A video of Chinese bank employees being spanked has prompted suspensions.

The video shows staff at the bank for poor performance during a training session. The video shows a trainer asking eight employees why they did not exceed themselves during the training.

The four men and four women then provide answers such as “failing to make a personal breakthrough”, “I did not exceed myself”, “I did not co-ordinate with my team” and “I lacked courage”. The trainer then says “get your butts ready” and proceeds to spank each of them four times.The video was first shared by the People’s Daily, who said the following.

“The announcement made by the Shanxi Rural Credit Cooperatives said that this was a ‘Breakthrough in Performance’ training session for their employees. The trainers were hired from ‘Hongfeng Leadership Academy’ in Shanghai.”

One of the trainers graded their performance on June 18, and punished those who ranked bottom by spanking and cutting hair. The bank said it has stopped the training session, asked the Leadership Academy and its trainer to openly apologize, and suspended several managing personnels from the branch.”

“Economic compensation is in discussion for the spanked employees, said the announcement.”

The video was taken at a training session for more than 200 employees at Changzhi Zhangze Rural Commercial Bank. According to the BBC, Jiang Yang, the bank’s trainer, issued an apology saying it was “a training model I have tried for years” that it had not been instigated by executives at the bank.

The chairman and deputy governor of the bank have been suspended for “failing to strictly check the content of the course”.

As well as suspensions, the video also sparked outrage on Chinese social media. TheTelegraph quotes a few posts on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, that read, “even my parents can’t spank me. There is no way I’d let these people do it” and “these executives have no respect for human rights. Having leaders like these the company is doomed to fail.”