For many employees, a good performance review might mean a bonus, a salary hike or a promotion. But two workers at a restaurant chain in China received a reward few would expect from their employer: brand-new BMW cars, paid for in full by their boss. The unusual gift came from Ma Yanli, who owns a beef hotpot restaurant chain headquartered in Jiaozuo, in central China’s Henan province. According to the *South China Morning Post*, Ma decided to gift the cars after seeing her employees travel to work on electric scooters in harsh weather. The experience made her think about how differently she and her staff travelled to work, eventually inspiring her to do something about it.
A cold morning that led to an unexpected decision
Ma had reportedly been thinking about her employees’ daily commutes since the previous winter. One morning, she noticed Li Jie, an employee who had worked at the restaurant for eight years, arriving after riding an electric scooter through the cold. Li’s face was flushed, her ears had turned purple and her hands were stiff from the cold wind. Seeing her struggle made Ma compare the employee’s journey with her own comfortable commute in a car.“I said to myself, ‘I can sit in my car and enjoy warmth and convenience during transportation.’ Why can’t she?” Ma said. That question eventually turned into a plan to help some of her employees travel more comfortably. Rather than simply giving them a cash bonus, Ma decided to buy them cars. On September 24, she took some workers to a BMW showroom. The employees reportedly did not know what awaited them. According to reports, Ma had purchased the vehicles around two weeks earlier and paid the full amount in advance. Each BMW cost 300,000 yuan, or approximately Rs 43 lakh to Rs 43.2 lakh. The cars were gifts, meaning the selected employees did not have to contribute money towards their purchase.
Employees stunned by the surprise
Li was one of the two employees who received a car. Even while travelling to the showroom, she had no idea that she was about to become the owner of a BMW. Ma had reportedly described the gift as a “big toy”, leaving Li unaware of the scale of the surprise. “I am so thrilled! I dared not think about this before. On the way to the BMW showroom, Boss Ma just told me she would gift me a big toy,” Li said. The car was registered in Li’s name on the same day. She did not have to pay anything for it, and Ma did not ask her to sign an agreement in exchange for the gift.Another employee, Liu Yingying, received a grey BMW. Her selection was linked to her hard work and performance at the restaurant. “My boss told me you work hard and your performance is excellent. You deserve this car,” Liu said. For both employees, the gifts represented a significant change to their daily commute. What had started as a routine journey to work on electric scooters had led to an unexpected reward worth lakhs of rupees.
‘My company’s prosperity’ comes from employees, says Ma
For Ma, the cars were about more than recognising individual performance. She said the success of her business depended on the collective effort of the people working for her, and she wanted them to benefit from that success as well. “I have achieved success in my career. But my company’s prosperity is attributed to the collective efforts of all my employees. So I must let my workers also benefit from the success of my company,” she said.Her decision has drawn attention because it went well beyond the bonuses and gifts commonly associated with employee appreciation. Instead of offering a standard workplace reward, Ma chose a gift that addressed a practical difficulty she had witnessed herself. The story has also prompted discussion about what employers can do to recognise their staff. While a luxury car is an extraordinary gift that most workplaces cannot replicate, Ma’s explanation points to a broader idea: employees contribute to a business’s growth, and their well-being matters too. For Li and Liu, that idea came with car keys. For Ma, it was a way of showing that the people helping build her business should also share in its success.
