At the end of the three-year action of state-owned enterprise reform, Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporters went to Northeast Pharmaceutical, NHI and ZTE commerce to report the results of the mixed reform of Fangda Group.  

Shenyang Tiexi, the hall on the first floor of the office building of Northeast Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd., has 3600 brand-new mobile phones "built" into a "wall".

"Every employee has a mobile phone, and now it is the first batch." Wangqingtao, a national model worker and equipment worker of Northeast Pharmaceutical 201 branch, said that this is the benefit brought by the mixed reform of enterprises.

In Shenyang, Liaoning Province, Liaoning Fangda Group,a private enterprise, participated in the mixed reform of three state-owned enterprises, including Northeast Pharmaceutical,NHI and ZTE commerce.

As an important breakthrough in the reform of state-owned enterprises, "mixed ownership" has been written into the government work report for 9 consecutive years. Under the collision of the two ownership systems, what vitality has the enterprise "changed" and what changes have taken place?

At the end of the three-year action of state-owned enterprise reform, Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporters went into three mixed reform enterprises to find out.

Northeast Pharmaceutical

Break through the shackles with equity incentive

In Shenyang, Northeast Pharmaceutical is the first enterprise to carry out mixed ownership reform at the group level. The municipal government made a great determination and seized an opportunity. " Guojianmin, chairman of Northeast Pharmaceutical, introduced the original reason for the mixed reform of the enterprise to the reporter.

In 2017, because the original plant site did not meet the safety production requirements, the vitamin C production line of Northeast Pharmaceutical was facing relocation and upgrading, and a large amount of funds needed to be raised. Shenyang took advantage of the opportunity of private placement of enterprises to determine Northeast Pharmaceutical as the pilot enterprise of mixed reform in the city.

Wangyuhan, deputy director of the SASAC of Shenyang, said frankly that the Northeast Pharmaceutical pilot project was selected, taking into account that as a listed company of a shares, the information is transparent, and disputes such as "the loss of state-owned assets caused by the mixed reform" can be avoided as far as possible.

According to him, an enterprise headquartered in Shanghai once intended to participate in the mixed reform, but its idea of positioning Northeast Pharmaceutical as a production base of API has not been recognized by Shenyang municipal government.

"The mixed reform of enterprises should coordinate the relationship between enterprise reform, industrial development and social benefits. We need to introduce strategic investors who are strong, understand management and can operate." Wangyuhan said.

In April 2018, Liaoning Fangda participated in the fixed increase project of Northeast Pharmaceutical and began to increase its shareholding in the secondary market. In June of that year, Liaoning Fangda became the largest shareholder of Northeast Pharmaceutical. Northeast Pharmaceutical, known as the "cradle of national pharmaceutical industry", has changed from local state-owned holding to private holding.

It is believed that Liaoning Fangda has stepped up its layout in the field of medicine and health, or considered hedging the industry cycle fluctuations of carbon, steel and other main businesses.

The changes brought about by the mixed reform soon emerged. The most direct feeling of the employees is that "the purse is bulging" and "enterprises have given more benefits".

At the beginning of the mixed reform, Fang Wei, chairman of the board of directors of Liaoning Fangda, proposed to increase the fixed post salary of employees by 50%.

"Our income is not high in the industry, but most people's salaries have doubled compared with those before the mixed income reform." Said Liusuna, President of Northeast Pharmaceutical Research Institute.

According to the annual report of listed companies, in 2017, the pre tax annual salary of the president of Northeast Pharmaceutical was less than 500000 yuan. By 2019, the pre tax annual salary of the company's president has exceeded one million yuan.

After the mixed reform, on the basis of the original welfare of the enterprise, Northeast Pharmaceutical added nine new benefits, such as medical expense subsidy, major festival welfare, free working meal, mobile phone and telephone subsidy, filial piety to parents, inspirational scholarship for employees' children and Fangda pension.

Before the Spring Festival in 2019, a "cash wall" of 80million yuan was piled up in the hall on the first floor of the company's office building, and each employee received a cash red envelope of 10000 yuan. Since then, "cash wall" has become the year-end reserved program of Northeast Pharmaceutical.

Compared with salary increase and welfare increase, the impact of breaking through the shackles of enterprise equity incentive is more far-reaching.

In 2011, Northeast Pharmaceutical suffered losses due to sharp fluctuations in the price of its main product VC. In order to revitalize the enterprise, Shenyang adjusted the main leaders of the enterprise. On the one hand, the new leadership raised the proportion of pharmaceutical products, on the other hand, it put forward the "three-year reform" plan to promote enterprises to face the market. In 2017, Northeast Pharmaceutical finally turned losses into profits.

However, this reform in that year made many people of Northeast Pharmaceutical realize that many practices will soon encounter a "ceiling" if there is no big action at the institutional level.

At that time, Northeast Pharmaceutical reformed the distribution system of middle-level cadres and employees, striving to "get more for more work and get less for less work", but the distribution rules of senior executives were still more traditional quota management; enterprises promote employee stock ownership, but senior executives are unable to take the lead due to policy restrictions.

In November 2018, Northeast Pharmaceutical released the restricted stock incentive plan. The incentive objects include the company's directors, senior managers, middle-level managers, core technical (business) backbones and other personnel deemed by the board of directors to have made special contributions to the company, a total of 254 people.

"If I sell my stock, I can buy a suite in Shenyang." Liusuna waved her hand and said, "but I won't sell it if I stay here all day." The R & D personnel who has worked in the enterprise for 15 years told the reporter that before the mixed reform, it was difficult for the enterprise to have a long-term layout due to capital and other factors. Now the company not only increases the R & D investment in major products, but also starts to layout new fields such as biomedicine.

In May this year, Northeast Pharmaceutical released the draft of restricted stock incentive plan for 2022, and the company granted 87million restricted shares to 549 people. The fate of more and more people is connected with the enterprise.

Journalists Observation

No "ceiling"

As early as 2012, in order to promote the equity structure adjustment and capital operation, the then controlling shareholder Northeast Pharmaceutical Group transferred non restricted state-owned shares of the company accounting for 10% of the total share capital to Liaoning Fangda. But only two years later, Liaoning Fangda sold his shares in the secondary market and cashed out.

In the interview, cadres of the SASAC of Shenyang told the reporter that the mixed reform should be truly mixed and reformed, and the competitive state-owned enterprises do not set restrictions on the proportion of equity.

When Shenyang broke through the "ceiling" of the equity ratio restriction of the mixed ownership reform, Liaoning Fangda, the "second in the palace", let Northeast Pharmaceutical give full play to the advantages of mixed ownership as the controlling shareholder. In particular, equity incentive will be implemented for key employees, and employees will be highly bound with the enterprise. Both sides will walk in the opposite direction.

NHI

"Three no deductions" plus "horse racing"

Walking into the factory area of NHI, "high-end technology" and "major equipment" are shining in the sun.

With a history of 100 years, NHI can be called "the cradle of China's heavy machinery industry". Unlike the Northeast Pharmaceutical, which turned losses into profits, which is called "beautiful women marry first", the NHI has fallen into the dilemma of bankruptcy and reorganization before the mixed reform.

In June 2018, when the Shenyang Municipal Court ruled to accept the reorganization application submitted by the creditor to NHI, the total liabilities of NHI exceeded 22billion yuan, and the asset liability ratio was as high as 286%.

No matter who takes over the difficult NHI, he must take the path of reducing costs and increasing efficiency. However, Liaoning Fangda promised to the employees of the whole plant: "no reduction of one employee, no reduction of one cent of employees' wages, no reduction of one cent of employees' welfare benefits".

The commitment to "three no reductions" has always been an important bargaining chip for Fangda group to negotiate with state-owned enterprises. But does this run counter to the three institutional reforms of state-owned enterprises that "managers can go up and down, employees can go in and out, and incomes can increase and decrease"?

Before performing his duties, Guojianmin was the chairman of NHI. He explained to the reporter: "not reducing one employee is not structural layoffs, not reducing one cent of the employee's salary is not reducing the human cost and the total salary. The 'three not reducing' is not an iron rice bowl and a big pot of rice."

After the reform, the enterprises have kept the promise of "three no reductions" and implemented the ubiquitous "horse racing" system.

Walking into the major parts machining workshop of NHI, Tonghailong, a miller, with his apprentice, stood next to a two-story seven axis five linkage CNC gantry lathe milling machine, staring at the rotating large parts while fine tuning parameters on the computer.

"The operation of this large machine tool should not be sloppy at all. If you spread a lot, the defective rate of the product will be high." Tonghailong, who was rated as a model worker of the group, said that their machine tool has won the "high-yield bed" of the branch for three consecutive months, and each team member has won a "horse racing prize" of more than 300 yuan per month.

"Both horizontal and vertical competitions are required. Both horizontal and vertical competitions are conducted by departments of the same kind, and vertical competitions are conducted by departments of higher and lower levels. In terms of the output and cost of our competitions, whether it is administrative management, production and operation, or logistics and environmental protection, each department and each employee has their own track. Performance is linked to income. If we don't work hard, we will fall behind." Tonghailong said.

Over the past three years, NHI has revised and improved nearly 400 regulations, formed a standardized system covering the whole process of production and manufacturing, the whole life cycle of products and the overall management of all employees, and realized that every post and every behavior has rules to follow.

During lunch time, the three canteens in the plant were bustling. Yangzhicheng, head of the canteen management section, led more than 130 chefs, water counters and waiters to keep busy.

Before the mixed reform, the canteen of NHI was outsourced to a third party company for management. After the mixed reform, the workers diverted from the NHI organization run canteens.

Is the worker competent as a chef? After a trial period of time, the canteen not only did not stop, but the food quality also improved a lot. In the view of employees, this is the result of the "horse racing" mechanism.

"There are no restrictions on what the canteen does and eats. At most, employees complain in private. Nothing can be changed." An employee who was waiting in line to cook said that now the workers have the right to speak and should score the food quality every month.

The "horse racing" of the canteen depends on the evaluation of employees and cost control. Yang Zhicheng, who tried every means to improve the "cost performance", said: "as a section chief, if I am the last but one for two consecutive quarters, I will be dismissed. Our deputy general manager in charge has to enter the 'Quality Improvement Center' for learning and training."

"Quality improvement center" is the standard configuration of Fangda. Once cadres at all levels make major work mistakes, violate enterprise rules, or fail to complete the assessment performance, they must assess their resignation and waiting for post according to the corresponding system, and go to the cadre quality improvement center to accept re-study for a short period of three months and a long period of six months.

"When a branch manager or a company executive who used to get hundreds of thousands of annual salary enters the center, he only gets the minimum living expenses of 2000 yuan a month. That's a big difference." An employee of NHI said.

In October, 2019, as the deputy factory director of the major components branch of NHI, Cheng Yunguo did not arrange the processing tasks of key products in time, so Cheng Yunguo entered the quality improvement center of the company.

In those days, Cheng Yunguo taught himself the company's rules and regulations, read management books and learned machinery manufacturing knowledge every day.

"After joining the work, I have never studied systematically so seriously." More than 4 months later, after the company's investigation, he took the post of Party branch secretary and deputy factory director of the major parts branch.

In 2021, NHI conducted 24 middle-level cadre adjustments. Liu Wanhua, vice president of the NHI Research Institute, said, "we can only mix reform in order to make the enterprise better. The time to turn around the losses is not waiting. If you don't meet the standards, you have to come down. Some colleagues can't adapt and choose to leave. This may be the pain that the enterprise must experience in its development."

"After the mixed reform, the assessment of the company's senior executives is fully quantified, mainly focusing on the business indicators such as corporate profits, sales revenue, ordering and payment collection." Zhang Liwei, vice minister of Human Resources Department of NHI, said.

The reporter found that the assessment indicators of the chairman of the company were divided into 12 score items and 2 veto items, and the assessment of the president of the company had 25 score items and 3 veto items.

Zhang Liwei told reporters that every year, the personnel department ranks senior executives according to quantitative indicators. Ranking is not only closely related to the income of senior executives, but also the reference basis for personnel adjustment.

It is understood that after the mixed reform of NHI, some senior executives were directly adjusted to ordinary employees in grass-roots departments because their performance was not up to standard.

On the one hand, NHI has made great efforts to grasp enterprise management. On the other hand, it relies on Liaoning Fangda to actively develop new business and increase enterprise cash flow. In 2021, the sales revenue of the enterprise will increase to 6.6 billion yuan, achieving profit and loss balance for the first time since the mixed reform.

Journalists Observation

Break soft constraint

When the interview car drove into NHI, Gao Erxin, director of the party masses office of the company, repeatedly told the driver to drive at a limited speed. The reporter asked, "can foreign vehicles be managed?" He replied: "I brought you in. Once you were photographed for speeding, I will be punished."

Before the mixed reform, the rules and regulations of NHI were not incomplete. But every time there is a problem, "every department has an excuse, and it often doesn't work out when it comes to the leaders."

An important reason for this phenomenon is that the assessment of senior executives by higher authorities is not completely linked to the enterprise benefits.

After the mixed reform, senior executives lost their original cadre status, hung "hard indicators" on their heads, and even faced the last elimination competition. As a result, various rules and regulations of the enterprise have grown "teeth" and are no longer a "soft constraint" hanging on the wall.

ZTE commerce

There is no "empty talk" in the employee Forum

ZTE Shenyang Commercial Building (Group) Co., Ltd. was established in 1987. For example, Wangfujing Department Store in Beijing, ZTE commerce is the urban memory of generations of Shenyang people.

In recent years, under the impact of new commercial complexes such as online shopping and Mixc, ZTE, a "time-honored" commercial building, is facing severe challenges.

In 2018, no one took over the offer of the heavily indebted NHI. As a result, Shenyang bundled the bankruptcy reorganization of NORINCO and the relatively small ZTE commercial restructuring.

After the mixed reform of ZTE commerce, the personnel and business remain unchanged, but the daily operation mechanism changes quietly. Employee forum is one of them.

"During the epidemic period, the city's buses and subways were suspended, but our supermarkets still insisted on operating to ensure supply. Can the building leaders consider temporarily opening the open space at the west gate of the supermarket to give temporary parking to employees who drive to work during the epidemic period but have not applied for internal parking cards?" At more than 9 am. on March 28 this year, on the employee forum of ZTE, the "hedgehog with thorns" posted comments.

At 8:30 that night, the Security Department of the company replied at the bottom of the post: "during the epidemic period, employees without internal parking cards are allowed to park temporarily for the convenience of employees."

"It took less than 12 hours to complete the process, involving multiple departments. There was no lack of communication behind this." Bai Yanni, the forum administrator of ZTE commercial company's office, introduced that this post was submitted to the company's office by her. The office was assigned to the security department according to the division of responsibilities. The latter worked out the handling opinions and sent them back to the office. Finally, after the company's leaders signed and agreed, they formally replied in the forum.

"This question and answer seems simple, but more than 1100 cadres and employees of the company, leaders and relevant functional departments of Fangda group are watching." Bai Yanni said that the forum has set up a "bridge of communication" between ordinary employees and senior management of the enterprise, and also tested the executive power of functional departments at all levels.

Setting up an employee forum is the consistent practice of Fangda. Liaoning Fangda requires its subordinate enterprises to "respond to every message" on the forum, and the reply period should be controlled within 48 hours, and urgent matters should be handled, "reasonable opinions should be rectified immediately, and unreasonable opinions should also be explained".

"As long as we don't make illegal remarks, we can roast about unfair income distribution, inadequate logistics services, and management leaks." Sun Xudong, director of ZTE commercial office, told reporters that all user accounts are registered anonymously.

According to a number of employees, such communication channels have existed in the past, but they are often "thundering with little rain", and they will be silent for a period of time.

"At the beginning, many employees complained and even ridiculed the leaders, and did not take the forum seriously. Only when they found that the company was really responding to demands and verifying problems did they realize that the forum could really play a role. Since then, there have been more reasonable suggestions on the forum." Sun Xudong said that since the mixed reform, the forum has received more than 1500 messages.

It happens that there is a similar case. Over the past three years since the mixed reform of NHI, more than 8000 posts have been posted on the employee forum.

Meng Yan, director of the company's office, said that the forum has narrowed the distance between enterprises and employees, and made employees feel respected and listened to, so they are more willing to give advice to enterprises.

"The forum is equivalent to an exposure platform. If there is any problem in any link of each branch, workshop or team, as long as it is reflected in the forum, everyone can see it from the company leaders to ordinary employees, followed by rectification and accountability. With such ubiquitous supervision, who dares to act recklessly?" Meng Yan said.

In addition to setting up a forum to "upload information from the lower level", the three mixed reform enterprises also introduced a relatively efficient, systematic and complete supervision mechanism of Liaoning Fangda to promote "the transmission of information from the upper level".

It is understood that the enterprise office has issued various work suggestions and important decisions of the company to the corresponding company leaders and undertaking departments in the form of supervision. Within 5 days, the undertaking department shall feed back the task plan through the OA system. After the plan is approved, the Department advances according to the time node, and the office is responsible for tracking to ensure that "everything is settled".

"In the past, we had to delay and wait for something to be done. Over time, it might not work out. Now, if we don't implement the results, we will never be able to cancel the number." Meng Yan said.

Journalists Observation

Activate "prime mover"

There are many enterprises with employee forums, many of which are formalistic.

As an economic organization with a high degree of integration of assets, managers and workers, the smooth information exchange within the system can maximize the power of each level and give full play to the active role of people as the most active "driving force" in the organization.

However, if the problems reflected by employees are not paid attention to for a long time, and they think about "extinguishing the fire" first in case of contradictions, the forum will inevitably become empty talk.

The employee forum of Liaoning Fangda can play a practical role in enterprise management, which is related to its anonymous registration system and strict supervision system. It reflects the enterprise's clear understanding of its own organizational goals and reverence for the market.