In a recent video conference with office staff, JD.com founder Richard Liu added a warning into his pep talk: his company did not have room for anyone who wanted work-life balance.
“We have employees who prefer to enjoy life, who put life first and work second. I can understand not wanting to work hard, everyone makes different choices . . . so I can only say that you are not our brother, you are a passer-by,” Liu told attendees, according to a recording posted on social media. “We should not be working together.”
Liu said the Chinese ecommerce group would step up efforts to weed out IT engineers who were not working hard and not delivering, while rewarding employees doing well.
The warning was not unusual. As executives across China’s tech industry face a new reality of low growth, rising competition and investor apathy, many are cutting staff and making tougher demands of those they keep.
Engineers in China have never enjoyed the level of perks offered by peers in Silicon Valley, where employees have benefits such as onsite doctors and sushi bars. Jack Ma, founder of Chinese ecommerce company Alibaba, infamously told staff the tech industry’s standard 996 hours (9am to 9pm, six days a week) were “a blessing”. But the unremitting schedule has improved in recent years under President Xi Jinping’s “common prosperity” campaign, which aims to reduce income inequality and promote fairness.