In summer, the workshop temperature dropped by 7℃, but orders increased by 30% instead: A "counterintuitive" survival account of a textile boss
Summer has arrived, and the temperature in the textile workshop has reached as high as 40 degrees Celsius. How to deal with the cooling of the workshop and provide workers with a good working environment? Let's listen to the boss's approach.
"Old Zhang got heatstroke again today." " I stood at the entrance of the workshop, watching two workers carrying him towards the lounge, their work clothes on the back blackened by sweat. In July, even the air is like a red-hot iron plate, and the rumbling of machines is mingled with the intermittent coughing sounds. The thermometer on the wall pointed at 39℃, but the orders were still piled up on the table - H&M's summer T-shirts were in urgent need of delivery, and Amazon's customers were urging for the delivery date. Last year at this time, I was also doing the math: Installing central air conditioning? In a 5,000-square-meter workshop, the electricity bill can consume nearly half of the profit in a month. Issue high-temperature subsidies? With over a hundred people, each earning 300 yuan per month, that amounts to 300,000 to 400,000 yuan a year. The old Wang factory next door is doing nothing, but the workers are still working as usual. But last month when we were recruiting workers, there was an advertisement posted at the door for half a month. Only three young people showed up, but they all left after working for three days. Old Li privately told me, "Boss, nowadays young people would rather deliver takeout than go to the steamer workshop."
I was squatting in the corner of the workshop smoking. The steam from the dyeing VAT rushed over. Suddenly, I recalled the time twenty years ago when I first started the factory. It was also summer, and I would carry the rolls of cloth with the workers, bare-chouted. The beads of sweat would splash on the ground with a "sizzle" and then disappear. But now among this group of workers, half are older than me. Old Zhang is fifty-six years old, and his grandson is waiting for the tuition fees... This money has to be spent.
The first step: Save your life first, then talk about efficiency. I asked the finance department to cut off the money for buying a Mercedes-Benz and invest it all on the roof of the workshop - they couldn't afford air conditioners, so they learned the method of a chicken farm. It cost 30,000 yuan to install a negative pressure fan and a wet curtain. When the water mist rose up, there were actually people clapping in the workshop. Old Sun shouted at the top of his voice, "Boss, it's so cool here that you can hatch eggs!" At three o 'clock in the afternoon, the most toxic time, I shut down the assembly line and changed it to morning and evening shifts. The cafeteria cooks two POTS of mung bean soup every day and adds three pounds of salt. The accountant muttered that the cost was too high. I threw the bill over and said, "The money for going to the hospital due to heatstroke is enough to buy a truckload of mung beans!"
Step Two: Human hearts are harder to repair than machines. Last month when I was getting paid, I listed the high-temperature subsidy in a separate column. Xiao Liu from the packaging team took a photo of his pay slip and posted it on Moments with the title "Conscientious Factory". The next day, five applicants came for the job, saying they were specially invited after seeing a post.
The one who worries me the most is Lao Zhang. After he was discharged from the hospital, I transferred him to the warehouse to manage materials and his salary didn't decrease. His son rushed back from another place overnight, carrying two boxes of free-range eggs and pushing them to me, his hands shaking violently: "My dad said that this factory doesn't use people as firewood."
Step 3: Take a gamble on the future. I gritted my teeth and ordered an AGV material handling robot, placing it beside the setting machine. At first, the operator, Old Chen, was cursing and grumbling, saying that the machine was taking his job. Now he is sitting in the monitoring room with his legs crossed, enjoying the air conditioning. He smiles at everyone he meets, "This iron lump works better than a donkey!" The city is holding a green factory selection. I asked the workers to plant ivy all over the base of the wall. People from the Environmental Protection Bureau came to take pictures and said that the photovoltaic panels on our roof could cover 20% of the electricity consumption. Unexpectedly, during H&M's factory inspection next week, I saw that the cooling system in the workshop was directly given a plus point, and the order volume increased by 30%.
Tonight, while having a drink with a client, he patted me on the shoulder and said, "Brother, it's hard to recruit workers now, but your factory is getting more and more prosperous?" I took a sip of tea and didn't tell him the truth - the electricity bill dropped by 15% last month and the number of work-related injury insurance claims was zero. The thermometer in the workshop was stuck at 32℃, and the workers' laughter was louder than that of the machines. This is probably the most paradoxical aspect of doing business:
When you put "people" in front of the report, money follows instead.