Why does Huawei earn respect for its high pay? Central enterprises need to rethink...
分类:Industry News 发布时间:2017-01-11 13:43:00 作者: 来源: 每日经济新闻

Central enterprises "head of the family" compensation finally set off the "head." Recently, the website of State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) disclosed the pre-tax salary information of the heads of 111 central soes in 2015. Among the heads of the major central soes, the highest one can reach millions of yuan, the lowest one is only 40,000 to 50,000 yuan, and the average level is about 500,000 yuan to 700,000 yuan.


The "pay slip" can be seen as a result of the pay reform of central enterprises since the "pay limit" was implemented in 2015. Although state-owned enterprises are all owned by the whole people, their market position may not be the same. Some central soes have a stronger color of resource monopoly, while others are in more competitive industries and market environments. For the former, the profits and business performance of enterprises more reflect the monopoly advantage, which may not be the true reflection of the entrepreneur's ability. In contrast, it is not difficult to understand if the remuneration of the head of this kind of central enterprises is low.


For example, among the 111 central soes, 15 have a pre-tax salary of 1 million yuan, concentrated in China Merchants Group Co., LTD., China Resources (Group) Co., LTD., and China Travel Service Group Co., LTD. And "three barrels of oil" person in charge, no more than 800 thousand yuan.


For the heads of central enterprises, their salaries are also restricted by their dual status: one is a professional manager, and the other is a civil servant with a higher administrative level. This means that they receive both executive salary and "senior official" treatment.


From the former, pay should be linked to business performance, so central enterprises such as petrochina and Sinopec are among the pay cuts; From the perspective of the latter, it can not completely "follow the market", so the million yuan of the head of the central enterprises, compared with the annual salary of some private enterprise executives, which is often 10 million yuan, is also dwarfed.


The reform of the compensation system for the heads of central enterprises aims to eliminate the disadvantages of the overall high salary level and unreasonable salary structure. It is regarded as an important part of the establishment of a modern enterprise system for central enterprises and a necessary meaning of deepening the reform of the income distribution system. But whether it has had the desired effect is still a matter of debate.


It is true that the heads of central soes are generally "limited in salary" and the compensation system is more sunny, open and transparent, but taxpayers are not necessarily convinced and satisfied. Because the nature of compensation is executive level or entrepreneurial ability, still can not effectively distinguish. On the other hand, it is still an unfulfilled task to explore the long-term mechanism of the incentive mode for the management personnel of state-owned enterprises.


This seems to be a paradox: the salaries of top executives at central enterprises are not satisfactory, and it is difficult to balance both inside and outside. What's the problem? It may not be about the salary, or the problem that can not be solved by the salary reform, but a systematic and comprehensive reform of central and state-owned enterprises is needed to promote it.


This is reminiscent of the "deep fryer" news of the past two days: Huawei announced that it expects its sales revenue to reach 520 billion yuan in 2016, up 32% year on year. Accordingly, Huawei employees, especially executives, will be paid more. According to the annual report, Huawei's total expenditure on wages, salaries, benefits and post-resignation plans in 2015 was close to 100.8 billion yuan. Adding in the net profit of 36.9 billion yuan (most of which were dividends and stock appreciation to employees), Huawei's cost on employees would reach 137.7 billion yuan. It also means that the average annual income of 170,000 employees is more than 800,000 yuan. In Huawei, more than 1,000 people earn 5 million yuan annually, and more than 10,000 people earn 1 million yuan annually. It goes without saying how well paid Huawei executives are.


No one will think that Huawei's high salary needs reform, and no one will be psychologically unbalanced or have doubts about social fairness and justice because of it. On the contrary, many Chinese people are full of national pride for Huawei's growth and strength, and even worry that the high housing prices in Shenzhen will "drive Huawei away".


The high salary of Huawei wins the respect of Chinese people. This is because the company wins the respect of Chinese people. There are at least two ways to explain the mystery.


First, as a private enterprise, Huawei not only relies on its own efforts in the domestic competitive market, but also dances with the Wolf in the highly competitive international market, so that Chinese brands can truly realize great self-value. While many central enterprises are obsessed with finance and property speculation, Huawei has more than 60% of its revenue from foreign countries, and its high-end smartphones dare to compete with Apple's. Huawei has actually done what many central enterprises should have done but failed to do.


Second, as a high-tech enterprise, Huawei is not resting on its laurels and enjoying dividends, but promoting industrial upgrading through continuous high investment in research and development. According to the "2016 Global R&D Investment Ranking of Enterprises" released by the European Commission, Huawei ranks eighth globally and the highest among Chinese enterprises, with R&D spending reaching 190 billion yuan in the last decade. In a sense, Huawei is the enterprise that best embodies the innovation-driven strategy in China, and such a role should be embodied and undertaken by the central enterprises with strategic missions.


In this regard, the central enterprises need to reflect on why Huawei's high salaries win respect. If the central enterprises can have such international vision and achievements, and have such innovation awareness and practice, how can the so-called high salary be a problem?


Of course, Huawei's achievements are inseparable from its perfect modern enterprise system and corporate governance structure. For example, Huawei did not go public, opened up most of its shares to employees, and founder Ren Zhengfei owned only 1.4 percent of the company, creating an incentive system steeped in a Wolf culture.


For soes, especially central soes, in addition to the reform of the compensation system, how to activate the vitality of enterprises and improve the incentive mechanism through the reform of mixed ownership and employee shareholding is a task that needs to be completed.


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