Yiwu Asu Fashion Accessories Co. Ltd.: Case Study

Yiwu ASU Fashion Accessories Co., Ltd. is a manufacturing and retailing company of jewelry and fashion accessories, based in Zheijang, China. Their products include jewelries (necklaces, bracelets, rings, bangles, brooches, and earrings), hair accessories, scarves, sunglasses, and hats. The company manufactures its own products with well-equipped testing equipment and strong technical force. It prides itself with its wide range, stylish and good quality products at reasonable prices.
The company, a sole proprietorship, was established by Zhang Xiaoming with the help of his wife Lin Su on early 2006. In 2014, the company started venturing into e-commerce to gain web and global presence. This help to increase the trade ability of the business.

Table 1 illustrates that currently, YiwuAsu does not only cater to the Asian market but also to Western Europe, South America, North America, Eastern Europe, and Oceania. The HR Department is currently composed of the HR Director, Function Heads, and Assistants. In total, there are 13 employees in the HR department.The department is divided into 4 parts—recruitment and staffing, training and performance evaluation, compensation and benefits, and employee/industrial relations. These four parts are adapted to the size and needs of the organization. To make more efficient in functioning of the department cost-wise, the management decided to keep the HR department to a small size. The Recruitment and Staffing function is responsible for attracting, selecting, and placing talents in the most suitable position, as well as making sure that the skills and abilities of the employees meet the jobs responsibilities. Training and performance evaluation accounts for identifying, and thereby bridging the gaps between the abilities and skills needs of the organization to

For years, the HR department of YiwuAsu has been successful in managing the employees of the company. In fact, there is no labor/workers union in the firm—evidence that people are satisfied with the management. However, because of the recent failure in the Trade department caused by the adoption of e-commerce, HR is faced with multiple challenges. First, the acquisition of technology for e-commerce implied that operations will be done with computer and the Internet. E-commerce technologies are a driver of labor reduction, often resulting in staff redundancies. Increasing automation would suggest that many of these jobs would be replaced by computerization of tasks requiring fewer employees to do the work. The redundancy of work and some employees’ jobs or responsibilities will be diluted, and this accounts for 15%-20% of the jobs in the Trade department. The problem calls for the attention of Industrial Relations experts, to make sure that when the employees are legally compliant from the possible layoff, they could get the benefits they deserved.In addition, job descriptions should be adjusted to align job responsibilities with the need for manpower. Aside from the technical aspects, HR should also ensure that the employees would not be demoralized by the impending