One Chinese restaurant owner is in the news because she paid some of her top-performing staff three new BMW cars worth around Rs. 43 lakh for them an eye-opening gesture that’s been widely appreciated by employees and the people who are with her and help make up the food chain.
Ma Yanli, who owns a beef hotpot restaurant chain in Jiaozuo, in central China’s Henan province, apparently gave the luxury vehicles to her staff when she saw the difficulty they faced in getting to work. Luxury gifts aren’t common in most workplaces, but Yanli’s decision was driven by practical reasons: she wanted to make a more comfortable path for her employees when they were heading to work in tough weather conditions.
That meant that they were all mostly electric scooters. SCMP reports from Yanli's office (South China Morning Post): “Many of her employees used electric scooters on their daily commute.” It’s not easy to drive on two-wheelers in cold, rainy and windy weather, but it is the only way to reach work on time, no matter how cold it is in the morning when people are outside.
Yanli said she thought about how her own car commute was a good one, but what she did with her employees’ lives, who faced the elements. Rather than just accept the fact that they were working hard, she gave them a great deal of money that could make their daily commute easier. And that led to a shock for a lot of people that none of them had even dreamed of.
The surprise happened on 24 September when Yanli took a group of workers to a BMW dealership under the pretext of going to a meeting, the media reported. The employees were unaware of the true purpose of the visit until they found out that the luxury vehicles were for them.
The BMWs were bought in full about two weeks before the presentation and they did not receive any payments from the recipients. Each car is said to be worth about 300,000 yuan (around Rs. 43 lakh). For the selected employees, the day turned into a moment of celebration, changing the ordinary work-related outing into a major personal moment of achievement.
Li Jie, an employee, reportedly expressed excitement at receiving the unexpected gift. In recalling the experience, Li said she never expected something like a BMW and Yanli had described it as a “big toy” while she was on the way to the showroom. The employee’s response summed up the surprise at the news of the gift, particularly because the gift wasn’t something the workers had anticipated as part of their employment benefits.
The price of the cars also indicates the scale of the gesture. While companies commonly recognise employees through bonuses, salary increases, awards or other perks, gifting luxury vehicles represents a significantly different approach to acknowledging workplace contributions.
Yanli stated that she was motivated by one of her workers who came back from a cold commute with a distinctly red face. The scene made her question why employees who contributed to the growth of her business should have to suffer in difficult travel conditions when she could commute comfortably in her own car. Yanli considers the restaurant chain's growth to be the property of its employees. She felt that the people who have helped that business succeed should also have a piece of that success too.
Social media users have been pithy about the BMW gifts and Yanli's generosity, and also the thought behind it. This story has also inspired discussion on how employers may be able to recognise workers for their contributions to business growth.
Not every company can afford expensive rewards, but employee recognition can take an array of forms, ranging from better pay, better working conditions, performance bonuses and practical benefits. Yanli's decision stood out because it combined an unexpected luxury gift with concern about her employees’ daily lives.
The gesture has become a very different reward policy, but also an example of how employers and workers can interact. And the story’s appeal is not only in the price of the BMWs but also in the reported motivation behind the gifts: acknowledging the people whose work helped the business grow and responding to the difficulties they faced outside the workplace.
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