Text: Wu Chan
Edited by Hu Zhanjia
From January 8, 2024, some media revealed that the frequency of washing hands of Luckin store staff has been changed from once an hour to once every two hours, which is a system change made after Luckin was frequently searched for "bad hands" in December last year.
In October 2023, a reporter from Dongfang.com Zongxiang News joined a Luckin Coffee store in Shanghai through an open recruitment process. And the day after the blue apron was tied, the reporter's hands changed significantly. According to the prescribed process, an employee washes his hands at least 8 times, washes the rag 22 times, and touches the disinfectant 22 times during the 8-hour working hours. A large number of "washing, washing, washing" has made many people on the Internet jokingly call Luckin baristas "cleaners".
The reporter's actual experience found that the "bad hand" pictures on the social platform came faster than expected.
As soon as the news was issued, it immediately sparked heated discussions, and many Luckin employees posted that due to frequent hand washing and contact with disinfectant with their bare hands while working at Luckin, the skin on their hands became rough after working for a period of time, and even chapped and peeled.
Luckin, the local coffee giant founded in 2017, quickly exceeded 10,000 stores in six years, and its revenue surpassed Starbucks. When the outside world marveled at Luckin's racing speed, few paid attention to the young forces behind the high-speed operation of this machine, they as fuel, as well as screws, are the B-side youth behind Luckin's A-side halo that should not be ignored.
The author of Zhongmen (ID: ZhongMian_ZM) also chatted with Luckin employees, and perhaps a clear slice can be seen from these cases.
1. "Like the bark of a tree, I can't see my fingerprints clearly"
Wu Xiao's social media introduction is: You don't touch a drop of the bitterness of learning Xi, and you swallow the bitterness of life desperately.
She usually likes to share photo photos, but one of them seems out of place - she shared a picture of her chapped hands, with the caption "In Luckin's rotten hands, my mother shook her head when she saw it". In the picture, Wu Xiao's fingernails are cut very short, the surface of the skin is extremely dry, covered with fine textures, like "cracks burned by ceramics", there are many cracks on the tips of his fingers, and the palms of his hands are furrows and horizontals, which do not look like the hands of a young woman.
Two or three days after joining the company, Wu Xiao found that her hands began to be wrong, and her hands were chapped and flaky due to frequent hand washing and contact with disinfectant. As a girl who loves beauty, she was just a little frustrated at first, but after a few days, her hands began to crack, and she had to wear gloves to continue to work.
Luckin employees are also nicknamed "coffee buttonmakers" because coffee making is largely done by automating the coffee machine. But behind the birth of a cup of coffee, there is also a lot of trivial work of washing and scrubbing, so it is also called "Luckin Cleaner". However, it is still highly debated whether the use of such allergic, chapped and flaky hands into coffee production really preserves food hygiene standards.
The post sparked a lot of discussion and resonance.
A Luckin employee showed his hands covered with red rashes, and the background was Luckin's dense duty process. Someone commented at the bottom that his hands were also repeatedly peeling, "like tree bark, and I couldn't see fingerprints clearly." Someone's wrists and hands have turned two colors, and the swollen fingers are full of peeling white flakes. There are also employees who comfort each other, "molting is the beginning of improvement".
Some netizens said that they originally wanted to apply for a job at Luckin, but they were persuaded by the pictures to quit and decided to go to work at a burger restaurant. The clerks of other chain brands said that they have been working for more than half a year, but their hands are still intact. This also caused many Luckin employees to complain, "Luckin has a habit of cleanliness", and set up some "inexplicable cumbersome disciplines", such as turning off the faucet with paper pads after washing hands, writing daily newspapers every day, and not having bad reviews in the store.
Wu Xiao didn't dare to tell his parents about the discomfort of his hands, for fear that they would be too worried.
Picture: From Pear Video
She grew up in the countryside, worked as a courier, and did odd jobs, and it seems that the previous physical work was more tiring. Someone suggested that she wear gloves to work, but after Wu Xiao practiced, she found that if she wore plastic gloves, the cleaning utensils would be easy to puncture, but if she wore rubber gloves, it would affect the efficiency of the operation. After Wu Xiao's boyfriend found out about this, he asked her not to do it again. But Wu Xiaogang stabilized and didn't want to give up this job with a good salary easily.
So she started repeating the process.
Arriving at the store at 7:30 a.m., I wash my hands for 20 seconds, and then go through a series of "early start" processes: lift the plastic wrap on the coffee machine, replenish the syrup, milk and other materials needed to make coffee, check the expiration date, and then make tea and boil pearls. And wipe down a series of utensils such as cup holders, syrup, refrigerators, strainers, coffee machines, etc.
One of the more difficult tasks is to prepare disinfectant water, which she needs to carry and mix a large bucket of 25L disinfectant water, and then soak three different colored rags in different disinfection boxes: a pink disinfectant to clean food contact surfaces, a green disinfectant cloth to wipe non-food contact surfaces, and a blue disinfectant wipe in the guest area.
One of the "culprits" that causes their chapped hands is the process of replacing the rag and disinfectant: first, the rag is washed and wrung out with tap water by hand, then soaked in the corresponding disinfectant soaking box, and then a new rag is taken out of the disinfectant water to use. The disinfectant in the box is changed every three hours, and the rags are changed every thirty minutes. Every half hour, the single-screen machine will have an alarm clock to remind employees to complete this series of operations.
In addition, the operation of employees also follows a series of "fixed numbers": every hour, Luckin employees must wash their hands routinely, touch their hair, eyes and aprons to wash their hands again, and each time they wash their hands must be more than 20 seconds, within 2 minutes, employees must finish a cup of coffee, and the used utensils must be soaked in disinfectant for 5 minutes, and then rinsed with water...
If calculated based on 8 hours of work per day, Luckin employees wash their hands at least 10 times a day and touch disinfectant more than 18 times a day. After the store closes, they also have a series of trivial operations, cleaning a series of utensils such as milk tanks, measuring cups, coffee machines, etc., and soaking the utensils in disinfectant water as required before closing the store.
When Zhou Hao was studying in Yuelu University Town, he also worked part-time at Luckin for four months. He works four to five days a week and also has chapped hands, but because his part-time hours are not in the winter, he is still in a tolerable range. He said that in addition to the process of washing hands on the hour and changing the rag every half hour, as long as you leave the monitoring area and return to the operation area, you must wash your hands again, and if you touch anything other than the operation table, you must wash your hands again.
Surveillance is a pair of eyes that are everywhere.
He remembers that a colleague was deducted half an hour's work hours for forgetting to change the disinfectant on time. A netizen shared his own violation report, which read: At 21:20, use a pink rag that has lost its disinfection effect to wipe the inner wall of the milk refrigerator (the rag hanging by the pool). The report also included a clear screenshot of the violation, which means that the employee did not follow the half-hour rag disinfection regime. Luckin stores are installed with basically 360-degree monitoring without dead ends, and there will be special employees responsible for patrolling the monitoring of each store, and if it is found to be non-compliant, it will warn the store, and the regional manager above the store manager level will set up punishment regulations.
What makes many Luckin employees "frightened" is that there are also irregular "quality control audits".
When receiving the pop-up prompt of "Quality Management Department personnel come to the store for inspection, please cooperate", the employees will start to stage a series of near-perfect operations. When responding to an audit, even if a drop of water is dropped on the countertop, employees will scramble to wipe it dry. Luckin will send a special team to the store to conduct "microbial testing" and check the microflora of the product.
In order to ensure customs clearance, employees must meet the standards for hand washing and disinfectant soaking in rags, and whether they must re-wash their hands and soak them in disinfectant in all cases where their hands may be contaminated.
Social media has come up with a set of tips for dealing with Luckin bacterial testing, such as remembering to disinfect the tap mouth of drinking water with a red rag soaked in disinfectant water, and there are also certain tips for holding cups, preferably using paper cups in the middle with a low probability of contamination. If you want to make tea drinks, you must also remember to sterilize the scissors that cut the tea bag. In order to reduce the probability of "infection", if the other party does not ask for ice, just do ice removal. Some netizens commented that this is comparable to the sterile scene of laboratories and operating rooms.
Standardized quality control is the ballast stone of the chain store, and every cup of Luckin coffee can be perfectly reproduced.
However, whether such a strict workflow is user-friendly for employees has sparked widespread controversy. Zhou Hao said that even if he has tried his best to enforce the health regulations, he still encounters unpleasant frictions.
According to Zhou Hao's recollection, once a colleague in the cup area accidentally touched the edge of the cup when he was covering the lid, and a guest was very mindful after seeing it, so the colleague had to make a new cup and put on gloves to cover the lid again. Zhou Hao feels that this sensitivity to food hygiene may be related to food safety incidents such as "rat head duck neck" that occurred before.
Yang Zhen, who is also a part-time college student, also has the same observation, and customers attach great importance to food hygiene. She remembers that during the peak period of order explosion, because she did not have time to clean the empty boxes and bags at the bar and wipe the water stains on the tabletop, the store where she was located was complained by customers that it was "too messy and dirty".
But under the high walls of the system, there are always gaps.
Zhou Hao said that rules are dead, and people are alive. For example, the manager of his store said that as long as he guarantees that there will be no "cross-infection", he can not be so strict.
Some employees have observed that many people will use some "flexible" means to change the system, although there is a monitoring and system on the surface, but if customers are queuing, employees can't actually guarantee that they will wash their hands on time every time and guarantee a 20-second handwashing time. A deeper logic is that as long as the store performance is good enough, the details can be loosened within the red line.
In order to avoid hand discomfort caused by hand washing, some employees will go to "fake hand washing", and some employees said that in order to reduce the injury, they will secretly not use hand sanitizer, and if they are found, there will be no substantial punishment for the store where he works.
Luckin employees said that at present, the store has not changed hand sanitizer or changed the handwashing policy. The only change is that the store manager instructed everyone to go back at night and rub more hand cream.
2. A bigger temptation than a bad hand, salary
After Luckin employee Yang Zhen saw the bad hand incident on the hot search, his first reaction was "That's right".
She still remembers that her part-time friend at that time originally had very white and tender hands, and it changed within a few days of joining the company, but she also understood that the food safety regulations were strict, which was reassuring for consumers. According to Yang Zhen's analysis, the bad hands may be due to the fact that Luckin's hand sanitizer is not gentle enough, the concentration is high, and the prescribed frequency of hand washing is high, so it is particularly hurtful. Some netizens have done experiments, if you "fake press" hand sanitizer and only use disinfectant water, your hands will improve within a few days.
In fact, this is a common problem faced by catering employees, no one can escape occupational diseases, and it is the norm for many ordinary people to continue to work half-pushing.
A reporter visited and found that employees of Coco, Chabaidao and Mixue Bingcheng all said that they did not have strict rules on the frequency of hand washing, and they would wash their hands regularly before going to work every day.
Cudi employees said that, similar to Luckin, they will also ask to wash their hands once an hour, and the rags should be washed every half hour, and washing the rags will also cause hand discomfort.
Chabaidao employees said that their rags are changed every four hours, and they do not feel too obvious discomfort in their hands.
Heytea employees said that they wash their hands every two hours, in addition to the requirement to wash their hands when they touch dirt and leave their posts, unlike other stores, they have a special hand dryer, and then wipe the disinfectant gel after blow-drying, "our hands are not hurt", different rags will have different disinfectant water, and the disinfectant will be changed once a day.
A Starbucks employee said that they have Xi taken for granted that they also have bad hands every winter. Starbucks also has strict rules for hand washing, wash hands every 30 minutes, change disinfectant rags, and wash hands again with disinfectant after washing, as long as hands touch non-food items, you need to wash your hands again to ensure that your hands including your wrists are clean. He said, "Starbucks' food safety management is very strict, especially if there is a problem with hand washing, it is a serious non-compliance, and all the performance of store partners may be canceled, and relevant employees will be discouraged."
"Bad hands" is a common occupational disease in the food industry in winter.
Self-employed people outside the chain store have to endure long-term soaking and cracking, which are even more insecure, but where the red line of food safety and hygiene is set can only rely on the conscience of the boss.
Gaihua is a barbecue practitioner who has suffered from skin diseases for a long time. Self-employed people don't have a fixed number of hours like chain store employees, and Gaihua works a total of 17 hours a day from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., which means that her hands need to be exposed to water, soups, dish soap, hand sanitizer and disinfectant for long periods of time.
As a result, her hands are swollen, blistered, dry and itchy, as long as there are lines, there will be cracks, there are more than a dozen wounds on one hand, and every time she comes into contact with the irritating disinfectant again, "there will be a piercing pain, and wearing gloves will only make it more swelling and breathless." Gaihua sought medical treatment everywhere, and the doctor said that it was a bacterial infection, and he would be cured automatically if he changed careers.
Winter is the seasonal peak for bad hands. However, for catering workers, the working state of the machine gears is a challenge every moment. Therefore, finding a fulcrum for the work is extremely important for them on the "assembly line".
After Zhou Hao left college, he became a Xi lawyer, but he sometimes finds working at Luckin more enjoyable. At least I won't be called back to work overtime after work.
Zhou Hao has a kind personality and likes to talk and interact with guests, "this will make work less boring", and this kind of connection with strangers also allows Zhou Hao to find his subjectivity as a person.
Some employees said that Luckin's salary level and promotion system are at a good level in the industry, so bad hands and job burnout have become tolerable.
According to the job search software, Luckin employees initially earn about 19 to 22 yuan per hour, and after passing the barista qualification exam, the hourly salary can rise to about 27 yuan.
3. The "hourly worker" who can't stop behind the low-price victory
The English name of Luckin Coffee is "luckin coffee", which means "the harder you work, the luckier you are".
There is no shortage of stories of dark horses in the Chinese coffee market, but in the environment of generally sluggish consumption, Luckin Coffee's performance in the second quarter is still bright enough.
In June 2023, Luckin turned around against the wind and became the first "10,000-store brand" in the Chinese coffee market, and in the second quarter of 2023, it set a record of overtaking Starbucks China in terms of revenue. In terms of store expansion, Luckin seems to be working extra hard, with a total of 13,273 stores by the end of the third quarter of 2023.
Whether it's product innovation or cost control, there is an important premise behind the success of Luckin's operating model - scale.
Only by leveling the cost of scale can we gain profit space in the battlefield where the main cost performance is achieved. According to the financial report data, due to the growth of economies of scale and the company's technology-driven operations, Luckin's operating expenses decreased to 84.7% of net revenue in the first quarter of 2023 from 99.3% in the same period last year. Behind the scale is the collection and mining of a large amount of data.
In addition to mining consumer explosive products from a large amount of demand data, we also find a win-win situation of efficiency and scale from standardized work processes and human resource analysis. Behind the low-price strategy of scale effect, part-time employees support most of Luckin's country. According to the 2022 annual report, Luckin had 14,599 full-time employees and 19,045 part-time employees, and at that time Luckin owned 8,214 stores. As of September 2023, the number of Luckin stores has exceeded 130,000.
The hierarchy of Luckin employees is mainly divided into newcomers, baristas, on duty, assistant stores, and main stores, and becoming a vice store is the beginning of becoming a regular employee.
When the effective working hours exceed 40 hours and the recipe has been mastered, the newcomer can apply for the assessment to become a Luckin barista, which also means that there will be a higher hourly wage. If you continue to pass the exam, you can obtain the duty manager qualification, and you will have twice the number of hours calculated.
Luckin's human resources management system makes full use of the "cloud" system. Employees can basically complete all the training and assessment online, from the electronic signature of the entry, to check their own pay slips, issue income certificates and other matters can be completed with their mobile phones. They also need to take new product exams on the "Luckin University" app regularly, and may be dismissed if they fail to pass. Because of a certain "technical content", most of Luckin's employees are young people.
Luckin's digital DNA has been fully armed with the entire system.
From store location selection to product research and development, from supply chain management to user operation and personnel management, a set of closed-loop digital systems with smooth operation has been formed. Luckin employees have a dedicated digital system to assist in scheduling and ordering, and the much-criticized online ordering strategy was originally designed to facilitate data retention.
"9.9" has become Luckin's low-price brand image, from the very beginning of the use of low prices to seize market share, to later focus on "good quality coffee", Luckin's brand image has successfully achieved "both want and want", but the establishment of this image requires precise cost control, manpower account is one of them, in addition to hiring a large number of part-time staff, Luckin will also optimize the layout of manpower in terms of scheduling.
Entering the winter, the coffee industry has entered the off-season of sales, and the number of customer orders has a downward trend. Some part-time employees said that the frequency of Luckin shifts has also decreased, and the daily shift schedule of employees is determined by the store manager, and the manpower arrangement will be adjusted according to the number of cups per hour. Some Luckin employees said that they originally needed to schedule several shifts, but only one person may need to be on duty during off-peak hours, and the frequency and working hours of each store are being reduced in order to control costs.
Some employees had to work at Luckin and Cudi because of their short schedules.
A part-time employee said that in November, he was only scheduled to work 48 hours, a total of eight days, and in December, he was not scheduled again, and the store manager asked him to find another part-time job. Some employees said that they only worked two or three days a week, and each time they worked only 3~4 hours. Some employees also reported that regardless of whether they have time to take a break, many stores stipulate that one hour of rest must be deducted after working for eight hours. However, because of the off-season, some stores deduct the rest hours for up to one and a half hours.
Luckin's speed doesn't stop, and the hands that continue to crack are also there.
(Note: The names of the characters in the article have been changed)
Operation|Chen Jiahui