Bank’s chairman and deputy governor suspended after video showing employees being beaten with stick draws criticism

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A motivational trainer in China beat eight rural bank employees with a stick, shaved the heads of the men and cut the hair of the women after they performed poorly on a training weekend.

“Spanking was a training model I have been exploring for many years,” the trainer, Jiang Yang, said on his microblog, absolving the bank’s leadership of direct responsibility.

Changzhi Zhangze Rural Commercial Bank, a lender in northern Shanxi province, hired a Shanghai-based training company to run a “performance breakthrough” course, a local rural banking oversight body told a government-run website.

After a day of training last weekend for a staff of more than 200, Jiang demanded explanations from the eight employees with the lowest scores.

One responded: “I’m not hard on myself.” Another shouted: “I didn’t make a breakthrough”, while a third blamed lack of teamwork.

Jiang then asked them to prepare to be beaten and strode up and down the row of offenders several times, hitting them hard with a stick.

Later, he cut the women’s hair and shaved the men’s heads, according to media reports and the website of the Changzhi city government news office.

The punishment, captured by a mobile phone and circulated on Chinese social media, drew criticism.

“Since when does beating employees become a way of raising performance?” asked one social media user, Denny Tangmashi.

The training company declined requests for comment, while telephone calls to the bank went unanswered and Jiang’s mobile phone appeared to have been switched off.

In an online statement on Monday, the oversight body described the training as “improper”, adding that it had suspended the bank’s chairman and a deputy governor and told Jiang to make a public apology.

Some saw the punishment for the bankers and the trainer as inadequate.

“They need to be beaten with a stick!” wrote social media user Edison Li Jingyu.