Chapter 261: Training
Chapter 261: Training
There are more than fifty store managers, plus some people from the headquarters, plus the training staff, a total of more than sixty people. At present, the company does not have such a large venue, so the training venue is set at the noodle restaurant next to the long-distance bus station.
The noodle restaurant closed for the winter holiday on the day Feng Yiping went on holiday. Before the holiday, as usual, it was thoroughly cleaned. This time, the cleaning was particularly thorough. Feng Yuxuan personally supervised the cleaning, and no greasy spots could be found on the tables or floors.
Zhou Xinyu personally accompanied Feng Yiping to the noodle shop to see for himself. 'What do you think? Is it OK?'
The restaurant, which was over 100 square metres, had tables arranged in six rows. In front was a podium and a mobile blackboard, and a banner was hanging above. 'You don't need banners for meetings in the future.'
Zhou Xinyu was taken aback. This was the situation in the domestic market. No matter whether it was the central government or a local government, for any meeting or event, there would always be a banner hanging above to make the purpose clear. It wouldn't feel like a meeting if there wasn't one.
But Feng Yiping really didn't think it was necessary. 'We're all on the same team, and everyone knows what we're doing. Isn't it a waste of money to hang these banners when they're unnecessary?'
Well, he was partly thinking about the cost.
The side of the building that faces the bus station has a long row of windows that let in a lot of light, but they also offer a good view of the pedestrian and vehicle traffic downstairs. During training, this can be distracting, so thick curtains were specially installed. When drawn, they provide good sound and light insulation.
Feng Yiping checked the room out and found that everything had been thought of. The dining room had been successfully transformed into a classroom.
Standing by the window, Feng Yiping looked out at the bustling crowds and traffic at the long-distance bus station. Knowing how hard it is to get home during the Spring Festival travel rush, he asked, 'Have you rented a bus yet?'
At the end of the year, people working away from home are concerned about when their company will have a holiday, as well as how to get back.
The roads are not easy to travel on during the New Year, especially after the Spring Festival travel rush begins. Not only is it difficult to get from a foreign place back to the province, but bus tickets from the provincial capital to the county are also in short supply. Often, you arrive at the bus station today, but can only get tickets for the next day.
In the first two years after he started working, he, Xiao Zhijie and Wang Changning had suffered the same hardship. After overcoming countless difficulties and exerting all their strength, they finally returned to the provincial capital, but then they couldn't buy tickets to go back to the county that day, and they had to spend money on staying in the province for one night.
'A travel company has signed a contract with us. We have rented five 40-seat buses. On the 28th, after picking everyone up, we will drive directly to the county. On the fifth day of the first lunar month, we will pick them up again.' Gao Zhiyi is in charge of this matter.
'That's good, we can make this a regular event or a benefit. In the future, at the end of each year, the company will take the lead in organising it, so that our employees no longer have to worry about tickets home.'
'This is a good idea, no problem!' Gao Zhiyi expressed his serious approval. Zhou Xinyu, who was born in Shanghai and grew up there, and Li Jia, who later worked in Shanghai, have no experience of how difficult the roads can be during the Spring Festival travel rush.
When they went home for the Chinese New Year in the past, it was fine. The winter vacation started early and the roads were not too crowded. But after the Chinese New Year, when they reported to school, they could not avoid the rush back to the city, and it was really a journey that made people feel overwhelmed just thinking about it.
Young people who have just started working are still quite enthusiastic about things like meetings. Especially since this was not a general meeting, but a meeting of the company's elites, they felt a little proud when they received the notification.
So although the training was scheduled to start at 7:30 pm, the trainees began arriving one after the other from around 6 pm, including Hu Junting, who had already lost the green of a student.
Two-thirds of these store managers were girls, and they were all gathered downstairs, watching the waves of people rushing to the station at this hour, discussing the topic. They had just started working, and since they were working in their home province, they had no personal experience with the difficulty of returning home during the Spring Festival travel rush, so they all just regarded it as a spectacle.
While chatting with the girl next to her, Hu Junting wondered if she would see Feng Yiping today. She already knew that the legal representative of Yijia Company was Feng Yiping, but she didn't know if it was owned by Feng Yiping or his family.
It was after seven o'clock when everyone started to go upstairs one after the other. At the corner of the stairs, Hu Junting froze for a moment. Feng Yiping was walking down the stairs with his phone in his hand. Compared to when they were in junior high school, Feng Yiping was now much taller and more mature.
Feng Yiping was also taken aback. He had forgotten that Hu Junting was also in the company. 'Hello!' He said with a smile, wanting to shake hands, but feeling that it was too formal and unnatural. So he simply said into the phone, 'I just ran into Junting. She's also here at the meeting today. You can say a few words to her!'
'It's Jingping,' he said, handing the phone to Hu Junting.
The two of them went downstairs. Hu Junting and Huang Jingping didn't know what to say either, but they looked so happy.
After talking for two or three minutes, Hu Junting handed him the phone back, 'The call charges are too expensive, you guys talk.'
Feng Yiping smiled and watched her go upstairs. He heard firecrackers and motorcycles on the other end of the phone, "I won't say much, you go home early, it's cold outside.'
'Sigh," a clear intake of breath was heard from Huang Jingping, 'It's really cold outside, but the signal is bad at home.'
'Then call every day at noon in the future, not so late.'
'Yes, you take care of yourself, and remember to think of me!'
A girl in love has so much she wants to say. Feng Yiping stayed with him for a few more minutes, and then heard Zhou Xinyu above him start speaking. 'Okay, I'll stop now, it's about to start!'
'Behave yourself!' Huang Jingping encouraged him.
Yes, this was the first time he had publicly identified himself in front of so many people, and he really couldn't afford to mess it up.
Zhou Xinyu saw him coming up, and stopped talking. 'Next, please let Yiping give a speech.'
Feng Yiping took the microphone and said, 'I can't really say anything. We're all from the same hometown, and we were in the same junior high school class. Some of you were in my class too. Today, let's just chat as classmates.
I remember when we were at school, we wrote a lot of essays with titles like "My Dream". I wrote quite a few too. Like everyone else, my dream kept changing. To be honest, I can't remember what my original dream was.'
There was a burst of laughter. Of course, who remembers those days now?
'Actually, if I do remember, it's probably not going to help much. Not to mention former ideals, we studied hard, we went to work far away from home, and often, it wasn't that we wanted to study or work, it was our parents and teachers who wanted us to study and work. It was also because we didn't want to repeat our parents' lives that we hoped to one day get out of that mountain valley.'
'Now we have sort of made it out, so what's next? I guess many students haven't thought about this question. Next, without parents and teachers pushing us behind, we are on our own as to what path to take in the future.
So, I say, we should still have ideals, or at least, we should have a rough plan for our lives.
But there's no need to rush this. First, we need to figure out what we're currently doing, then do a good job at what we're doing, and then think about what we want to do and what we can do.
No matter what you want to do in the future, you must take each step of the way steadily. Otherwise, without a solid foundation, your ideas and plans for the future will be nothing more than castles in the air.
In fact, if we can take each step steadily, in the end, what we do for ourselves may really become our ideal.
As you all know, our company's plan is to open branches all over the country and even around the world. What does this mean? It means that if we have Jia, we will be able to provide convenience to more people across the country and lead more folks to prosperity. Our development will be able to accommodate the ideals of many people.
At the same time, this also means that we will need to open at least tens of thousands of branches in China alone. Then, each prefecture-level city will need a manager, and each province will need a general manager.
Our company's principle in employing people is also known to everyone: try to select from within. Therefore, although the students here are currently in charge of a small shop of less than 100 square meters, everyone is our first group of supervisors and the best among our employees. I can definitely say that in the near future, everyone will be managing at least dozens of branches.'
There was a moment of restlessness, a situation Feng Yiping was familiar with. An employer's most important job is not to tell employees what to do, but to convey the company's plans and vision to them, so that they know what the company will achieve in the future and what they themselves will achieve.
'A regional manager is not an ideal goal, but I think it is possible to make this a short-term goal.
A promotion also means a pay rise, and then everyone can think about buying a house, getting married, and letting our parents come to the city to live with us in their spare time, so that we can show them our filial piety.
So the question is, do you think you can do the job with your current abilities? With your current work attitude, can you manage the staff below you?
To put it bluntly, under the current conditions, there is still a gap between everyone's overall quality and such a position.
Recently, there has been a bad trend. Some of us have slackened off after less than six months of work, with low enthusiasm and a negative attitude. I wonder if everyone has become more positive after the factory tours.'
Some people were embarrassed by the earlier comments, but the latter question made everyone laugh.
Zhou Xinyu did what he said he would do. He later arranged for employees from these branches in the province to visit several factories, one being a paper mill, one a foundry, and the other an ink factory. The working environment and intensity were worlds apart from the convenience store.
After experiencing first-hand the difficulty of other people's work, many people realised how easy their own work was. For a period of time after the visit, the general work attitude improved a lot.
'The company only requires everyone to work eight hours a day, and what you do outside of those eight hours is your freedom. But as classmates, I want to say to you, if you are content with this kind of life, and outside of work you don't think about work or the company, then in the future you may always just be an average employee.
Everyone should remember the theorem that states that actions have mutual effects. This is still the case today. The company and everyone are in a community of shared future. If everyone always leaves the company and work behind, the company may also leave everyone behind.
What I mean by saying this is not to ask everyone to work overtime, but I hope that everyone can, outside of work, set aside some time for themselves, for the company and for work, and take the initiative to learn and improve.
In the past, the knowledge that teachers taught us, some students accepted well, and some students accepted it in general. Now, none of this is critical. After leaving school, it is the things that we learn on our own initiative that will determine our future actions.
There is a saying that we cannot change the length of our lives, but we can change its width. We cannot change our appearance, but we can show a smile. I sincerely hope that my students will not waste their youthful years. They should take responsibility for themselves and their work, strive to improve their overall quality, and take an active and optimistic approach to their work and life.
Considering that everyone had just graduated from school, Feng Yiping chose these words as his closing remarks, which had a good effect and were met with enthusiastic applause.
His speech was just the overview, and as for the specific problems and deficiencies at work, Zhou Xinyu and the others would conduct targeted training afterwards.