Between all the talk of European bailouts and LIBOR scandals, it is rare that a millionaire executive stands out from the rest and renews some faith in capitalism. That executive is Lenovo’s Yang Yuanqing, who recently decided to allocate his $3M performance bonus to 10,000 lower level employees in recognition of their contribution to the company’s success.
The distributed amounts average out to approximately 2,000 Yuan ($320), which is the equivalent of one month’s salary for many of the affected workers. The majority of those who received the generous gifts were line workers who are integral in putting the machines together. Lenovo, unlike many of their competitors does all of their manufacturing in-house, making their employees extremely valuable to their operations.
The $3M bonus comes as the Chinese company set record quarterly shipments and profit totals as others in the industry struggled to keep afloat. Lenovo is set to become the world’s largest PC manufacturer according to this Reuters article, overtaking HP by as soon as the end of this year.
All in all, Yang’s total earnings from March 2011-March 2012 were $14M. He had received a contractual bonus prior to the $3M he chose to disburse.
TQ commends Mr. Yuanqing for his generosity as well as his business acumen. Understanding that employees, whether factory workers or mid-managers are integral to an organization is a valuable trait that is often rare in today’s world of business. We are sure that staff will give their all to a leader who cares for their well-being while also growing the company as a whole.