusted.

A reader who works for an operator in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou reported that the performance bonus for employees in his marketing unit has dropped to around 1,600 yuan, and the actual income just exceeds the local minimum wage requirement. Speaking of his frustration, the reader said, "You are asking us to develop without any real reason."

The communications industry has long been an industry with overcapacity. If it weren't for the strong intervention of the regulators in mid-2019, we would have seen negative growth in the communications industry's revenue for the whole year. In the process of overcapacity in the industry, peak user development, new technology upgrades, and online and offline integration, the operators' past development model has become outdated.

Forcing employees to work in the old way has become less and less efficient. The various organizational structure adjustments and personnel job competitions launched by operators from time to time have basically failed. The reason is very simple, that is, they have not fundamentally touched the original profit distribution pattern. All kinds of small fights have no practical effect except packaging for superiors and the media.

A large provincial company in the north has carried out several reforms on district and county marketing units since 2012. It has undergone various name changes such as marketing grid, township marketing department, township marketing area, and small chemical contracting area. Judging from the results of the reform, the soup is still soup, and the water is still water. Except for the name change and personnel flow, everything else remains the same.

One of the very important reasons why the reform at the grassroots level has not been successful is that the average labor cost allocated to the grassroots level has not increased accordingly. What's even more bizarre is that the provincial companies set the salaries of county company leaders as an annual salary system or separately defined the salary scale for leaders, which fundamentally ensures that the county company leaders will have a stable income regardless of the weather.

Many grassroots employees have encountered their leaders waving their hands and asking them to visit channels and government and enterprise customers. Apart from receiving the instructions from the leaders, there is no other resource support. Whether they can do well or not depends on whether they can get lucky enough to have a strong agent in their area.

3. Extremely low basic salary and extremely high performance bonus

The implementation of the mandatory provisions of the Labor Contract Law has helped many contract workers successfully become regular employees. The Labor Contract Law has also made operators more savvy. Operators set the basic salary ratio of employees at all levels relatively low, and set the variable performance salary ratio relatively high, in order to better evaluate everyone.

Most people want to get high salaries when they work. In fact, it is precisely because of this mentality of most people that companies, including operators, have intensified their use of various assessments to force people to cheat automatically. Even if there are employees who are unwilling to cheat, they will become smarter when their monthly salary income is affected.

It is absolutely necessary to have appropriate assessments to urge everyone to work actively and proactively, and it is a normal requirement for enterprises not to keep people who are lazy. However, the ultra-low basic salary model currently widely implemented within operators has become a catalyst for the industry to dig its own grave.

Following the pace of the Internet industry, operators also talk about reform every day, at every level, and at every meeting. But what is the reform and what is the goal of the reform? We believe that the operators themselves are not clear. Reform for the sake of reform and the shadow of promoting personnel in the name of reform still occur from time to time.

4. Criticism that goes unheard, solidarity that sees but does not speak out

Many leaders have grassroots work experience and most of them understand the situation on the front line. As the most important bridge between grassroots employees and superiors, the heads of grassroots units will basically not reflect the real situation of the grassroots. In many cases, even if you reflect it, your superiors will not solve it for you. This will not only make you feel bored, but also be regarded as incompetent by your superiors.

Many leaders will say on various occasions that they like to hear the voices of grassroots support. As a leader, it is actually very encouraging to have such voices supporting the grassroots. The problem now is that the thunder is loud but the rain is small. The needs of the grassroots are not on the same channel as the leadership's decision-making.

Some readers reported that in some county branches, if a user in their area switched to a competitor, the employees in that area would have to find a user from the competitor and transfer them to their own network. If they couldn't get a user from another network to switch, they would have to buy a number from another network and transfer it to their own network. Everyone knew the pros and cons, but no one dared to stand up and oppose it.

The reason why employee-related issues can be quickly implemented is that employees have no real say. Even if there is a workers' congress, all proposals are passed unanimously. This is because few people really stand up to deny the policies made by the top management that have not yet happened to them.

The policy of "cadres being able to move up and down" cannot be implemented within the operator. Everyone knows the problem. Because no one is willing to be ruthless to themselves. People who make policies have the possibility of being "demoted". Even if they don't consider their colleagues, they have to consider themselves in case of an emergency. Even if ordinary employees are allowed to participate in policy making, how much of a driving force can they play?

Behind the appearance of declining performance of operators, there are actually many hidden concerns, and this article lists one of them. The practice that operators once pursued to solve problems in development with development, even if it still works now, is difficult to solve the increasing number of problems that have accumulated over time. If they cannot help grassroots employees solve the practical problems they face, how can operators improve their ability to serve the people, and what strength can they rely on to go abroad and earn money from users in other countries?

We sincerely hope that “making employees’ work more dignified and valuable, and constantly improving their sense of belonging, gain, and accomplishment” can be widely emulated within operators and promoted to become a real reality.