After Chen Yan was kicked out by his former company, he took over a bankrupt business with debts of 3.2 million yuan and just 57 employees for a single yuan.
Everyone expected him to announce layoffs, but Chen Yan bound himself to the Employee Happiness Management System.
The new-user bonus was one million yuan, and any money left unspent after 24 hours would vanish.
So the first things Chen Yan did after taking the helm were pay out overdue bonuses, force everyone to clock out, and give the entire staff three days of paid leave.
The employees thought it was the company's last bit of dignity before bankruptcy.
After doing the math, Finance Director Cheng Jianxia hung a "Bankruptcy Countdown" sign in the office.
Competitor Han Jingchuan even publicly declared:
"A company like this won't last three months."
But no one expected that after the employees had rested, they would solve a technical problem that had plagued the R&D department for half a year; that the free breakfast program would take off, with the five-minute breakfast maker becoming a bestseller; or that the childcare center would open and their safe home appliances become popular nationwide.
The more Chen Yan tried to spend all the money on employee benefits, the more profitable the company became.
While bosses elsewhere catch employees slacking off, Qiguang catches its employees secretly working overtime.
While employees elsewhere look for ways to squeeze perks out of their company, Qiguang's staff spend every day figuring out how to stop their boss from wasting more money.
Competitors wait for Qiguang to go bankrupt, only to often run into trouble themselves first.
From a bankrupt little factory with 57 employees to a globally renowned lifestyle technology group, Chen Yan originally just wanted to complete the System's tasks. Yet, through one seemingly absurd decision after another, he built a company where ordinary people dared to rest, dared to speak honestly, and even dared to criticize the boss to his face.
Ten years later, at Qiguang's anniversary celebration,
all the employees raise their glasses and shout:
"Congratulations
