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Yang Yuanqing  (Source: Harikrishna Katragadda / Mint)
10,000 workers get generous bonus from Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing

It will come as no surprise to anyone who follows the technology world that CEOs at major corporations make a ton of money. Often their bonuses are even more than their yearly income. The CEO of Lenovo, Yang Yuanqing, recently received a fat bonus of $3 million. Rather than stuffing that big bonus away in his own bank account, Yang Yuanqing gave it away.
 
The CEO took the $3 million bonus and distributed it among 10,000 junior level employees. Among the employees to receive a piece of the pie were receptionists, production line workers, and assistants. Each of those 10,000 employees received a bonus of 2000 yuan, which works out to about $314 USD.
 
Lenovo had its best fiscal year ever, which ended in March. Lenovo saw a 73% increase in net profit compared to the previous year and Yang had previously said that it was a "record-setting year for Lenovo."
 
It's nice to see an executive giving away a huge chunk of money to the employees that had as much to do with Lenovo's successful year as any executive within the company.

Lenovo has recently launched several new products and services, including new no-contract broadband plans for its mobile computers.

Source: CNN



Comments     Threshold


Might not seem like much
By 4745454b on 7/20/2012 10:17:39 AM , Rating: 5
But I still think this is rather good. Could have kept it, blew it on a weekend, etc. But its nice to hear that the "little guy" managed to get something extra. For once. Even if this was planned and all a marketing ploy its nice to hear that some people who really work for their money got a little extra.




RE: Might not seem like much
By jabber on 7/20/2012 10:26:54 AM , Rating: 5
Yes it's not about the amount, its the gesture that's important.

The guy could have kept it but just passed it back to the lesser paid staff.

$300 is a good night out!


RE: Might not seem like much
By amanojaku on 7/20/2012 10:48:13 AM , Rating: 5
The gesture is what is truly important, but the amount is important, as well. As I understand it, 2000 yuan ($313 USD) is about a month's salary for many of those workers.


RE: Might not seem like much
By MrBlastman on 7/20/2012 11:02:35 AM , Rating: 5
I tip my hat to him. This is an excellent display of good judgement and respect to those who deserve it. He obviously knows where his success comes from and appreciates it.

Always respect the line employees. Without them, you have no foundation along with... no company.


RE: Might not seem like much
By Belard on 7/20/2012 4:46:31 PM , Rating: 3
Makes me like Lenovo more and more...

They do make good stuff. Their ThinkPads are still the best notebooks you can get.


RE: Might not seem like much
By Indigo64 on 7/20/2012 6:30:29 PM , Rating: 3
Definitely.

Ted Waitt did something similar with Gateway when I was working there - he spread his bonus at the time out to the employees working the front lines and support. At the time, and given how much I was making then, it was another week's pay on top of my regular check.

Stand up guy he was - he tried to do the right thing.


By PresidentThomasJefferson on 7/22/2012 3:06:31 PM , Rating: 2
Ya, in China, prices are about 1/3 to 1/10th that of the US so
$314 in China could buy what would cost $3,140 here in the US.


By StevoLincolnite on 7/20/2012 10:53:13 AM , Rating: 3
Notch (The creator of Minecraft) did a similar thing a few months back where he gave his dividend of around $3 million to his employee's.
The bonus part is, Mojang is a very small company of about 25 employee's so the amount is fairly large.

IF only all our bosses were so kind. :P


RE: Might not seem like much
By menting on 7/20/2012 11:30:28 AM , Rating: 4
kudos to Lenovo's CEO. That gesture will bring about a happier workplace, which has intangible benefits of more than USD $3 million most likely.

In contrast, our company cut out the hot chocolate a few years ago (never came back either), citing a 90k/yr cost with it, while the CEO kept millions in stock grants and bonuses. I mentioned to colleagues then that the CEO will make a lot of people happy by using 90k of his multi-million bonus to bring back that hot chocolate. But of course it didn't happen. Oh yeah, they took away the free boxes of tissue paper too.


Awesome gesture, wish more in US would emulate.
By Denithor on 7/20/2012 10:46:08 AM , Rating: 5
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/average-c...

According to this, US factory workers make about 17 times more per hour than Chinese equivalents. Cost of living over there is about 50% lower, so it works out to a factor of 8.5 difference.

Multiply that $300*8.5 and you get a $2550 bonus for a worker here.

Not a useless gesture at all in my mind...

Seriously wish some of our idiotically-paid execs here would get a clue about who enables them to get their bonuses and return the favor like this guy did.




RE: Awesome gesture, wish more in US would emulate.
By TSS on 7/20/2012 11:17:51 AM , Rating: 5
I have to point out something everybody else seems to be missing.

The CEO really *deserved* that bonus. A 73%+ increase in profits?! That's huge. Especially in their market. There's no way that happened without some solid business decisions at the top, most likely from this guy. And he *still* gave the bonus away.

CEO's in the west get a $3 million bonus if profits decrease by 73%. And keep it. Even sue when they don't get it. Not to say that most CEO's in china are any different, but good luck finding a story like this at all in the west.


RE: Awesome gesture, wish more in US would emulate.
By Spuke on 7/20/2012 11:33:38 AM , Rating: 2
Yep. This guy didn't give it away directly to employees but I'll let you all read it and make up your own minds.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/travel/20...


By bupkus on 7/20/2012 5:11:02 PM , Rating: 2
Old guy with old school values. I think I recall attitudes like that. He may even be embarrassed by the numbers he's had thrown at him considering he may have grandchildren with crappy jobs.


By BluntForceTrama on 7/21/2012 9:29:14 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Grinstein, 74, who plans to retire this summer, said it wouldn't be right to take money intended as an incentive for future executive performance.


Well he certainly isn't the Bain of the our current corporate culture. IE he is the bane of current corporate culture.


RE: Awesome gesture, wish more in US would emulate.
By bupkus on 7/20/2012 5:15:28 PM , Rating: 5
It must be easy living in a world where people can be categorized so easily-- commies, hippies, treehuggers, etc.


By BluntForceTrama on 7/21/2012 9:17:56 AM , Rating: 2
Remember Archie Bunker, the equal opportunity hater? A twisted version of fair and balanced?


RE: Awesome gesture, wish more in US would emulate.
By bupkus on 7/20/2012 5:06:14 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
it doesn't support the Marxist leaning anti-business media bias we have in this country.
Aren't you old enough to recall the very recent Maoist views in China??


By BluntForceTrama on 7/21/2012 9:22:11 AM , Rating: 3
Political indoctrination tends to limit vision and memory. In more extreme cases it rewrites history as well.


By bupkus on 7/20/2012 5:16:34 PM , Rating: 2
Troll much?


By PresidentThomasJefferson on 7/22/2012 3:16:40 PM , Rating: 2
ya, it has happened in Cali.. remember Kingston Memory in Irvine, CA--it's the Asian culture of 'collective group good'.. the Asian/Chinese owners of Kingston Memory gave their huge $400 million bonus when Samsung bought them to every employee at Kingston
based on their years at the company, even secretaries there after a few years,etc got like $50,000 each & workers only w/1 year there got about $16,000+ bonus while others with longer yrs got even $100,000+ bonus.. .(it was about $16,000 per year at company)


By PresidentThomasJefferson on 7/22/2012 3:09:38 PM , Rating: 2
It's the Asian culture of 'collective group good'.. Kingston here in Irvine, CA who has Asian owners/CEO also gave their multi-dollar bonuses to every employee based on their years at the company, even secretaries there after a few years,etc got like $50,000 each & workers only w/1 year there got about $16,000+ bonus


You cannot cast this in a bad light
By StuckMojo on 7/21/2012 12:04:56 AM , Rating: 2
Even if he did it solely for pr reasons...even though, once divided among all those employees it equates to a (relatively) small amount....what it likely meant to those workers is probably hard to quantify.

If he were to personally walk into each workers office and shake their hand and say their name and tell them that their execution of his plan is why it worked ( a much less measurable gesture ), it amounts to the same thing.

It's a guy at the top concretely showing that it's a team effort. Showing that he is cognizant of the fact that he could be a perfect leader and still fail if his team didn't execute.

That is immeasurable in their eyes.

On the flip side: the fact that his giant bonus works out to such a ( relatively) small amount per person shows ( at least in some way ) how that large bonus is calculated. His good desicions floated all boats a small bit higher, so he should get a good chunk of the reward.

And this is the first time I've ever been able to see that numerically.

This is of course assuming that everyone gets a raise next quarter because the whole company did better.




RE: You cannot cast this in a bad light
By StuckMojo on 7/21/2012 12:08:34 AM , Rating: 2
Im sure my comment will get lost in the shuffle. That's too bad because I really feel I made at least two good points, based on personal experience :(


By StuckMojo on 7/21/2012 12:10:51 AM , Rating: 2
Because that handshake and personal recognition would actually mean more to me than money. But of course I work I the us and don't live hand to mouth.


By macca007 on 7/21/2012 10:41:45 PM , Rating: 2
Sorry but I disagree, CEO walks in and shakes my hand and says thanks is complete bullshit,Doesn't mean anything to me.
Most companies will have the CEO every so often come down and do a presentation to the low end workers to say how good things are or how bad things are, That is their job nothing new here, If it's all good they say well done great team effort. If it's bad they say we need to pick our game up even though it usually is not the production side that lets down it's upstairs in marketing/sales or logistics!
They get their bonuses and we get a handshake? Some of us are breaking our backs literally coping with doing 2 peoples jobs at once and putting up with the stress, Get pushed to pump out more and more work. It all looks great on paper upstairs where they have no fkn clue what is happening down stairs, All they see is the work gets done so lets push some more,Yeah the work gets done at pruduction workers expense and they receive no extra benefits. Happens at a lot of places my workplace included. Handshakes don't pay the bills when you are on minimum wage. I will take the $300 thank you! $300 would give me 2 months worth of free petrol to get to work or or pay a bill.
What surprises me the most is that there are not that many workplace rampages/shootings YET,But I am sure as the greed gets worse they are bound to happen somewhere on the planet.
This CEO has done the right thing and should be applauded.
Look after your workers and they look after you and do that little bit extra and do a better job,less sick days,less workers leaving for better jobs etc etc
Old saying a happy worker is a productive worker,One way to keep them happy is more MONEEEEY! ;)


You have to respect Lenovo
By retrospooty on 7/20/2012 10:38:40 AM , Rating: 2
Not just a gesture like this, but in an age of corporate buyouts and cheap knockoffs, they actually improved the thinkpad line. When they bought it years ago, everyone expected they would make bank off the good thinkpad name in the corporate sector by cheapening it. They not only didnt cheapen the line, they improved upon it and make the best quality laptops and desktop on the market (going by failure rates). They have so few actual failures that its amazing.




RE: You have to respect Lenovo
By mevans336 on 7/20/2012 10:57:24 AM , Rating: 1
I've built my own computers since the 286 days, but after working with Lenovo products at a former job for a couple of years, I couldn't pass up a smoking deal on an i7-2600 system. I bought it well over a year ago for $1000. i7-2600, 2TB HDD, 12GB RAM, GTX460 1GB ... and it's still rock solid.


RE: You have to respect Lenovo
By retrospooty on 7/20/2012 11:42:30 AM , Rating: 2
Yup. And I bet if you sat on it for 10 years and never upgraded you would still be using it without a failure (other than maybe hard drive which could happen to any OEM)


By TakinYourPoints on 7/21/2012 3:33:31 AM , Rating: 2
Lenovos and MBPs are the only laptops I'd consider. Mid and high end Lenovos are among the best notebooks out there (their sub-$1000 laptops share a lot of the same problems others do, unfortunately). HP Elitebooks are great too but we're talking about $3000 machines here


Is my math incorrect?
By johnnycanadian on 7/20/2012 10:18:53 AM , Rating: 2
According to Google, 3M USD is 19.12M Yuan. Divided by 10000 is 1912 per employee, thus he gave away his entire bonus, not just a part of it?




RE: Is my math incorrect?
By octagonalman on 7/20/2012 10:35:20 AM , Rating: 2
My reading is that he got an extra $3 million as a bonus, separate to his 'regular' bonus, and only gave the whole of the extra part away.


Lenovo
By pwnsweet on 7/20/2012 8:42:29 PM , Rating: 4
Well that settles it.

I was deciding between a HP or a Lenovo for my next laptop purchase. The difference between the two I was l was looking at were minuscule but now I've made my decision.




It's the opposite here in the US
By pww118 on 7/20/2012 2:55:54 PM , Rating: 2
When they made money, the wall street CEOs took home >$100 mil in bonus; when they lost money, they would used taxpayers' money to fund their bonus.




KEEBORED
By ku on 7/20/2012 11:04:16 PM , Rating: 2
This kind of thing helps mitigate my disappointment in Lenovo for changing the keyboard on their ThinkPad line. xP but stuff like this is great and I'm still a fan of the Thinkpads.




Who will be next?
By Scootie on 7/21/2012 12:05:10 PM , Rating: 2
I'd like to see Apple CEO doing the same thing!




Great writing
By Dr of crap on 7/20/12, Rating: -1
RE: Great writing
By kleinma on 7/20/2012 10:21:46 AM , Rating: 5
Yeah, screw that. I would never take a free 300 bucks. What a crappy CEO.


RE: Great writing
By octagonalman on 7/20/2012 10:38:04 AM , Rating: 2
The CNY 2000 that he gave away to each person should be worth about a month's salary to the entry-level staff.


RE: Great writing
By Spuke on 7/20/2012 11:35:57 AM , Rating: 1
I got a $300 "bonus" before I was a happy MFer!


RE: Great writing
By xti on 7/20/12, Rating: 0
RE: Great writing
By Camikazi on 7/20/2012 10:42:13 AM , Rating: 1
Give me $300 then, it's not much so it wouldn't bother you at all. This isn't about the amount, it is about the action, the fact that he decided that he would give away his money to his employees.


RE: Great writing
By Belard on 7/20/2012 4:43:37 PM , Rating: 2
And in Chinese... thats about $2500+ in value.


RE: Great writing
By HOOfan 1 on 7/20/2012 11:21:15 AM , Rating: 2
He recognized that the bonus he made was earned not just by himself, but by the workers as well...good for him. Maybe other companies should take his lead and stop giving bonuses to CEOs of floundering companies and think about giving their workers more reason to stay on and invest their future in the company.

$300 is $300, not exactly chump change.


RE: Great writing
By bupkus on 7/20/2012 5:28:19 PM , Rating: 1
How sad that you were actually voted down. The WWII generation, often considered the "greatest generation" for what was accomplished in WW2 would have soundly agreed with you. They knew about working together and understood that sacrifice was needed to win against the threat of Fascism.

Of course now the current thinking in the USA is-- such thinking is leftist and ideologically perverse and against our "Founding Fathers".

Yes, welcome to the shit generation that is turning this country into shit. Me first and foremost and if you don't agree I'm going to get my minuteman musket and shoot you in your leftist left eye so you can see things my way!


RE: Great writing
By Belard on 7/20/2012 6:58:19 PM , Rating: 2
Wish you can vote after posting...

Yep... quite sad. They don't seem to understand what words mean. The USA became great by being a progressive country, to invent technology and industries. The freedom of expression, etc... things, they are dead set against and want to go back to the OLD days of cowboys and Indians, but without the Indians.


RE: Great writing
By MRjavinbur on 7/20/2012 11:18:53 PM , Rating: 2
From Every1 Who Has Been Given Much, Much Will Be Demanded & From The 1 Who Has Been Entrusted With Much, Much More Will Be Asked


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