Employees taking their managers hostage … literally
Would you ever consider putting a limit on employees’ bathroom breaks? Don’t.
It may sound crazy, but after a Japanese electronics manufacturer imposed a two-minute limit on bathroom breaks – complete with an $8 charge for being late – employees had enough.
About 1,000 workers at the Shanghai plant held eight Chinese managers and 10 Japanese nationals hostage for a day and a half starting Friday morning and ending Saturday night in protest against the ridiculously strict rule. The rule stated that workers would be fined $8 for the first violation of the rule. If they did it again, they’d be fired.
To put things in perspective, the workers make about $320 a month – so $8 is pretty significant.
The employees eventually freed the hostages after 300 policemen intervened and management agreed to reconsider the strict policy.
The real cherry of this story? This hostage situation broke out on the day the company’s president, Hideaki Tamura, was touring the facility.
- Share on
Free Training & Resources
White Papers
Provided by UJET
White Papers
Provided by Personify Health
Further Reading
Holding managers and staffers accountable for the work they do is a day-in, day-out job. Leaders in any organization may be tempted to let ...
Employee experience – including employee mental health – has become a higher priority for many organizations, according to rese...
Influential people who have positive attitudes can help others around them think more positively. The opposite is also true. Negative pe...
If you believe workplace polls, more than half of working adults do just about the bare minimum that’s required to keep their jobs. ...
Some people naturally want confrontation. It’s just how they roll. And most leaders want to avoid confrontation — especially in ...
Year after year, surveys show about half of all employees don’t tap their allotted personal time off (PTO). While some companies allo...
