9/2/2023 0 Comments 996 corporate culture![]() Tech companies were no longer playgrounds for daring entrepreneurs. ![]() “The bird struggles hard but moves nowhere, yet it is incapable of landing.” 996įast forward more than two decades after Deng’s Southern Tour. Imagine a “hummingbird, frantically vibrating its wings,” Biao writes. In 1995, after Chinese anthropologist Xiang Biao described migrant workers in the Pearl River Delta as “suspended” between the city and the countryside, the term was popularized. Although they changed jobs frequently, moving from one gig to the next in hopes of making money quickly, they never truly belonged: barred from the social services given to urban residents, but also unable to return home to the countryside. As China’s economy opened up, hundreds of millions of rural workers flocked to the cities in search of new opportunities. It was not just urban entrepreneurs who plunged into the private sector. Soon, everyone was taking the plunge: Party officials opened restaurants, professors moonlighted as corporate consultants, and an English-language teacher named Jack Ma quit his job to start an internet company. The Chinese people began to leave their stable government jobs for the booming private sector - a process that became known as xia hai or “jumping into the sea.” The phrase, which once referred to women engaging in prostitution, now described those who pursued the daring path of the entrepreneur. ![]() “Those who can stick to a 996 schedule are those who have found their passion beyond monetary gains,” Ma wrote.In 1992, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping embarked on his renowned “Southern Tour” to Guangdong province, calling for accelerated market reforms. They found a 25-hour workweek led to peak performance.įor his part, Jack Ma said companies shouldn’t mandate the 12-hour-day, six-day workweek, but that employees who embraced it were to be commended. In 2016, a team of researchers from Australia and Japan studied the impacts of shorter versus longer workweeks on the cognitive function of more than 6,000 men and women. There’s research that lends credence to shorter workweeks. Even in China, tech employees are pushing back against the long hours. For six months out of the year, tech company Basecamp sanctions a 32-hour workweek, while outdoor gear retailer Patagonia gives workers every other Friday off and the freedom to set their own hours. However, rather than adding more hours, some firms have decided to trim them back, believing that employees could be more productive with the time left. Even after residencies, many doctors work 60-hour weeks. During their medical residencies, young doctors often are expected to spend up to 80 hours a week in the hospital and have several round-the-clock shifts each month. Lawyers at major law firms are often expected to bill 1,200 hours a year, a requirement that effectively mandates a 60-hour workweek. At start-up technology companies anywhere in the world, the employees work constantly if they don’t, the business might cease to exist. In some industries, long hours are indeed part of the job description. Long hours were necessary for executives of Chinese firms working outside China, but a 996 was never even a suggestion, let alone an expectation, Vickers says. Recently, ByteDance, which runs the popular short video app TikTok, introduced a “big/small week” policy, where most of its employees now work a six-day week only every other week. Indeed, it becomes news when a Chinese firm deviates from it. schedule, six days a week) is an unwritten rule for many tech firms in China. Where things get murky is the expectation of long workdays for what Vickers calls “the vital many,” or nonexecutive employees. That’s particularly true for any executive with responsibilities-or bosses-in different geographies or time zones, says Fiona Vickers, a Korn Ferry senior client partner who has placed Europe- and US-based professionals for Chinese tech firms. Many leaders would agree that long hours and even round-the-clock accessibility are necessary for the modern-day executive. Ma’s comments are one side of a debate about work hours that’s percolating across factory floors in China, retailers in Europe, tech firms in the United States, and organizations everywhere else. “Compared to them, up to this day, I still feel lucky, I don’t regret, I would never change this part of me.” “If you don’t put out more time and energy than others, how can you achieve the success you want?” Ma wrote. ![]() In a recent and highly noticed blog, Jack Ma, cofounder of the tech giant Alibaba and one of the world’s richest men, said young people should consider it a “huge blessing” to work 12-hour days, six days a week. But the debate on how many hours they should put in just heated up a bit. All leaders want their employees to be engaged, enthusiastically plowing through work and innovating, not even recognizing that the workday has flown by. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |