VNET firmly believes that everyone should be treated with respect, all employees and candidates should be treated with fairness, and vows to adhere to the principle of equal employment, while prohibiting any discriminatory acts against diverse factors such as race, religion, gender, nationality and region. We provide employees with equal employment, promotion, and training opportunities. We actively create jobs and ensure that the disabled enjoy equal employment rights, and have been committed to provide equal employment opportunities for everyone by an equal, diverse and inclusive workplace.
In 2020, VNET had a total of 2,545 employees, of which ethnic minorities (14 ethnic minorities) accounted for 5%.
Employee Rights
VNET always sees employees as the key to our success. Therefore, we resolutely protect the legitimate rights and interests of our employees. In strict accordance with laws and regulations, including the "Labor Law of the People's Republic of China" and "Labor Contract Law of the People's Republic of China", we developed the "VNET Employee Handbook" that outlines our employment policies and standards.
To safeguard the rights and interests our employees, VNET’s "Employee Handbook" explicitly prohibits any employee from verbally or physically harassing others, interfering with other employees' work, or creating an unharmonious, dishonest or otherwise unfriendly working environment. Any employee involved in harassment or relevant misconduct will face a range of penalties, including but not limited to lesser degree of informal warnings and utmost degree of termination of employment contract.
In addition, VNET has also clarified an effective mechanism for employees’ anonymous reporting, appeals and upgrade, as well as relevant whistleblowers protection regulations in the "Employee Handbook". By relevant mechanism, employees can anonymously complain to their immediate superiors, the Department of Integrity, the Human Resources Department and other relevant departments. VNET vows to protect these complaints and appeals, and strictly prohibits retaliation against these employees.
In order to safeguard the legal rights and interests of employees, VNET has also set up the Labor Union to help and guide employees to sign collective labor contracts with the company, and supervise the implementation of labor contracts. VNET’s Labor Union strictly complies with the "People's Republic of China’s Enterprise-Labor Dispute Regulations", and performs the functions of labor dispute mediation and assistance. At the same time, the labor union also actively cooperate with the Human Resources Department to formulate the comprehensive working hour system and the irregular working hour system, and put on record for the superior labor union organization body.
Employee communication
VNET is committed to creating an equal, open，and transparent workplace. Employees can make complaints or provide suggestions through public channels such as the whistleblower mailbox or hotline, the labor union, and the Internal Controland Internal Audit Department. We will address the concerns raised by employees in a prompt and organized manner，striving to improve our systems and policies while addressing existing problems.
Employee Development
VNET values human capital development greatly, and has thus establish a general training system made up of Training Courses, Supporting Arrangement, and Management Mechanism. For employees at different stages, the system provides specific programs for the customized needs of the development stage.
l Policies: “the Employee Training Management Regulations”, “the Internal Trainer Management Regulations”, etc
l Training Modules: Leadership, Professional skill sets, Soft skill sets
l Online learning platform: “VNET E-Xue”, the internal e-learning platform, consists over 300 classes from internal and external resources, provides online class, online seminar, online training and respective examinations to employees.
Experience sharing sessions are set where senior managers from our partner firms or clients are engaged to exchange their experience with our department heads and senior managers. Furthermore, VNET encourages and supports all employees to leverage internal and external training programs for certification that can help with respective professional development. VNET periodically provides joint training programs with mainstream Cloud providers for all VNET employees. Similarly, VNET also provides financial reimbursement and relevant support/incentives for all employees in pursuit of professional degree and certifications (eg. senior network engineer, PMP, national HR manager certificate, etc.)
Regarding employee career development, we established two promotion tracks for employees, namely the management track and the professional track. Employees are free to choose their track based on their own interests and career aspirations. For division heads and below, we perform reviews on an ongoing basis. For employees with levels higher than division heads, we review their eligibility for promotion annually to ensure equal opportunities for all.
Meanwhile, VNET adopts an open and flexible talent pipeline development strategy. The "VNET Eagle Program" is designed to both continue the VNET culture and values legacies, and to attract excellent talents for the cultivation of future leaders of the company. The three training modules provided include Operation and Maintenance, Product and Services, and Business Management. Moreover, the "Eagle Program" is setup to empower both the cultivation, and on-going development of these management trainees. Similarly, VNET has established a successful graduate traineeship and apprenticeship program by the "campus recruitment implementation plan". The plan is designed to attract young talents with various professional intern positions. VNET provides six-week of technological learning courses to prepare these young talents, and provides roadmap for future development for the top performers.
VNET has established a comprehensive annual performance management system that continues to attract and motivate outstanding talents through the existing incentive mechanism. VNET has formulated the "Performance Management Standards", specifying the company's performance appraisal process, feedback mechanism, result application mechanism and appeal mechanism. Employees can appeal the results of performance evaluation, and receive timely response from joint-task-group formed by respective Departments and the Human Resources Department.
Employee Health and Safety
As a people-oriented company, we are dedicated to creating a supportive environment for employees, caring for their health and safety, and improving their life-work balance. We care for employees and are committed to building a stable and sustainable employee community, and we have received the ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System certification and have been acting in compliance with the system in our operations.
With our employees always in mind, we designed an employee benefits program that includes comprehensive subsidies, medical insurance, housing provident funds, and critical illness insurance. We also purchase supplementary medical insurance for employees and their families. In addition, we organize regular extracurricular events and activities such as parent-child days and monthly jogging parties. To support new and expecting mothers, we have built nursing rooms for pregnant and breast-feeding female employees. Some of our business units also provide office massage services for employees every week, which give a boost to the sense of happiness and belonging of employees. In addition, we organize regular ball games with the labor union to diversify the enrichment opportunities.
In terms of safety, we provide protective devices for employees exposed to occupational hazards. We identify and resolve hidden dangers in a timely manner to ensure the safety of employees. We organize regular emergency drills and fire safety training to minimize the possibility of accidental injuries. During the reporting period, the Company had no major work-related injuries or fatalities.
In addition, we pay great attention to the physical and mental wellbeing of employees. We have set up psychological counseling rooms for employees, organized office health lectures, AED demonstrations, and health knowledge training sessions. We provide employees with regular physical examinations and take practical measures to ensure the health of employees. During the COVID-19 outbreak, we made various efforts to protect the health of employees such as disinfecting offices and distributing protective supplies.
