Dawn of Life

Shi Potian's expression had been grim since the meeting began, and it was now extremely unpleasant. In this meeting, he had become the person at the very bottom of the food chain, completely suppressed by the newly promoted director, Lin Yue.

Without a word, he stood up, picked up his laptop, glared at Lin Yue, and walked out of the conference room.

Lin Yue naturally received his warning, but she was also helpless. Ever since Shengxing informed her that the company was about to be acquired and arranged for a consultant she trusted to supervise her, she had no other choice.

Moreover, Shengxing had repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with her mild approach to problems, and the phrase "I'm your boss, you need to help me solve problems" had been a constant reminder that if she wanted to gain a foothold in the company and successfully pass the probationary period for the position of HR Director, she had to change her way of doing things. Especially in the current situation where Shengxing was in conflict with Liu Zheng, she had to make her stance clear.

Of course, regarding the matter itself, she felt that there was nothing wrong with how she handled it. As for her attitude towards Shi Potian, she thought that she might have to talk to him again later to see if she could make amends.

Having learned from the experience of the first half of the meeting, Liu Zheng understood that to protect the people he most wanted to keep, he had to temporarily abandon others and stop arguing about the personnel ratio, as it would obviously be pointless. The people he most wanted to keep, ranked by importance, were Shi Potian, Yin Jie, and the head of the operations center.

He currently has eight subordinates. According to the "271" normal distribution principle that Lin Yue mentioned earlier, there can only be a maximum of two senior directors. He frowned, repeatedly pressing down and then flicking the pen in his hand.

Lin Yue knew he was struggling with this, and seeing his brows furrowing deeper and deeper, she guessed that this choice was indeed quite difficult for Liu Zheng. But Shengxing was still waiting at the scene, so she had no choice but to urge the process forward and remind Liu Zheng that he could begin his report.

Liu Zheng took a deep breath and adjusted the job level of Operations Director in the job level distribution table to intermediate.

Sheng Xing stared at Shi Potian's name with a solemn expression.

Seeing this, Lin Yue spoke softly, "The proportions in the draft submitted by President Liu are fine. The specific personnel's job levels are part of the business-level competency assessment. Let's see if President Sheng has any suggestions for adjustments."

She gently and naturally handed the floor to Shengxing.

Sheng Xing turned to Liu Zheng and questioned, "How could Shi Potian be rated as a senior director?"

Liu Zheng straightened up in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He cleared his throat and countered, "Shi Potian joined Dasheng Company eight years ago, starting with an assistant handing out flyers, and has now secured half of the company's channel business in the domestic cultural industry chain, building half of the company's empire. If someone like that can't be promoted to senior director, then who in the company is qualified?"

Liu Zheng spoke with great emotion, his eyes firm and his expression resolute, as if to say that if anyone disagreed with Shi Potian being awarded the title of senior director, he would be irreconcilable with them.

From the perspective of the ability model, Lin Yue actually agrees with Liu Zheng's assessment of Shi Potian; Shi Potian does indeed possess the ability to be rated as advanced.

So she buried her head behind her laptop, pretending to be focused on taking meeting minutes, while silently praying that Shengxing wouldn't call on her to speak.

At this moment, she couldn't stand against her direct superior, but she really didn't want to break the rules.

She suddenly remembered that there was someone else present who could help her. Just as she was about to signal with her eyes, she heard Sheng Xing's voice again: "The marketing center's performance has been declining recently. Under these circumstances, if he is promoted to senior director, what will the rest of the team think?"

Liu Zheng's lips curled into a confident smile as he said, "President Sheng, today we're assessing job levels, which primarily focus on ability. Performance is a separate matter. According to Lin Yue's plan, job levels are determined first, and then performance targets are set based on the new levels. Since his performance targets were indeed not met, we can hold another meeting to review the reasons and seek solutions."

Lin Yue understood when she heard this; Liu Zheng's words were basically a verbatim copy of what she had said to Shi Potian.

It's impossible for Liu Zheng to have studied the plan so thoroughly. Although there's nothing wrong with it in theory, she can't go back to talking about the rules at this point. Otherwise, Shengxing will think she's just talking theory without actually helping him solve the problem.

So she turned to look at Xiao Feng. Fortunately, she had anticipated this situation and informed him of it beforehand.

Xiao Feng nodded to her, gave her a knowing look, and said, "President Sheng, what President Liu said is indeed the logic. Job level and performance appraisal are separate; job level comes first, then performance. This is a professional issue in human resources."

Xiao Feng is someone Shengxing trusts. If he speaks, Shengxing won't feel he's avoiding the issue, but rather that it's an unavoidable situation in their professional field. In the workplace, sometimes it's like this: the same words spoken by different people can have drastically different effects.

Upon hearing Xiao Feng's words, Sheng Xing did not insist further and nodded, saying, "Alright, let's appoint Shi Potian as a senior director for now. So, how do you plan to address the performance evaluation issue?"

He looked at Xiao Feng, then at Lin Yue.

Xiao Feng stated the conclusions that Lin Yue had discussed with him beforehand: "Performance appraisal itself is a derivative project of the 'Competency Model'. After the job level assessment is completed, everyone must set performance goals according to the new job level. If the goals are not met after one quarter, the bottom performers will be eliminated according to the company's performance appraisal regulations."

Sheng Xing turned to Lin Yue and asked, "Is the 'Competency Model' project ending today? Now you should shift your focus to performance appraisal and salary adjustments."

Lin Yue nodded in agreement and turned to look at Liu Zheng. Liu Zheng looked thoughtful and didn't reply.

After leaving the meeting room, Lin Yue reflected on Liu Zheng's choice. The operations center was responsible for online operations, while the marketing center was responsible for offline channel sales. Both were vital to the company's business. In the end, Liu Zheng abandoned the online operations staff and kept the technology team, a team that Shengxing seemed to value less.

She couldn't quite understand the reason behind it, but she had a vague feeling that the matter might not be so simple, as if it were a grand scheme with far-reaching implications.

After the meeting, Lin Yue went to see Shi Potian. She felt she had thoroughly offended him that day, but they had no personal grudges, and she was grateful for his help with Zhang Wei's matter. There was another reason: her best friend Su Ling was Shi Potian's subordinate, and she didn't want to involve Su Ling in her own affairs.

She went downstairs and bought two cups of coffee. She walked to Shi Potian's workstation, put the coffee on his desk with a big smile, and said sweetly, "Brother Shi, I brought you a cup of coffee downstairs. It's your favorite Starbucks vanilla latte, the kind with no sugar and no milk foam."

Apart from the VP (Vice President), no managers below the director level have private offices; instead, they sit in open-plan workstations. When the company was renovated, to save money, the HR department claimed it was to facilitate interaction between managers and employees, allowing managers to immediately sense the team's dynamics.