Two employees at an Ito Yokado store in Wangjing area bow in front of the staff entrance. Wang Yixuan / for China Daily
A branch of Ito Yokado, the Japanese department store, has introduced a "bow punishment" to improve its employees' service, triggering controversial discussions over the penalty.
Ito Yokado's Wangjing store announced the policy about a week ago. It requires employees to bow to colleagues and customers if they are found to have behaved unprofessionally at work.
Inappropriate behavior includes having messy hairstyles, making personal phone calls during work and certain mistakes at work. First-time offenders will be asked to bow to whoever is passing by for 20 minutes to one hour. Repeat offenders will be fined 50 yuan by the company.
The rule is regarded as "humiliating" by some of those who have been punished, while labor rights lawyers said cultural differences resulted in the conflict.
A woman who sells Tata shoes at the store said the punishment made her uncomfortable.
The woman who declined to be named said that during her one-hour punishment, she bowed to all passers-by but none reacted, which made her feel like a second-class citizen.
Fu Yingtao, a lawyer from the Beijing labor rights protection center, said the punishment is highly inappropriate, whether from the perspective of a lawyer or an ordinary person.
"Making it into a company policy does not necessarily mean it is appropriate or legally right," Fu told METRO on Tuesday.
"The policy should be accepted by the majority of people and by social values.
"Maybe it is common courtesy to bow in other cultures. But when the rule is transplanted into Chinese society and is applied to Chinese employees, it may cause conflict."
Li Zhisheng, a spokesman of Ito Yokado Beijing, said the bow punishment is a decision of the manager of the Wangjing store. The policy does not exist in its other eight stores in Beijing.
Officials from the Wangjing store would not comment.
Li said the punishment is only an approach to improve the service of the store's employees.
"Service quality is very important to our industry but most people who work here are not aware of that," he said.
He said the looks and actions of sales staff have a great impact on people's impressions about the store.
"We do respect our employees, but our customers' needs are our top concern," he said.
