A quiet transformation is underway in the governance logic of China's top-tier enterprises. Several significant events around the Lunar New Year period carried profound implications. On February 24, a unique "post-holiday work benefit" announcement caused a stir: KE Holdings Inc. co-founders Peng Yongdong and Shan Yigang declared they would jointly donate 10 million Class A ordinary shares to establish a "Health and Family Care Fund," providing coverage for 500,000 individuals and the hundreds of thousands of families behind them. Combined with last year's donations, the total contributed by the two founders within a year exceeds 840 million yuan.
Why has KE Holdings' management made such a resolute commitment to implement a "comprehensive coverage" style health protection plan for its employees, platform agents, and their families? The extraordinary scale and breadth of this initiative is indeed remarkable. However, widening the perspective reveals this is not merely an act of corporate generosity by a single company, but part of a collective shift, propelled by powerful underlying currents of the times.
In fact, a growing number of Chinese entrepreneurs are directing capital towards unexpected areas. Before the holiday, several industry giants initiated "salary increase waves"—Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited, BYD, and ByteDance all launched plans to raise wages, while JD.com offered year-end bonuses of up to 20 months' salary. Pang Donglai, which achieved a staggering 1.5 billion yuan in net profit last year, saw its founder Yu Donglai decisively allocate 1 billion yuan directly to employee distribution. The times are truly changing.
The governance logic of China's leading enterprises is undergoing a paradigm shift—moving comprehensively from prioritizing "capital efficiency" to deeply excavating "human-centric efficiency." More companies are recognizing that those which treat employees well and put people first are the ones positioned to align with trends and secure future success. This shift resonates with and complements the national trend of increasingly balancing "investment in physical assets" with "investment in human capital."
This major transition is far more than an evolution in business ethics; it represents a significant test of our era concerning growth versus distribution, and efficiency versus equity. It pertains to the future of Chinese commerce and impacts every individual striving within the currents of the times.
Providing a safety net means offering an umbrella for hardworking individuals. What does "investment in human capital" entail? For many, this might be a new concept. Essentially, it involves optimizing resource allocation to transform human resources from a "passive cost" into an "active, value-appreciating asset," emphasizing human development as the core objective.
For enterprises, "investment in human capital" can signify a profound transformation. For a long time, the relationship between companies and workers was largely transactional. Today, there is growing awareness that a purely "transactional relationship" without long-term, symbiotic coexistence of interests is ultimately unsustainable. Therefore, the foundational logic of "investment in human capital" is providing a basic safety net.
KE Holdings' recent major initiative establishes a "Health and Family Care Fund." The three sub-projects within it are not simply stacked benefits but represent an effort to achieve "maximum risk penetration" within the labor security system. It constructs a closed-loop support system across three dimensions.
First, the "Critical Life Support Fund" provides immediate payment upon diagnosis, countering "time gaps." It directly breaks the lag inherent in traditional insurance reimbursement processes, offering 20,000 yuan in emergency funds to families in distress within two business days. Second, the "Family Warmth Support Fund" addresses extreme scenarios like loss of working capacity, countering "structural collapse." It provides a one-time safety net payment of 100,000 yuan, aimed at supporting not just an individual but the family pillar. Third, the "Children's Education Fund," offering up to 100,000 yuan, counters "intergenerational risk transmission," aiming to break the vicious cycle of "poverty due to illness and interrupted education due to poverty," extending the granularity of protection to the next generation.
Upon closer inspection, KE Holdings' relief mechanism differs significantly from traditional critical illness insurance. While insurance focuses on the "illness," this mechanism focuses on "livelihood." It goes beyond covering medical expenses, functioning more like an umbrella held over a family during crisis, helping them endure the most difficult periods.
Why is KE Holdings committed to this path? This likely stems from over a decade of gradual, cumulative exploration. Its "Green Plan," established in 2008, has disbursed over 755 million yuan in aid, assisting more than 54,000 individuals. In early 2023, Gao Baoquan, a 14-year KE Holdings employee, received devastating news: his father was diagnosed with primary systemic amyloidosis, a rare disease. Over the following year, Gao's father was hospitalized over 30 times across three hospitals and underwent eight chemotherapy cycles. The pile of medical documents weighed over two kilograms, with costs exceeding 400,000 yuan. Fortunately, Gao had joined the "Green Mutual Aid Plan" upon employment. This time, he received over 260,000 yuan in mutual aid funds, significantly easing the burden. The seed of goodwill planted years ago had grown into a sheltering tree for his father.
Now, with the bolstering of the "Health and Family Care Fund," this umbrella will cover over 500,000 people. Whether full-time employees of KE Holdings or Lianjia, brand owners, store owners, agents operating on the platform, project managers and workers on renovation sites, or cleaning and maintenance technicians—all will be "sheltered under this umbrella," included in this health care initiative.
For millions of real estate agents, food delivery riders, and couriers, they are not just cogs in the economic machine but often the primary breadwinners for their entire families. A sudden serious illness of a parent can instantly plunge a hardworking individual into distress, potentially crushing years of accumulated morale and hope. Stabilizing the "home front" for all strivers is fundamental to stabilizing enterprises, the economy, and safeguarding social stability. The fundamental value of "investment in human capital" is embedded within this concept. Ultimately, this represents a refinement and evolution of traditional employment models: striving individuals should not have to face life's storms alone.
However, if one perceives "investment in human capital" merely as providing a safety net to alleviate worries, that significantly underestimates the transformative potential of this trend. A more critical change is its capacity to fundamentally alter the professional landscape of many industries.
In this regard, Pang Donglai in Henan province offers an extreme example. The "Warmth Fund" and "Bravery and Justice Reward Standards" announced by Yu Donglai last year not only provide substantial subsidies for employees' major illnesses but also offer compensation for grievances suffered on the job. While this may seem like "pampering employees," it实质上 incorporates human dignity and well-being into the corporate value distribution system through institutional design. When employees feel respected and protected, the kindness they extend to customers is more likely to be genuine.
The real estate brokerage industry, where KE Holdings operates, faces similar dynamics. Historically viewed as a "job for the young" or a "transitional occupation" due to low barriers to entry, flexible hours, and lack of a fixed office routine, the industry is experiencing a shift. In Hangzhou, one KE Holdings store reportedly had six out of nine agents who were "stay-at-home moms" returning to work.
Yet, the price of this freedom is high uncertainty: low transaction frequency, significant seasonal fluctuations, and difficulty accumulating experience. The story of single mother Jiang Mengdie is illustrative. Through extreme self-discipline, studying the business late into the night, she broke into the top ten performers on the Hangzhou KE platform after a three-year career gap. The代价, however, was having almost no time to pick up her child. This "trading diligence for dignity" highlights the limitations of traditional models, where service providers exchange high-frequency "labor depletion" for family livelihood within fragmented time.
KE Holdings is now fundamentally restructuring this underlying logic, aiming to reshape this "short-career" trade into a professional role where compound benefits can accumulate, with dignity. The first breakthrough is eliminating "zero-sum games." Abolishing "transfer fees" removes economic barriers to talent mobility, essentially recognizing agents as "professional service providers" who can build personal brands. Previously, agents were often treated like disposable resources; changing platforms could mean losing accumulated resources. Now, knowledge, reputation, and clients can be retained and built upon.
The second breakthrough involves a deep understanding of industry generational change, supporting agents in transitioning towards "professionalization." During the rapid expansion phase of the real estate market, the core customer demand was "securing a property," and agents acted more as information intermediaries, competing on speed and accuracy. Now, in the存量 market era focused on quality, customers seek not just to buy a house but also ask: Will the sunlight in this unit affect afternoon remote work? Can non-load-bearing walls be modified for more storage? How to implement age-friendly renovations in older complexes? Veteran agent Liu Genxing observed that clients' focus during viewings has expanded from location and price to complex interior design logic.
Fortunately, KE Holdings has built the "Boxue Exam" platform over 15 years, creating robust professional infrastructure. The "test for application, learn for the test" approach trains not only its own employees but also many others in the industry, with cumulative participants exceeding 3.5 million. By studying home design, space planning, and construction techniques for the exam, Liu Genxing successfully transformed from a "viewing agent" into a "one-stop living consultant." He can not only help clients choose properties but also offer precise advice on avoiding renovation pitfalls during viewings. This professional premium brings genuine happiness—a feedback of value derived from deep client trust. At a testing site in Beijing's Haidian district, scenes of "entire families taking the exam together" have emerged, signaling the transition of this profession from a "short-term job" to a "lifetime career."
This is the deeper connotation of "investment in human capital": enterprises no longer treat people as disposable costs but help them build professional moats through institutional innovation. This profound care ultimately becomes the sturdiest ballast for the entire industry. The leap from "capital efficiency" to "human-centric efficiency" essentially removes the ceiling for enterprises themselves, opening vast new horizons.
From Pang Donglai to KE Holdings, we see the emergence of a consensus: in the service economy era, the corporate moat is shifting from capital and technology towards "people" whose potential is being unlocked.
Furthermore, from a societal perspective, "investment in human capital" will have even more profound impacts, potentially reshaping societal connectivity. When practitioners are treated well, the goodwill they continuously radiate outward creates a virtuous cycle of social value.
Consider the millions of food delivery riders, real estate agents, couriers, and ride-hailing drivers across the country. They navigate streets and alleys, connecting urban and rural areas, serving as the most active "capillaries" of city operation. These individuals are not just laborers; they are "mobile nodes" in grassroots governance. A fascinating dynamic of "mutual commitment" is gradually forming: as businesses and society are willing to "invest in people," these individuals become "sensors" within the capillaries, transforming commercial networks into social networks, and transactional spaces into living spaces.
For instance, in Zhengzhou, food delivery riders traversing the city's streets have utilized digital platforms like "Zhengqi Pioneer Snap & Report" to evolve from mere "meal deliverers" into "mobile sentinels" on the food safety front line. Increasingly, real estate agency stores are becoming "service hubs" within communities: teaching seniors how to use smartphones, offering emergency charging, free minor repairs, rest areas, and drinking water... Jiao Fumin, District Director of Beijing Lianjia's Zhongguancun area, remarked, "In earlier years, when we appeared in communities, some residents would say, 'Here come the agents again!' Now it's become 'If you need something, quickly find Lianjia'."
In a sense, this redefines corporate boundaries and roles. Future great enterprises may not merely be commercial organizations but evolve into a form of "soft infrastructure" for urban operation. Technology can optimize delivery routes, algorithms can enhance matching efficiency, and capital can rapidly replicate business models. But only "people" can build the trust-based, resilient social connections. Millions of positively interacting nodes nationwide weave a social safety net covering urban and rural areas. This moat constructed from "well-treated hearts" is inimitable by any technological barrier. It represents not only the greatest social value of an enterprise but also China's most precious intangible asset as it transitions towards high-quality development.
In this sense, every respected laborer forms the most solid foundation of the city.
An increasing number of people are realizing that China's economic transformation has entered an unprecedented new era. For decades, the growth model prioritized "capital efficiency," with factor input, scale expansion, and rapid replication as the main themes. However, the marginal returns of this model are diminishing. As the demographic dividend peaks and the macro-economy shifts from high-speed to high-quality growth, enterprises must redefine their core drivers. In this context, "investment in human capital" is no longer just an ethical choice but a developmental imperative.
Tracing policy developments reveals this shift is not an isolated flash of insight but part of a decade-long reconstruction of underlying logic. In 2023, the phrase "closely combining 'investment in physical assets' with 'investment in human capital'"首次 appeared in high-level meetings. In March 2025, the Government Work Report首次 proposed "investment in human capital." By the end of 2025, this concept was formally elevated to one of the "Five Musts" in the Central Economic Work Conference and incorporated into the proposals for the 15th Five-Year Plan. This progression from "macro vision" to "five-year action blueprint" signals a rare and significant shift: the value of "people" has been moved from the background realm of distribution to the forefront as a core productive force.
Why is this major shift in China happening now, seemingly naturally? Macro-economically, consumption is both the endpoint and a new starting point of production. If hundreds of millions of workers lack security and have unstable income expectations, domestic demand is difficult to stimulate. Whether through child-rearing subsidies or enhanced social security for flexible workers, the state is raising the societal "safety net" through redistribution, providing the external environment and policy direction for this corporate-level shift.
Micro-economically, the service economy's essence lies in human interaction. Whether in property transactions or food delivery, service quality highly depends on the initiative of frontline workers. Practitioners who lack security and see no future are unlikely to provide warm, quality service. Therefore, "investment in human capital" is effectively an investment in the core factor of production: service quality.
KE Holdings, Pang Donglai, JD.com, Meituan... the explorations of these companies collectively constitute "era-defining examples" of corporate governance transformation in China. Their paths differ: Pang Donglai focuses on extreme fairness and care in distribution mechanisms, JD.com on reshaping industry standards through formalized labor relations, while KE Holdings emphasizes building a "community of shared destiny" between the platform and individuals. But their common direction is clear: moving from "employing people" to "enabling people," from "utilizing labor" to "developing labor."
Finally, let's revisit KE Holdings' major move at the beginning of 2026. Is it merely a large-scale donation? No. The figure of 840 million yuan is certainly eye-catching, but more significant than the amount is its destination—it flows towards "people," towards the vast, ordinary, and often overlooked practitioners and their families.
This perhaps signals a quiet value realignment within Chinese business circles: after the pursuit of scale, profit, and traffic, there is a beginning of serious contemplation on how to invest in the most fundamental variable—"people." Investing in people is, ultimately, investing in our shared future. A society's ultimate development is measured not only by the skyscrapers it erects but also by how it treats the people who build them.
Comments