Rebirth 03: Starting a Business After Giving Up a Secure Job

Chapter 148 Huicheng Workers' Home Model

After the training session ended, Lin Xiaoqiang didn't let the newcomers stay any longer.

He called Wang Hai and Li Yong over, took out a map of Baishitang Village from his pocket, and spread it on the table, circling several key areas in red.

This includes the village entrance bulletin board, the vegetable market, the basketball court, and two gray brick buildings that he had marked as "suspected direct rental from landlord" when he scouted the area before the Lunar New Year.

He handed the map to Wang Hai and asked him to scan the route that afternoon, noting down in his notebook how many floors each building had, how many households per floor, and whether there were any rental notices posted at the entrance.

Wang Hai took the map, glanced at it, folded it, stuffed it into his pocket, and pulled Li Yong out the door.

Xie Xiaodong and his recruitment team set up a folding table right at the entrance of Jiarun Plastics Factory.

On the table was a piece of cardboard with the words "Local Life Network · Workers' Home · Free Job Search" written on it in marker, and next to it were dozens of printed job registration forms.

Workers who had just finished their early shift were pouring out of the workshop wearing blue overalls. Someone came over and asked what they were doing. Xie Xiaodong said that those looking for work should register, and those who wanted to change factories should also register. It was free.

Several female workers picked up the registration form with some skepticism and looked at it. One of the older women said that her cousin wanted to come from Hunan to find work after the New Year, and asked if she could help him register first.

Xie Xiaodong handed her the registration form and asked her to fill in her cousin's name, age, desired position, and experience. After she finished filling it out, he entered the information into his laptop in front of her and created a "Job Intention" entry on the Huicheng Station recruitment section of the local life website.

"That's fine. We'll call your cousin if a suitable position becomes available."

The woman left, still somewhat doubtful.

Around 3 p.m., Xie Xiaodong's phone rang.

It was Lao Huang, the HR manager of Jiarun Plastics, who called to say that there was a severe shortage of operators after the Chinese New Year. A group of people left before the New Year and never came back, so now only half of the production line is open.

Xie Xiaodong had inquired about Jiarun's employment situation with the gatekeeper when he set up a stall at the factory gate in the morning, and left his business card for the gatekeeper to pass on to the personnel department.

Old Huang said on the phone that he had someone check the local life website, and there were already dozens of job postings in the Huicheng station's recruitment section, several of which were exactly the operators they needed.

Xie Xiaodong said, "Send me the job requirements and salary details, and I'll help you find the right fit."

After hanging up the phone, Xie Xiaodong sent Lin Feng a text message: Jiarun Plastics is short of workers, with a shortage of at least fifty people after the New Year. We have already made contact.

When Lin Feng received the text message, he was in the Huihuang Electronics factory area at the other end of Zhongkai High-tech Zone.

Wu Wenjie and Lin Xiaoqiang accompanied him. The three of them stood on the open ground in front of the factory canteen, surrounded by workers who had finished their early shifts and were queuing to buy food.

The bulletin board at the entrance of the canteen was covered with colorful job postings and house rental information. Some of them were soaked and ruined by the rain, while others were mostly covered by new posters.

A young man in blue overalls squatted next to the bulletin board, copying down phone numbers from a small notebook.

Lin Feng walked over and asked him what he was copying. The young man looked up at him and said he wanted to switch factories because his current factory had little overtime and low wages. He heard that LG Electronics next door was hiring, but he didn't know who to contact.

Lin Feng asked him why he didn't look online, and the young man said that an hour at an internet cafe cost several yuan, and he couldn't bear to spend that much.

Lin Feng pulled Wu Wenjie aside.

The platform at Huicheng Station is already in place, but the workers don't have internet access, so the information doesn't reach them.

The SMS delivery model used in Shenzhen is also applicable to factory areas, but a more direct point of contact is still needed.

He asked Wu Wenjie if it was possible to talk to the factory's administration department about setting up a fixed "Workers' Home Service Point" at the entrance of each factory canteen.

A table, a chair, and a salesperson are all it takes. Workers can register their needs as they pass by while eating. Whether they want to rent a house, change jobs, sell old items, or hire cleaners or repair appliances, all their needs can be met at the same service point.

Wu Wenjie said it was worth a try, and he would talk to Huihuang Electronics about it.

That evening, Lin Feng asked Wu Wenjie to gather all the staff on duty at Huicheng Station to his office.

A dozen or so people sat around the desk, which still had its plastic wrap on. Wu Wenjie dragged the whiteboard to the center, and Lin Feng picked up a marker and drew a picture on the whiteboard.

In the middle is a circle with the words "Workers' Home Service Point" written inside. Around it are six lines, labeled with rentals, job postings, secondhand goods, housekeeping, catering and leisure, and daily necessities.

"From now on, all business at Huicheng Station will revolve around this service point." Lin Feng tapped the circle in the middle with his pen.

"The factory area is where the workers live, and it's also where our platform is based. Service points are Tongcheng.com's locations in each factory area."

It's not just about putting up a poster and leaving; there are people stationed here every day, and workers can register any needs they have here.

"No problem if you don't know how to use the internet or a mobile phone. Just come to the service point, and the staff will take care of it for you."

Lin Xiaoqiang raised his hand and asked a question.

Many landlords in the urban villages where workers live don't use the internet or send text messages; they only post listings on utility poles in front of their houses. How can we collect this information?

Lin Feng instructed him to set up a "Free Registration Point for Landlords" next to the service point. When the street promoters were out canvassing the streets, they would proactively leave their business cards with landlords and tell them that the local network could help them rent out their houses faster.

Once the first group of landlords have tasted success, others will come knocking on their door.

After the meeting, Wu Wenjie worked through the night to draft a detailed implementation plan for the "Workers' Home" model at Huicheng Station.

He designated three major factories—Huihuang Electronics, Jiarun Plastics, and Xinmei Toys—as the first batch of pilot projects, setting up a fixed service point in each factory area, assigning a ground promoter to each service point, and having the heads of each sector conduct daily inspections to resolve issues.

By the end of March, the housing rental sector will complete the collection of housing information for all urban villages and old residential areas within a two-kilometer radius of the three factory areas, and enter the data into the database by labeling them according to three dimensions: apartment type, rent, and commuting distance.

Within two weeks, the recruitment section completed the verification of job postings from the first batch of fifty participating companies and simultaneously established a job seeker information database.

The secondhand goods section sets up a simple inspection point next to each service point, providing free inspection and transaction matching, similar to the inspection point model in Shenzhen.

The housekeeping sector started by addressing the cleaning needs of dual-income families, while simultaneously recruiting laid-off female workers around the factory area for training and certification.

The catering, leisure, and convenience services sections use a "text message forwarding" model to quickly collect information on all businesses around the factory area, with the first batch targeting one hundred businesses.

The next morning, he took the proposal to Lao He, the HR manager of Huihuang Electronics.

Old He was in his early forties and had worked at Huihuang for eight years, managing all the workers coming and going in the factory.

Wu Wenjie spread the project proposal on his desk, explaining two things:

First, Tongcheng.com wants to set up a fixed "Workers' Home Service Point" at the entrance of Huihuang Canteen. It won't take up much space, just a table and a chair, to help workers with their living needs such as renting a house and changing jobs.

Secondly, the local website can help Huihuang Electronics post job openings for free, prioritizing matching job seekers on the platform. Huihuang doesn't need to contribute anything; all they need is a table.

Old He flipped through the entire plan from beginning to end, but did not express his opinion on the spot.

He had previously worked with several employment agencies, and each time the people they recommended would leave before a month was up.

He asked Wu Wenjie why he believed that people recommended by the local life website could stay.

Wu Wenjie said they do more than just post job advertisements. Applicants can see on the platform the impressive factory environment, cafeteria menu, dormitory conditions, and overtime pay calculation method. These details are all written down after being verified on-site by the sales representatives.

The workers will know what's going on before they arrive, so they won't just turn around and leave when they find the goods don't match the description.

Old He thought about it and said he would try it for a month first.

The next day, a folding table appeared at the entrance of the Huihuang Electronics cafeteria.

On the table stood a plastic sign the size of an A4 sheet of paper, with blue background and white lettering that read "Local Life Network · Workers' Home." Next to it was a thick stack of registration forms, in four different colors.

Pink is for registering rental needs, light green is for job seekers, pale yellow is for registering secondhand goods sales, and white is for registering domestic services.

Wang Hai was responsible for guarding this point.

The long line in front of him was mostly made up of female workers, some of whom were holding tea eggs and soy milk that they had just brought from the canteen.

As he filled out the form, he kept saying "Okay," "No problem," and "Wait a moment," his voice gradually becoming hoarse.

By the fifth day, he had visited more than twenty rental buildings in Baishitang Village, which is located around the Huihuang Electronics Factory area.

One of the landlords is a local woman in her fifties surnamed Chen, who has seven single rooms and three one-bedroom apartments for rent.

Previously, her method of renting out properties was to stick stickers on utility poles, which would be torn off by the urban management officers and then re-stamped.

Wang Hai helped her enter the property information into the local website, took photos of the room, and clearly marked the area, orientation, whether there was a private bathroom, and how the water and electricity fees were calculated.

That afternoon, two workers from Hunan who worked at Huihuang Electronics found Aunt Chen's house through a local online marketplace. After work, they came to see the house and each booked a single room.

Aunt Chen was so happy that she insisted on giving Wang Hai a bag of oranges.

Old Zhou, the landlord of the building next door, noticed that the rental notice on Aunt Chen's door was gone and asked her if the house had been rented out.

Aunt Chen said it had been rented out online, with the help of that young man. That same evening, Lao Zhou contacted Wang Hai and asked him to list his dozen or so vacant rooms online as well.

Wu Wenjie transplanted the SMS delivery model from Shenzhen to Huicheng Station.

Within a two-kilometer radius of the Huihuang Electronics factory area are fast food restaurants, food stalls, barbershops, convenience stores, shoe repair stalls, key duplication stalls, and individual businesses that unclog sewers.

The sales representatives went door-to-door to register businesses. Businesses that didn't know how to use the internet only needed to send a short message to the local online platform, and the sales representatives would help them publish their information on the platform.

After finishing organizing the last page of his stack of color-coded registration forms, Wang Hai pushed open the greasy glass door of the fast food restaurant and shouted to the owner behind the stove, who was tossing the wok, "Boss, give me a copy of the menu."

The owner poked his head out from the cooking fumes and announced a list of dishes and prices. He was copying down the dishes next to the cashier when his pen ran out of ink. He scratched a few lines on the paper with his fingernail and continued copying down the rest of the dishes.

When he put the registration form back in the folder, three more coworkers were already queuing up behind him to get their meals.

One of them asked if there were any cheap private rooms near the entrance of Jiarun Plastics Factory, while the other two huddled together to look at the menu for new dishes.

Xie Xiaodong and his recruitment team waited at the entrance of Jiarun Plastics Factory.

His cardboard sign that read "Free Job Search" attracted a constant stream of workers. Some female workers wearing cafeteria aprons helped him weigh down the registration form with mineral water bottles to prevent them from being blown away by the wind.

Old Huang was so worried in the personnel department of Jiarun that he developed blisters on his lips. Few of the people who left before the Lunar New Year had returned, and only half of the production line was operational.

Less than two days after receiving Xie Xiaodong's call, Xie Xiaodong transferred the information of several experienced operators who had registered their job intentions before the Lunar New Year from the Shenzhen recruitment section. Together with the job seekers who had recently registered at the factory gate in Huicheng, he compiled a dozen or so highly matched candidates and recommended them to Lao Huang.

Old Huang arranged a day for intensive interviews and hired many of them on the spot.

Sun Hao set up the second-hand goods inspection point at the entrance of Huihuang Electronics canteen, right next to Wang Hai's service point.

A worker who switched jobs to LG Electronics after the New Year listed his old rice cooker and table fan on a local life website and sold them to a new worker who had just joined the company that same afternoon.

Sun Hao had the inspector remove the bottom cover of the rice cooker to check the wiring and thermostat. Only after confirming that there were no safety hazards did he allow the buyer to pay.

The buyer was a young man who had just come from Heyuan. He said that buying a new rice cooker back home would cost more than half a month's salary, but this second-hand one only cost a few dozen yuan and had been tested and found to have no safety issues.

He gave the seller a five-star review on a local online marketplace and also posted a message asking for a used electric fan for his newly rented single room.

Over the course of a week, Lin Xiaoqiang visited each of the service points in the three pilot factory areas, identifying and resolving problems on the spot.

The registration form for the Huihuang Electronic Service Point showed the highest proportion of rental demand, so he instructed Wang Hai to focus on thoroughly exploring the available properties in Baishitang Village and Shangsha Village.

Jiarun Plastics has a large hiring need, so he asked Xie Xiaodong to bring one more person with him.

The urban villages surrounding the Xinmei Toy Factory are scattered, and the efficiency of the street promoters is low. He asked Sun Hao to temporarily move the second-hand inspection point to the entrance of Xinmei to attract people first and then collect information.

On weekends, the core staff of Huicheng Station gather in the office.

Wu Wenjie projected the data from the past few days onto the whiteboard:

The three service points have received hundreds of registrations of various needs, with rental and job seeking accounting for the vast majority;

The housing rental section has recorded hundreds of listings and dozens of transactions for secondhand goods. The recruitment section has successfully connected several companies with dozens of candidates.

Sun Hao said that although the transaction volume of second-hand goods is not large, the user reviews are generally high. Especially for daily necessities such as rice cookers and electric fans, buyers are most concerned about safety issues rather than price. After the inspection experts eliminate safety hazards, the transaction rate increases significantly.

Xie Xiaodong said the feedback from companies recruiting was also good; Lao Huang mentioned it to him on the phone.

"In the past, the information of workers recommended by agencies was filled in a form with only age, gender and requirements. On your website, you can see real photos of the dormitories and surrounding amenities."

Lin Xiaoqiang made a list of the problems he encountered this week:

There is a shortage of staff at the service points, and each sales representative has to handle several different business inquiries at the same time, which is overwhelming.

Landlords in urban villages often fail to update their information in a timely manner, resulting in complaints because listings posted in the morning are rented out in the afternoon.

Individual vendors around the factory area are less trusting of online platforms and prefer offline transactions.

After listening, Lin Feng drew a simple schedule on the whiteboard:

The heads of each section take turns to be stationed at the three service points, with at least two people at each service point: one responsible for registration and reception, and the other responsible for liaising with landlords and businesses.