Bank Employees Literally Spanked by Bosses for Underperforming

The BBC reports that trainer Jiang Yang was in charge of the training session for over 200 employees of Changzhi Zhangze Rural Commercial Bank. In the video, he first asks employees to explain why they received poor scores in a training exercise. After they give reasons for their lackluster performance, including "I lacked courage" and "I did not co-operate with colleagues," he orders them to "get [their] butts ready."

One by one, Jiang works his way down the line, spanking employees with what looks like a wooden stick. Each worker is spanked four times, and every blow delivers an audible thwack—so much so that gasps are heard from the person filming the video. After she receives her fourth blow, a slightly built woman on the far end of the line doubles over in pain.

A statement from Changzhi local government said that a "hair cutting punishment" followed the spanking. Unconfirmed reports from Chinese media say that this involved Jiang shaving the men and cutting the women's hair.

In a video apology, Jiang said that the spanking was a "training model I have tried for years" and had "nothing to do" with the heads of the bank. The bank's chairman and deputy governor were suspended anyway, and bank regulators are now investigating the incident.

While spanking can be mutually satisfying and even a pretty good time if done consensually, getting beaten up in a three-star banqueting suite in front of your co-workers isn't most people's idea of fun. Zena Everett, an executive career coach and performance management expert, is not against spanking per se—but advised against it in professional contexts.

"It's not a recognized form of performance management," she explained. "And it certainly wouldn't be effective. Professional business behavior means learning there are better ways to manage people then spanking them on stage."

I asked whether it's ever acceptable to beat up employees with what looks like an oversized rolling pin. "Unless it's some sort of sex club where people have paid for it, I'm going to say no. It constitutes assault and abuse." In her view, spanking your workers on stage is at one end of an (admittedly wide) spectrum that includes a host of subtler forms of abuse. "Being on an employee's back all the time can have a similar effect on their psyche as actually spanking them. It's sticks and stones."

Anyway, Everett pointed out, we've known for years that corporal punishment doesn't work: "It's the reason teachers don't hit children any more in schools. It doesn't make them better." She added that when people are frightened of their bosses, they become more—not less—incompetent. "They're too scared to tell you when a problem emerges at work, they don't think and they don't perform. It makes the good staff leave, so you end up with a shortage of talented employees."

A better solution, Everett suggested, is to trust staff. "The more you empower your employees to think for themselves once you've trained them, the better they are. The more you think for them and micro-manage them, the less they think, the less responsibility they take, and the worse they get. It's a vicious cycle."

Finally, if you think that Chinese banks are a special breed of sadist, and something like this would never happen closer to home: a cautionary tale. "I know of one recruitment agency which used to make underperforming employees drink a bottle of hot sauce on Fridays in front of the rest of the team. It was supposed to humiliate them in a jokey way to make them perform better in future.

"What actually happened is that all the decent employees left, and none of the managers could get jobs elsewhere, because no one wanted to be associated with them."

Banks of the world, take note: spanking or hot-saucing your employees won't make them harder, better or faster—they'll just hate you more than they already do.