The Fiery Era: Becoming an Industrial Giant

Chapter 153 Work Quota Allocation within the Factory
"Sir, please take care. Thank you, sir."

Zhou Zhiqiang's gratitude was absolutely sincere, but Director Ren Licheng found it unpleasant to hear, so he waved his hand, got into his car, and left.

Secretary Li, who was standing to the side, spoke up. He wondered if they should see the leader out of the factory gate, but seeing that Zhou Zhiqiang didn't make any move, they didn't feel comfortable following him to see the leader off.

This seems somewhat obsequious.

After the group of leaders left, Zhou Zhiqiang turned to Secretary Li and the others and said, "Secretary Li, Deputy Factory Director Sun, shall we have a meeting?"

Secretary Li nodded in agreement and said, "Okay, we do need to discuss it."

Deputy Factory Director Sun Yifei simply nodded without saying a word; seeing how highly Zhou Zhiqiang was regarded by his superiors, he no longer had any intention of vying for the factory director position.

He either has to wait, or he has to be transferred and compete with Zhou Zhiqiang, but he has no hope at all.

Zhou Zhiqiang turned to Liu Aihua in the office and said, "Director Liu, please inform Director Tian of the logistics department, Section Chief Kong and Deputy Section Chief Chen of the security department, as well as you, Section Chief Ding of the technical department, and all the workshop directors."

Let's have a meeting with all these people, Secretary. That's about it. Also, we need to notify them of the production tasks in advance.

Li Younian nodded and said, "Okay, shall we go to the conference room?"

"Let's use the meeting room; there aren't enough chairs anywhere else."

After Zhou Zhiqiang finished speaking, he and Secretary Li and others went to the conference room to wait, while Director Liu from the office went to call people.

Not long after, Liu Aihua called the others into the meeting room.

After everyone had arrived, Zhou Zhiqiang looked at Secretary Li, and only after the latter nodded did he speak: "Comrades, there are a few things to announce at today's meeting."

One is our factory's high-precision coordinate boring machine, which has already been purchased by the Ninth Bureau of the Second Ministry of Machine Building. In the future, not only will production tasks be adjusted, but the factory will also be expanded.

"The ministry plans a total investment of eight million, with our factory contributing four million. We plan to hire one thousand temporary workers, and if the issue of converting them to permanent positions is resolved within three years, these temporary workers will be given priority."

The factory expansion is a major undertaking, as it directly impacts the production efficiency of high-precision coordinate boring machines.

Approval will be granted by the end of the month, and the expansion and recruitment will be completed simultaneously within a month, followed by three months of temporary worker training.

After that, the production efficiency of high-precision coordinate boring machines needs to be improved. This is an urgent task, Zhou Zhiqiang emphasized.

Anyone who lags behind in this area shouldn't be blamed for being harsh; this is not only a task from higher-ups, but also something the Ninth Bureau of the Second Ministry of Machine Building requires.

If we had to pinpoint a connection, it could be linked to major national defense projects, given that it relates to the Northwest region.

"The security department also has expansion plans, but this is for the armed forces department to supplement manpower, so the factory won't get involved much."

However, with the increased staff, they will also have to shoulder the responsibilities of maintaining factory confidentiality and conducting security patrols.

"There's also the plan to renovate the workshop. Director Liu, contact the construction team and the power supply station tomorrow."

There are so many things to arrange, almost all of them are crammed together.

Zhou Zhiqiang had no choice; the leaders didn't give him much time, so he could only try his best to arrange things. If he didn't put any pressure on these people, he would have to bear the pressure himself.

Factory expansion, recruitment, security department expansion, production task adjustments, and technical training.
We need to get all of these things done in the next few months.

After Zhou Zhiqiang finished speaking, he turned to Li Younian and asked, "Secretary Li, is there anything else you want to say?"

"That's all. Deputy Factory Director Zhou, you've made excellent arrangements."

Secretary Li shook his head, then added as if remembering something, "Keep the factory constantly operating at full capacity, but since we can't offer the new workers anything materially, we need to consider their mental well-being."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Zhiqiang nodded and said, "That's true. The publicity department can organize some activities. Let's skip the time-consuming ones and show a movie instead."

We show movies twice a month at the factory. Does our factory have a projectionist and equipment?

Director Liu replied, "No, that's not the case. Our factory didn't have many people before, and the publicity department didn't have the resources. We used to buy movie tickets in bulk and distribute them to the factory's employees."

“Then we can consider training one. In the future, we will become a large factory with several thousand employees. Today is just the beginning of our factory’s development.”

After a pause, seeing that Li Younian did not intend to speak, Zhou Zhiqiang continued, "Let's invite people from the movie theater to the factory for the next few months, and also talk to the head of the technical department."

This recruitment drive offers three positions to their technical department. The factory will arrange for them to learn projection techniques at a movie theater, so we'll be watching movies at the factory from now on.

As long as the movie discs are borrowed in advance, the factory can organize two or even three events a month; workers can also bring their families, which is much more cost-effective than buying movie tickets.

"And the security department, although it has improved a lot now, the level of confidentiality and security needs to be even better in the future. The leaders were still asking about your situation today."

Upon hearing his name called, Kong Yongqiang immediately stood up and promised that he would cooperate with Deputy Section Chief Chen to properly rectify the work of the Security Section.

After hearing Section Chief Kong's assurance, Zhou Zhiqiang thought about the factory's sideline businesses and then specifically mentioned:
"Director Tian, ​​please also report on the side business to Secretary Li, Deputy Factory Director Sun, and the other colleagues in the factory."

Upon hearing this, Tian Wenguo stood up and reported, "The people sent to handle the procurement have returned, and the two workshops and open space in the factory have been arranged according to the instructions of agricultural and animal husbandry experts and technicians."
If all goes well, our factory will be able to harvest a batch of rabbits and mushrooms in three months.

Of course, the first batch won't be much; at most, it'll just be enough for the factory to have a mushroom and rabbit soup meal.

However, one batch after another will be raised, and a large number will be able to be raised next year; the premise is to do a good job in breeding and survive this winter.

After finishing discussing most of the matters, Zhou Zhiqiang asked Director Liu to review the meeting minutes. Once he confirmed there were no issues, the meeting concluded successfully. Secretary Li and Deputy Factory Director Sun had nothing more to say, and the other comrades had all understood the proceedings; thus, the meeting ended.

After leaving the meeting room, Zhou Zhiqiang went back to his office to arrange personnel training and production task adjustments.

Director Liu from the office jogged after him, saying, "Deputy Factory Director Zhou, wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm here!"

When Zhou Zhiqiang heard someone call his name, he stopped and turned around to wait for Director Liu to catch up with him before asking, "Director Liu, what is it?"

"Deputy Factory Director Zhou, shall I go to your office to report this?"

"also."

After Zhou Zhiqiang finished speaking, he took Liu Aihua to his office.

After entering, Zhou Zhiqiang poured Liu Aihua a glass of water before asking, "Director Liu, was there anything difficult to resolve at the meeting just now?"

"It's not that it's difficult, it's just that in terms of recruitment, although we are in contact with the local government's labor bureau, the factory usually reserves some positions for its own recruitment."

Liu Aihua didn't speak too definitively, but Zhou Zhiqiang understood immediately.

Who allocates the recruitment quotas within the factory? Of course, it's the factory's managers.

Especially for these temporary workers, they will almost certainly be promoted to permanent positions within two or three years. The only problem now is that due to logistical pressures, the food subsidies for permanent workers cannot be provided.

Zhou Zhiqiang asked, "How much do you usually keep?"

Director Liu began, "It used to be around 20%."

"There are 1,000 job openings, and the factory wants to take 200. Tell me, who has such a big appetite?"

Zhou Zhiqiang said without changing his expression, "These are temporary workers for the front-line production. I need to recruit them to produce advanced machine tools. If we suddenly lose two hundred positions, who will produce them for me?"

"Factory manager, that was when there were fewer people. We would recruit fifty or sixty people at a time. Now it's different. Even if we keep 10% for ourselves, it's still a lot."

Seeing that Zhou Zhiqiang was a little angry, Director Liu quickly explained, "We definitely won't keep that many now, and we can't recruit any more anyway, plus we need people for logistics."
"We'll definitely do as you say, factory manager. We'll keep as many as you decide."

Liu Aihua wasn't oblivious; seeing that Zhou Zhiqiang was angry, she immediately changed her tune.

"The factory will reserve sixty positions for itself, and allocate more to the logistics and publicity departments, leaving the personnel department to decide on the allocation; if they are assigned to the front-line workshops, I will dismiss those who cannot endure the hardship at any time."

After thinking for a while, Zhou Zhiqiang said that a thousand people would definitely need to be assigned some warehouse and logistics positions, and almost every department and office in the factory would need to be expanded.

It's not realistic to have all production lines on the front lines; logistics must at least be able to keep up.

"Factory manager, how many do you want to keep?"

Director Liu asked cautiously, "If you have personnel arrangements, I'll have the HR department assign you a position within the factory in advance."

"I'll stay here. Never mind, save ten spots for me."

Zhou Zhiqiang casually remarked that he didn't know many people, and he probably couldn't even gather three people who would be willing to give him a job.

Most people with whom he has a decent relationship don't need him to provide job openings.

After he gets back, he should ask his wife to do him a favor by giving money to the neighborhood office. This way, it will be much easier for his wife to take care of the children or take leave from work at the neighborhood office in the future.

"Okay, I understand. After I've communicated with the personnel department, I'll send you the factory's letter of introduction."

"Factory manager, if there's nothing else, I'll be leaving now."

After Liu Aihua finished speaking, seeing that Zhou Zhiqiang had no other instructions, she got up and left.

After everyone left, Zhou Zhiqiang shook his head and continued working on the factory's affairs.

However, as he worked, Zhou Zhiqiang suddenly felt that he needed a helper, or rather, that the factory needed to add a deputy factory director.

While one main and one secondary document is the standard configuration, if things get too busy, one main and two secondary documents are also acceptable.

"Forget it, let's let Sun Yifei handle this for now."

Zhou Zhiqiang estimated that it would take a long time for him to submit his report, and that his superiors would also ask questions such as why the factory had a deputy director and why he wasn't using him.

He couldn't very well say that he felt Sun Yifei had ulterior motives and was afraid he would cause trouble, which would be presuming guilt on the part of his comrade.

First, Zhou Zhiqiang would hand over the approval of logistics-related work to Deputy Factory Director Sun. If Sun did not perform well, Zhou Zhiqiang would then submit a report to his superiors.

"Yaoguo, come in here."

Zhou Zhiqiang came to the door, called Zhang Yaoguo in, and pointed to the documents that had been sorted out on the table, saying, "Take these to Deputy Factory Director Sun and ask him to handle them. Then give them to Secretary Li."

He doesn't look at the approval process; he only looks at the final result.

　Second update
　　
　
(End of this chapter)