It turns out that car companies can not only recall cars, but also “recall” employees.
After a month of mass layoffs, ideal Motors suddenly recalled some of the laid-off employees in key positions.
There is no doubt that this is another typical case of “layoffs to the aorta”.
Interestingly, the ideal does not seem to be willing to “foot the bill” for this wrong layoff decision.
No compensation, no attitude, this repeated jump, regarding the dignity and interests of employees as the air, fully reflects the arrogance of the ideal management, but also shows how bad the ideal corporate atmosphere can be.
Perhaps the “luck” of 2023 went to the head and made the ideal forget what it means to be down-to-earth.
Now, in the face of the failure of MEGA and the decline in sales, as well as the poor financial situation, it is time to settle down and think about your problems.
In fact, this farce has also given a warning to other domestic new energy car companies that they should be more cautious in the road of technological development and the retention of technical personnel.
Should the employees go back? In order to reduce costs and increase efficiency, it is desirable to start large-scale layoffs after the May Day holiday, with an overall layoff rate of more than 18%, and more than 5600 employees were affected.
Among them, the sales and service operations department will cut more than 400 jobs, the recruitment department will be reduced from more than 200 to 40 to 50, and the smart driving team will be reduced to less than 1000.
Generally speaking, the basic layoffs of enterprises are employees with relatively low seniority, low level of performance, or low value, but it is unexpected that the ideal acts in the opposite direction, resulting in a drama of “removing the essence and leaving the dregs”.
A number of ideal car insiders said that they had heard rumors of a change after the failure of the MEGA and the slowdown in the pace of pure electric products, but had not yet come up with a specific plan.
In this context, R & D and testing and other key departments related to the direction of product evolution become the main force.
The massive layoffs before January had a great impact on the R & D and testing department of ideal car, with development almost at a standstill, with the assistance of only a small number of low-cost external teams.
After looking back, ideal suddenly discovered the “key” of these positions, and the employees who were laid off at the R & D test side were recalled.
However, according to the Interface News, the compensation previously negotiated with the laid-off employees has not yet been paid, and the compensation will not be provided to the recalled employees in the future.
In addition, contracts involving employees will be extended directly, and it is not clear the scale of the recall and the proportion of departments.
In theory, the ideal layoff is equivalent to the termination of the labor contract, the two sides no longer have a labor relationship, and after the recall, the two sides should also sign a new labor contract.
So even if employees respond to the call to return to work, the compensation negotiated by layoffs at that time should be paid truthfully.
Enterprises have always been interest-oriented, and the ideal recall of some laid-off employees is not because of conscience, but because leaving the value of these employees will lead to greater damage to their interests.
But who can guarantee that when the interest problem no longer exists, will the ideal lay off these employees again? therefore, the ideal should pay the price for its own decisions, and employees also have the right to protect their own interests.
In recent years, large-scale layoffs have become commonplace, but obvious market predictions and corporate decision-making mistakes should never be borne by ordinary employees.
From expansion to layoffs to recalls, this series of operations have fully exposed the arbitrariness and recklessness of ideal automobile senior decision-making.
Why should the ideal lay off staff? As a matter of fact, it is not the only car company that has laid off staff and recalled.
Tesla is starting to rehire some of its super charging pile team, which was disbanded at the end of April when nearly 500 employees were laid off.
The difference is that the direct cause of Tesla’s layoffs is that department head Tinucci opposes Musk’s crazy layoffs, while the ideal layoffs are due to a significant decline in his own development.
For the whole of 2023, a total of 376000 new cars were delivered, an increase of 182.
2% over the same period last year.
By the end of 2023, the cumulative delivery volume of ideal cars has exceeded 600,000, making it the Chinese new power car company with the highest delivery volume, and the third new energy vehicle company in the world to make a profit after Tesla and BYD.
Source: ideal car 2023 earnings report, while the ideal car staff size also began to expand rapidly, the total number of new employees in 2023 exceeded 16000, an increase of 60% on the original scale compared with the same period last year.
This brings the ideal total number of employees to more than 30,000, second only to Weilai.
Li Xiang, founder, chairman and CEO of ideal Automobile, said confidently, “within three years, all the craftsmen in the ideal car factory can get the same level of income and achievement as Japan, Germany and other developed industrial countries.
” In addition, Li Xiang has publicly stated that he will achieve all the goals in 2023 and will challenge higher goals in 2024: 800000, 100000, 30000 and 2000.
These figures represent a sales target of 800000 vehicles for the whole year, and achieved the “No.
1 sales of luxury car brands in the Chinese market” in that year.
However, in 2024, with the sudden development of new forces such as the question world, as well as the failure of the ideal high-stakes MEGA, the ideal day suddenly became difficult, and the business was not as good as last year.
In March this year, the ideal official lowered its annual sales guidance from 800000 to 56 to 640000.
By June 5, ideal will again cut its sales target for 2024 to 480000 units.
Under the trend of slowing sales and falling targets, signs of ideal car manpower redundancy have become increasingly prominent, and layoffs have become a must.
As early as early April, an account claiming to be an ideal auto employee revealed on the social platform that all approval of the ideal new offer would be suspended and that there would be a small amount of stock above 17 (level) posts, but it might be linked to performance and other reviews, and low performance could not be cashed out.
Then, in early May, there was news from internal employees that the interior of the ideal car began to lay off staff gradually, and the first one was the human resources department.
In addition, the styling department, production and supply chain related departments have different proportions of personnel adjustment.
But the ideal never thought that this round of layoffs would fall on its own “aorta”.
Where should we go after postponing pure electricity? You can’t get fat in one breath, and the ideal car is in too much of a hurry and has paid a price for it.
In March this year, Li Xiang released an internal letter, which first admitted the mistakes of MEGA and decided to postpone pushing to more cities.
To expand this product, we must concentrate on promoting MEGA to cities with strong pure electricity consumption capabilities.
secondly, the ideal decision is not to pay too much attention to sales, but to be user-centered and enhance user value.
According to the original plan, the MEGA will be released in March this year, and three pure electric SUVs, M9, M8, and M7, will be released in the second half of the year.
Among them, the MEGA and M9 and M8 will be produced in mass production this year, and the M7 will be produced in mass production in the second quarter of next year, forming a “4 Extended Range +4 Pure Electric” product lineup.
Picture: Spy photos of ideal pure electric SUV, the pace of the automobile industry is very important.
One step is empty, one step is empty.
After MEGA’s defeat, on May 20, Li Xiang announced on the first quarter earnings conference call that he would not release pure electric SUV products this year, but would rescheduled the first half of next year.
In fact, the adjustment of product strategy is also reflected in the pressure on the ideal first-quarter financial report.
In the first quarter, Ideal Automobile’s revenue was 24.
3 billion yuan with sales of 80,200 units, an increase of 32.
3% from 18.
3 billion yuan in the first quarter of last year.
However, there was a significant loss in operating profit, reaching 585 million yuan, ending the ideal four consecutive quarters of operating profit.
Thanks to the ideal interest income and investment income of 1.
069 billion yuan, the ideal final net profit was 591 million yuan, but it still dropped significantly by 36.
7% year-on-year.
Source: Ideal Automobile’s 2024Q1 financial report.
In this financial situation, Ideal chose to postpone the release of pure tram, which is undoubtedly the right choice.
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, sales of pure electric cars in China in 2023 will be 6.
685 million units, a year-on-year increase of 24.
6%, and sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles will be 2.
804 million units, a year-on-year increase of 84.7%. Although the sales volume of pure electric cars is still higher than that of hybrid cars, in terms of growth, hybrid cars are significantly ahead.
Some people believe that although battery technology continues to make breakthroughs and solid-state batteries are gradually commercialized, considering the domestic travel environment and long-distance demand, domestic hybrid car sales are likely to catch up with pure trams this year.
Especially in the high-end market, hybrid cars can get rid of battery life anxiety.
Even if the fuel cost is slightly higher, it is not a big problem for luxury car owners.
It is obviously more prudent for ideals to delay the launch of pure electric models and wait and see market changes.
This will not only allow more time to study consumer preferences, but also ensure that the pure electric products launched can truly meet market demand.
A lesson is learned.
Whether it is a layoff mistake, a product failure, or a pressure on financial reports, these are all “requiring” his ideals and Li to calm down and seriously think about where the “way out” lies.
(Lu Shiming), return to the home page of First Electric Network>.
