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Abstract ：The outbreak of Covid-19 epidemic heavily affected all industries worldwide.Mary Chen runs a small professional training company based in Chengdu，Sichuan，China.The company provides training service mainly to government cadres from different provinces in China.When the Covid-19 epidemic broke out，the employees of Mary Chen's company were on vacation to celebrating the Chinese Spring Festival.According to the planned schedule，all the employees would be back to the office by February 9th.To avoid the transmission of Covid-19 epidemic and protect people's lives，the Chinese government implemented the lockdown and self-quarantine policy.The company had no clients and employees on work.It was obligated to be closed temporarily.However，the company should bear rent cost，employee pay bills and other expenditures.Under this difficult situation，Mary Chen had to decide whether her company should postpone the return date of her employees to office and how long the extended vacation should be if the return date was postponed.Mary Chen also should consider whether her company should offer every employee a full pay if the vacation time was extended.
Key words ：Covid-19；employees；professional training；salary
Mary Chen，founder and CEO of a small professional training company called Cadres Training for Bright Future is based in Chengdu.She created the company in 2013 and aims to provide customized cadres training service to government agencies.The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee.placed“modernizing the state governance system and state governing capacity” as the overall objective of a comprehensive deepening reform，emphasizing the importance of cadres.training and the important role of cadres.quality improvement in upgrading the state governance.The education of cadres has shifted from large- scale training of cadres，good quality improvement of cadres，all-round and deep reform of cadre education to high-quality cadres training so as to better serve the Party and the Nation.In China，the term“cadre” refers to people who hold leadership and authority position in a government agency，military and mass organization and they are the backbone and leaders of the organization and team，leading other people to achieve their goals.In the past，cadres usually received training in the party's schools and administration academies.Later，universities got involved in cadres.training and they offered cadres customized knowledge in ideology，economy，laws and regulations，emergency management，IT，engineering and so on.As the qualification of cadres heavily influences the governing quality of the party in power，the Communist Party of China has made the call to strengthen the cooperation between traditional training institutions and universities.
Mary Chen realized this great business opportunity and thus founded the training company to fulfil the governmental need to outsource cadres.training service.Before forming this company，Mary Chen worked in a training center affiliated to a famous public university for over 10 years.She is quite familiar with the professional training market and has accumulated much working experience and customer resources.Even though Mrs.Chen has left the university training center after forming her own company，she still keeps in close contact with the Center and former customers.A large number of these customers are cadres of government agencies.As the university center is constrained by limited manpower and a lack of market exploration capability，they have to outsource training sources in case of need.Mary Chen can provide the outsourcing service to the center.Thus，the relying needs for each other enfarce the cooperation between Mary Chen and the Center.Mary Chen was able to grasp the business opportunity and founded her company in 2013.Mary Chen loves history，particularly the history of the Communist Party of China，the history of the People's Republic of China and so on.She is very alert to business opportunities and has a strong implementation capability.She also owns a strong clientele network，possesses training expertise as well as carries out innovative training programs.In spite of the difficulties faced in managing the business，Mary Chen holds firm to her initial dream and strongly believes that her business creates benefits for the country and the people.She strongly feels that it is a very meaningful business.No matter how hard it is，she is determined to move forward and offers high-level training service to customers.She only employs 12 people，two of whom come from Wuhan city，and the rest of the 10 employees come from Sichuan province.Even though the company is small，it runs smoothly under Mary Chen's direction.To ensure that her employees have a decent working place，Mary Chen rented offices in a big business center downtown with a monthly expenditure of CNY 25 000.This is a heavy cost for such a small company.The company invites senior professors from top universities in Sichuan and other top business professionals to give the cadres training courses.The customer target of the company is mainly cadres of government agencies in China.
Every year，Mrs.Chen allows her employees a two-week break to celebrate the Chinese Spring Festival.In 2020，her employees took their Spring Festival holiday from January 22nd to February 8th.According to the planned schedule，all the employees would be back to the office by February 9th.However，Wuhan City suffered a lockdown due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.The Covid-19 virus was highly infectious and caused many deaths.The Chinese government required its people to be self-quarantined and stay at home to avoid being infected.Mary Chen had to decide whether her company should postpone the return date of her employees to at least one more week，namely February 16th，or postpone to a further date when the situation became better.She also had to consider whether her company should offer every employee a full pay if the vacation time was extended.
Mary Chen kept a close watch on the decisions of the Ministry of Education，universities in Sichuan and government agencies.According to the Ministry of Education，all types of educational institutions should not reopen until the epidemic has been basically put under control.Off-campus training institutions were not allowed to carry out offline training activities without the authorization in the provincial education department.All the universities in China postponed the students.return to campus and started to organize online teaching.Government agencies were engaged in epidemic prevention and there was no intention to send out cadres to receive on-site training education.Online training was also beyond consideration in the government's agenda.Furthermore，the Chinese government strongly suggested that people stay at home to reduce unnecessary mobility.Mary Chen also traced the real-time change in the professional training industry.She found that all training companies had stopped their training business temporarily，including training centers affiliated to universities.The Center in which Mary Chen cooperates with formally informed her that they would not continue training business until mobility constraints were lifted.
Considering the high infectivity of Covid-19 and wanting to ensure her employees.health is protected，Mary Chen felt it was impossible to continue her cadre training business.She decided to ask her colleague in charge of human resource management to notify the employees that their winter holidays would be extended to February 16th.Whether these employees were able to come back to the office after the extension would depend on the circumstances.The company would keep the employees informed if there were further changes.The employees were happy to hear such a decision and felt the company care for their safety and health.They were very grateful for Mary Chen's decision.Even though Mary Chen believed it was a good idea to extend the employees.holidays，she was also worried about the negative effects arising from the epidemic：no business meant no income，a rising monthly cost （e.g.rent，employee salary，utility bills） and so on.Mary Chen has been working with her employees for more than 7 years.She trusts her employees and cares for their needs，such as providing them lunch free of charge，feedback arising from“sharing” meetings，paid overseas holidays，attractive performance bonuses and so on.From the year the company was formed to now，no employee has resigned.The overall business of this company had been stable and was moving upward.However，the outbreak of Covid-19 heavily affected the company's business.There would be no income from training for a while.Since nobody knew when the Wuhan lockdown would be lifted and when people from other parts of China would be allowed to move freely，Mary Chen had to consider how to pay her employees.monthly salaries considering the situation her company was in：it would have no business income until the government authorizes training to restart.Salary payment accounts for a large portion of company expenditures.
Question 1： Mary Chen was determined to postpone the return date of her employees.What decision making approach was used by Mary Chen to make such a decision？
Question 2： What type of problem did Mary Chen have when she made such a decision？
Question 3： Supposing you were Mary Chen，how would you make decisions about employee salary when the vacation time is extended？Please explain your answer and make a table to show your decision making process.
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