"Year after year, there is a labor shortage despite the annual recruitment of workers," this has seemingly become a common phenomenon for traditional industries in the period following the Lunar New Year. Adjusting their own business models and improving employee benefits are important ways for traditional industries to attract and retain workers. However, this method only applies to individual enterprises, attracting more workers to their own companies, but unable to change the overall problem of insufficient and decreasing numbers of workers in the traditional industry.
In many industries, if a company has its own factory, it must have reached a certain scale. In the redwood furniture industry, however, a large portion of businesses handle design, production, and sales all under one roof. Even some smaller companies employ a dozen or twenty workers. Some companies don't have showrooms or storefronts but still maintain a small factory. The production phase remains the core of many redwood furniture enterprises, while relatively little investment is made in design research and marketing, maintaining a traditional "olive-shaped" management model. Moreover, to date, almost all redwood furniture cannot be fully mechanically produced; the higher the value of the redwood used, the greater the proportion of handcrafted production. "Handmade" has even become part of the measure of the value of a piece of redwood furniture. These factors make redwood furniture companies heavily reliant on skilled workers, and this "dependency" becomes even more prominent during the post-Lunar New Year labor shortage.
It is reported that some medium and large-sized redwood furniture companies with better welfare benefits and working environments originally invested more in their employees. They are willing to give their employees raises every year, but they do not want this to be a "forced, unlimited" increase. To escape this irregular employment situation, companies need to first transform their traditional management model. Contrasting with the "olive-shaped" management model is the more economically efficient "dumbbell-shaped" management model. This strengthens the product development and brand marketing phases, weakens the production phase, forming a management style with larger ends and a smaller middle. In terms of management methods, the dumbbell-shaped management model focuses on research and development and market marketing phases, while the production phase mainly involves assembly. A few key, important components are produced in-house, while most components are outsourced or purchased from carefully selected manufacturers. While continuing to manage production well, it enhances marketing capabilities and product development abilities. Years of development have laid the foundation for the overall economic strength of the redwood classical furniture industry. Product design experience, manufacturing levels, and personnel quality have all improved significantly in recent years. Major industrial clusters distributed across the country have formed a certain brand influence through group modes, laying the foundation for the transformation of the redwood classical furniture industry towards a "dumbbell-shaped" management model.
Of course, not all redwood furniture companies have the basis and strength to transition to a "dumbbell-shaped" management model, but if led by the current leading companies in the industry, actively guiding the industry towards a technology-driven, science-focused direction, and transforming a batch of medium and large enterprises, it will not only place companies in a dominant market position but also help them gradually摆脱the constraints of labor issues. Furthermore, once the number of employees at large companies drastically decreases, the recruitment difficulties for small and medium-sized enterprises will be greatly alleviated, which will also contribute to the stability of industry wages. If mechanized production is scientifically and moderately introduced during this process, reasonably allocating the ratio of manual and mechanized production according to requirements, the value of various levels of redwood furniture can also be guaranteed.
Simply solving the "labor shortage" issue through "poaching" or raising wages alone is merely treating the symptoms rather than the root cause. It is not only harmful to the long-term development of the entire industry but also traps companies further into the "labor" dilemma. However, the transformation of the industrial model can enable the redwood furniture industry to break free from "tradition" and become a "star industry" in the future. (Source: China Classical Furniture Network, Reporter Xiao H)