The impact of the disaster on returning to work is far-reaching, and Foxconn is anxious to launch an incentive system for employees to return to work

Foxconn plans to resume 50% of its production in mainland China by the end of February, and plans to resume 80% of its production in mainland China in March.

When it comes to the actual resumption of work at Foxconn's factories, Foxconn responded: "The group's factories in mainland China are closely cooperating with the resumption of work requirements of local governments, and resuming work in an orderly manner in batches; at the same time, the resumption of work in each factory is strictly required to be legal and compliant, with employee safety as the highest principle. The resumption of work in each factory is subject to the announcement of the local government." The reporter learned from an informed source that the resumption of work at Foxconn's factories in Zhengzhou, Henan and Shenzhen is still not optimistic.

In addition, under the epidemic, when employees will return to work is also a problem.

On February 15, Foxconn Zhengzhou launched the "Anti-epidemic Return to Work Incentive Award", which targets iDPBG Zhengzhou employees (excluding Sunshine Factory), with each person receiving a reward of 3,000 yuan. The reward policy also provides detailed instructions on the return to work time, attendance requirements, and reward payment time.

With the resumption of work in factories not optimistic, Foxconn is making such great efforts to incentivize employees to return to work. Is Foxconn in a hurry?

Ming-Chi Kuo, a well-known analyst in the mobile phone industry, recently reported that  iPhone  shipments will drop by 10% to 36 million to 40 million units in the first quarter of 2020. It is understood that Foxconn's main factories responsible for iPhone assembly are the Zhengzhou factory in Henan and the Shenzhen factory.

All for resumption of work

In order to deliver new iPhone orders on schedule and minimize the impact of the epidemic on Apple's new products, Foxconn has been working hard to communicate with relevant domestic departments and strive to resume work as soon as possible.

The company has already established an epidemic prevention command center. The group has decided that all employees returning to Taiwan from the mainland will temporarily postpone their return to the mainland factories and work in Taiwan instead. Employees returning to Taiwan from Wuhan need to continue home quarantine and do not need to go to work. As for the mainland factories, they will temporarily maintain the necessary manpower to stay on duty during the Spring Festival, and unless the local government stipulates otherwise, they will postpone the full resumption of work until February 10. At the same time, they insist on comprehensive disinfection of the park, deployment of epidemic prevention materials, promotion of health and hygiene knowledge, and establishment of employee love observation areas.

Although Foxconn was originally scheduled to resume work on February 10, on February 8, it was reported that Foxconn told employees in its Shenzhen factory not to return to work after the Spring Festival holiday, which was extended to February 10. At the same time, Foxconn also took measures to isolate workers returning from other places to Zhengzhou, Henan for 14 days.

On the other hand, even if employees return to work, the shortage of protective materials is still a problem. Faced with the situation of "it's hard to get a mask" during the epidemic, Foxconn began to make masks by itself. Leifeng.com (Official Account: Leifeng.com) learned that in addition to companies engaged in medical equipment and protective products working overtime and urgently expanding production, BYD, SAIC General Motors, Zhongshun Jie Rou, and companies that make cars, mobile phones, sanitary napkins/diapers, solar energy, and suits have all switched to making masks.

Foxconn recently introduced its first mask production line in the group's Longhua Park, and the relevant production capacity is expected to reach 2 million masks per day by the end of February. In addition, Foxconn has also built a health and epidemic prevention network for millions of employees.

In terms of employee health information flow, Foxconn relies on the group's internal self-developed APPs such as Xiangxin. Through employees' daily online health status reporting and the use of system big data analysis and processing, it can grasp the health status of the group's employees in real time and improve the speed of epidemic response.

Not only that, Foxconn also opened its "Fii Cloud Service Developer Center's five core services" for free for a period of 90 days for other industrial enterprise users to use for online office and collaborative development.

In order to ensure the safety of workers, Foxconn requires all factory workers to wear masks and undergo temperature tests. At the same time, after repeated communications with relevant departments, its Zhengzhou factory resumed work on a small scale on February 10, but the production capacity was at low load.

Is Foxconn anxious?

50% of Apple's global supply chain is in China, and Foxconn is one of Apple's main assemblers. Previously, a lot of information showed that Apple will launch the iPhone SE2 at the 2020 spring conference, and the series will also be re-launched after many years.

However, the verification of new products, the introduction testing of new materials and components, the design decisions of new products, and the confirmation of product blueprints and key specifications all require very close cooperation between Apple and its suppliers.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo recently released a report saying that both the supply and demand sides of the iPhone will be hit by the epidemic, so he lowered his iPhone shipment forecast for the first quarter of 2020 by about 10%. After the reduction, the shipment forecast is expected to be 36 million to 40 million units.

Earlier, on January 28, U.S. time, during Apple's first quarter earnings conference call for fiscal year 2020, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the recent outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia in China has affected Apple's business in China to a certain extent. Currently, Apple has restricted employees from traveling to China.

In addition to Apple, domestic manufacturers may also be affected because February to March is the final testing stage before the release and mass production of flagship products of many domestic manufacturers, and it is also the debugging stage of products planned to be released in the first half of the year.

For example, the Xiaomi Mi 10, which was originally scheduled to be released in February, was mainly assembled in Foxconn's Langfang factory, but the factory recently announced a delay in resuming work. Therefore, this has brought severe challenges to the collaboration and rapid adjustment capabilities between Foxconn and its supply chain partners. Currently, the Xiaomi Mi 10 launch conference has been changed to an online launch.

For Foxconn, it is crucial that their factory in Zhengzhou resumes work as soon as possible, because currently 90% of the world's iPhones are produced here.

As for the "Anti-epidemic Return to Work Incentive Award" launched by Foxconn in Zhengzhou, according to people familiar with the matter, the workers at the factory on the first day of resumption of work were those who stayed on duty during the Spring Festival. They did receive a notice to return to work on February 10, but the factory soon notified them to wait for news at home. There were rumors among the workers that everyone would return to work on the 17th at the earliest, but they did not receive a clear written notice, and coupled with their concerns about the epidemic, they have no plans to return to the factory for the time being.

A staff member from a non-production line logistics department of Foxconn in Zhengzhou said that he stayed behind in the factory during the Spring Festival. After the outbreak of the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, the factory buses used to pick up and drop off workers were stopped, and the remaining workers had to solve their own transportation to and from work. After the resumption of work, if the workers who are still away from home want to return to the factory, they cannot live in the factory dormitory and have to self-isolate after returning, so the workers who went home for the Spring Festival are waiting and watching.

“Although we resumed work on February 10, there are very few workers in the factory.” On February 13, local residents of Foxconn in Zhengzhou said that the number of workers in Foxconn in Zhengzhou did not exceed 200,000 in 2019, with relatively more people in the second half of the year. Now the administrative and workshop workers in the entire factory add up to only more than 1,000 but less than 2,000 people.

Of course, Foxconn also has safeguards. To ensure the resumption of production, Foxconn has worked hard with the local management department in Zhengzhou to do a good job in epidemic prevention, and quarantined employees returning to the factory for 14 days to try to avoid the spread of new pneumonia. In terms of employee health information flow, Foxconn relies on the group's internal self-developed APPs such as Xiangxin, and uses system big data analysis and processing through employees' daily online health status declaration to grasp the health status of the group's employees in real time and improve the speed of epidemic response. In addition, the mask production line introduced by Foxconn for the first time in the group's Longhua Park is expected to produce 2 million masks per day to ensure that employees have sufficient masks available.

However, the verification of new products, the introduction and testing of new materials and components, the design decisions of new products, and the confirmation of product blueprints and key specifications all require very close cooperation between Apple and its suppliers. Therefore, both the supply and demand sides of the iPhone have been hit by the epidemic, and the iPhone shipment forecast for the first quarter of 2020 has been lowered by about 10%. After the reduction, the shipment forecast is expected to be 36 million to 40 million units.