JD’s ‘staff performance’ sparks debate

Chinese e-commerce giant JD’s recent move to adjust its attendance management system and reduce its employees’ lunch break times has sparked debate online at a time when the company faces increasing challenges from rivals including Alibaba Group and PDD Holdings amid sluggish growth on the domestic e-commerce sector market.

Industry experts said Chinese internet companies are stepping up efforts to strengthen internal management to improve operational efficiency, reduce costs and seek new business growth points to gain an advantage in the face of increasingly fierce competition.

However, they pointed out that in pursuing commercial interests, these companies should respect and better protect the legitimate rights and interests of employees in order to achieve sustainable development.

Liu Qiangdong, founder and chairman of JD, said in a video circulating on social media that the company will not tolerate poor-performing employees and will eliminate them in various ways.

But he added that high performers would not have to work overtime, and average workers would avoid being fired if they started working hard.

Liu’s comments came after JD made a series of changes to its employee attendance policy, including shortening the lunch break from two hours to one and banning employees from clocking in for late or absent colleagues.

On Monday, the company also announced that it will gradually increase the salaries of its procurement and sales employees, who from July 1 will be able to receive a fixed annual salary of 20 months instead of the current 16 months, with no upper limit. on additional bonuses.

This is JD’s second pay increase in the last six months, since the company announced late last year that it would double the pay of procurement and sales staff.

Jiang Han, senior analyst at consulting firm Pangoal, said JD hopes to increase operational efficiency and business results by adjusting employee time measurement policies, a common phenomenon in enterprise management.

Liu’s remarks emphasized that JD pays attention to employees’ attitude at work, aiming to stimulate employees’ enthusiasm and hardworking spirit and improve their overall job performance, especially in the increasingly competitive e-commerce environment, Jiang said.

“Enterprises must adopt appropriate management strategies, consistent with their own conditions, to increase competitiveness. They should respect workers’ rights and interests and balance their work and lives through reasonable mechanisms and incentives.”

He added that Chinese e-commerce and internet companies should leverage cutting-edge digital technologies, including big data and artificial intelligence, to optimize supply chain management and improve user experience, exploit the huge potential of downstream markets, and innovate business models such as such as social media e-commerce and live streaming e-commerce to search for new growth drivers.

JD said its revenue reached 260 billion yuan ($35.9 billion) in the first quarter, up 7 percent year-on-year, while its non-GAAP net profit was 8 percent. .9 billion yuan, up 17.2 percent year-on-year.

Guo Tao, deputy head of the China E-Commerce Expert Center, said that with the development of China’s internet companies in recent years, some internal management problems have arisen as some employees may become less motivated and productive while the attendance system adjustment will help better regulate employee behavior.

Guo said companies need to adapt their strategies to adapt to market changes, adding that mass layoffs and excessive extension of working hours could reduce employee satisfaction and affect their work efficiency.

PDD’s growth in the domestic market has outpaced that of competitors including Alibaba and JD. The Chinese online discounter reported that its revenue rose by as much as 131 percent year-on-year to 86.81 billion yuan in the first quarter.

Jack Ma, co-founder of Alibaba, said in April that the company had eliminated the disadvantages of a large company and returned from an organization that makes decisions slowly to an organization that is simple and agile, where efficiency and the market come first. He said innovation is not about pursuing higher profits, but about trying to survive in an era of rapid change.