The "Tranquility Incident" put Baidu culture to the test again?

The Economic Observer

2024-05-10 21:29Published on the official account of Gansu Economic Observer

Economic Observer reporter Ren Xiaoning After the "Jingjing Incident", Baidu Culture was once again pushed into the spotlight.

On May 10, Baidu's official WeChat public account released the full text of Cui Shanshan, senior vice president of Baidu Group, at the "Baidu Pride" award ceremony, entitled "Defend Baidu Culture, Innovation Never Stops". This is the first time that Baidu's senior management has spoken out on the topic of "Jingjing" a few days after the "Jingjing Incident" fermented.

Cui Shanshan, who is in charge of human resources at Baidu and is also the secretary general of Baidu's cultural committee, is one of seven entrepreneurs at Baidu, who left Baidu in 2010 and returned to Baidu at the end of 2017. Cui Shanshan mentioned Baidu's recent public opinion and controversy, she said, "In Baidu, there is nothing more worthy of upholding and defending than simple and trustworthy values, the noise of public opinion will always pass, and our self-innovation will never stop."

"Baidu Pride" is Baidu's activity to recognize employees who have made outstanding contributions to the company, but some Baidu employees have doubts about this year's "Baidu Pride" candidates. A number of Baidu insiders told the Economic Observer that an employee of the public relations department was originally selected as "Baidu Pride", but after the accident, Baidu temporarily canceled the employee's award before the award.

The space for speaking is narrowed

At the more than hour-long "Baidu Pride" award ceremony, Baidu founders Robin Li and Cui Shanshan both spoke, Robin Li commended Baidu's outstanding employees, saying "You represent Baidu, you represent the most authentic Baidu, you are the most authentic representative of Baidu."

They didn't mention Xuan Jing, and the two didn't show a heated attitude. A person familiar with Baidu told reporters.

Within Baidu, the discussion of the "Xuan Jing Incident" is far less loud than that outside. A mid-level person at Baidu told reporters that they will discuss it privately, not publicly in the company, nor on the company's intranet.

"Because there's no room for public speech." A veteran employee who has worked in Baidu for 8 years said that under the commendation post of "Baidu Pride", someone mentioned this matter very vaguely, saying that the company has some public opinion recently, and not only did not mention Xuan Jing in the post, but also did not mention the word public relations, and no one replied to the post at present.

A veteran employee who has worked in Baidu for more than 10 years said that when he first arrived at Baidu, he often went to the intranet, which would have discussions and feedback on the product. Another employee who left Baidu told reporters that he had complained about the company once on the intranet before, and then he was talked to by his direct leader.

The point of public controversy caused by the "Tranquility Incident" is the lack of care for employees, and even the oppression of employees. She previously posted a video on Douyin saying, "I approve employees in seconds when they break up and leave", "If you don't work overtime, you can't get a promotion and a salary increase", "Why should I consider the employee's family, I'm not her mother-in-law", "There is no holiday for the PR company on the Spring Festival weekend". A number of Baidu insiders told reporters that Xuanjing's management requirements for employees are indeed strict. After the content of these videos sparked controversy in China and appeared on the hot search, it also attracted attention abroad, and foreign media such as CNN (CNN), Bloomberg, and the Times of India reported on the incident under the headline "toxic work culture".

Too much leadership power

But a number of Baidu employees also told reporters that their departments do not have that kind of "toxic work culture".

A Baidu search line business executive said that his department is not so bizarre, but the company's culture has indeed deteriorated in recent years. When he first joined the company, the leader would ask him to pay more attention to the emotions of employees and help his subordinates solve problems. Now, no leader will mention such a thing at all.

Another Baidu Cloud employee said that they work hard and often travel on weekends, but they have not encountered oppression.

"Big factories have more or less similar problems, but she is not the same dimension as us." The above-mentioned employee, who has worked at Baidu for 8 years, said that he did not know who Xuan Jing was before, and after reading the online revelations, he felt very exaggerated and a little unbelievable. He had a fight with his supervisor last year, slapping the table and saying that the supervisor was incompetent, and now the supervisor still needs to coax him to work. If he was in the public relations department, he said, he would definitely not dare to quarrel with the leader.

Although the atmosphere in his department is okay, the employee believes that the company's culture has also deteriorated in recent years. In the early days of his visit to Baidu, the executives in charge of the business group would talk about the general direction of the macro level, and the employees had a relaxed environment to do things freely. Today's executives will ask employees about their attendance and ask them to speak quietly at their workstations...... Trivial things like that will be taken care of.

Baidu has always attached great importance to the company's culture, and often has content courses for cultural assessments, requiring employees to study and take exams, with the aim of strengthening employees' sense of belonging. However, in the current company atmosphere, the sense of belonging of employees is not high.

Baidu's direct leaders have high management authority over subordinate employees, "he can manage everything for you", salary, rank, promotion, "you have to listen to him for everything, and he can fire you at any time". Subordinate employees do not have any rights over supervisors. At Baidu, employees can rate management, but it doesn't make much difference. The above-mentioned employee who has worked at Baidu for 8 years once gave his supervisor a 1 point, and the other party was not affected in any way, "This culture is problematic, on the surface it can be passed down from top to bottom, but in fact it can be blocked and truncated."

Xuan Jing also mentioned in the video that a subordinate wrote 300 report letters to report her. The end result of this incident was that Xuan Jing was not affected, and many subordinates quickly left.

The outbreak of the "Xuan Jing Incident" made Baidu once again the focus of public attention after the "Wei Zexi Incident". However, Baidu employees have different attitudes towards these two events, especially some old employees, who were very frustrated when the "Wei Zexi incident" broke out, and became suspicious of the company and themselves. Although the "Xuanjing Incident" seems big now, it is not as deadly as the "Wei Zexi Incident". While watching the excitement with the mentality of eating melons, they felt that this incident, as an extreme case, finally made the company's management see the problem. It would be a good thing if the incident could go further and give the management some insight and even make a change in the company's management culture.

Cui Shanshan also mentioned the issue of company culture at the "Baidu Pride" award event. She said, "Divide the territory, set the threshold, and it is difficult for each to fight and cooperate", "Coax upward, bluff downward, and work overtime to show the work attitude", "The communication between superiors depends on the communication of subordinates, and the result is still beautiful...... Baidu also has these big factory disease problems, some of which are quite serious, not to blame the employees for complaining, the company's management is also anxious, and they are focusing on and solving them.

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