In order to make up for staff shortage in the production section and reduce redundant staff in admin sectors,, Shenyang Chemical Co., Ltd have launched a reform to re-assign some workers to the production department before its relocation.
Since Shenyang Chemical Co., Ltd has a long history, whose equipments and facilities are old fashioned; to some extent, the safe and stable production depends on adequate operators on the production line. As retired employees increase year by year, the shortage of workers for production positions has become an increasingly severe problem. However, the company will soon build a new plant at the outskirts of the city, and there will be redundancy in employees after the entirely new production plant is introduced. Therefore, it is impossible for the company to recruit new workers. Facing this conflict, Shenyang Chemical Co., Ltd decided to pool efforts to tap its own potential and re-allocate some workers to ease the staff shortage pressure at production positions.
Shenyang Chemical Co., Ltd exerted great efforts in the re-allocation program. After a survey of the actual demand for workers of various departments, the company set a bottom line for the re-allocation and explicitly asked all the departments to reach the goal of multiple functions for one post, less workers fulfilling equal responsibilities and improving efficiency through merging the posts with similar duties and businesses. The company also formulated a detailed program and required all the employees to be laid off first and then apply and compete for the new positions. Those who failed in the competition were trained and relocated at production posts, and they are paid according to their new posts. In order to follow the principle of fairness, justice and openness, heads of various departments and various sections made a careful study and discussion of the reform program, personally supervised the reform and worked together to organize and implement this task.
Due to the proper preparations and the aim of the reform, the re-allocation went off smoothly. This reform aims at optimizing the allocation of posts, not laying off the workers, or even shifting the burden of some employees to the society. Some departments even broke through the bottom line and completed the relocation of the workers beyond the expectation. For instance, the number of workers of the storage department was reduced from 13 to 8 with a re-location ratio of 38 percent, and that of the human resources department dropped from 14 to 9 with a ratio of 36 percent. Except some older workers not suitable for production positions, all the employees to be re-assigned were trained and allocated to new posts.