Reporter | Shi Ge
Intern Reporter Wang | Yan Yifan
Edit | Meng Jiali
In recent years, the concept of "substitution" has emerged, especially in the field of consumption, and the pursuit of cost performance has become an important factor in consumption decision-making. Now, the wind of replacement is also blowing in the job market.
Recently, the "2024 Spring Recruitment Talent Job Preference Insight" released by Maimai shows that the "aura of big factories" has become the first factor that most professionals give up when choosing a job. In the case that it is difficult to enter a large factory, 81.93% of people said that they would consider going to a large factory to "replace" the company. Moreover, with the accumulation of work experience, job seekers' recognition of the replacement of large factories has gradually increased, and even more than half of the workers are willing to reduce their salaries to go to such companies.
In recent years, YiMagazine has repeatedly mentioned that the rapid transformation of society has brought about changes in employment concepts. When the rise of the company and the rise of the individual are no longer one and the same, everyone is rediscovering the meaning of work to the individual. When work is just a job and no longer carries more metaphysical values such as a sense of achievement and meaning, the company's consideration of work has become more pragmatic. Thus, the concept of "value for money for work" was formed.
Under this logic, the disenchantment of Dachang is a result.
The aura that big factories once brought to people came from high salaries and benefits, or in other words, a kind of leveraged returns. As the development of the large factories themselves is approaching the ceiling, the window for upward mobility that the large factories can provide is also shrinking. On the contrary, involution became the norm. In this case, it is a more humane choice to choose those replacement companies.
In the list of "2024 Dachang Replacement Companies" released by Maimai, Dachang Replacement is defined as a company that is "superior to 'Dachang' in terms of growth potential, working atmosphere and life balance, and also avoids the involution competition and assessment pressure of large factories".
On this list, there are not only well-known companies such as iQiyi and AVATR Technology, but also star companies in the field of overseas or artificial intelligence such as Anker Innovations and WeRide.
These replacement companies are more like potential stocks in the growth. Most of them belong to technology-based companies, with artificial intelligence companies accounting for 6 of the top 16 companies on the list, 2 smart hardware companies, and the others in games, new energy vehicles and other fields.
YiMagazine interviewed several professionals and HR of several large factories and found that the replacement company does avoid some large company diseases to a certain extent, but on the other hand, choosing to replace the company does not mean that you can lie flat, and some work troubles will not be solved because of another company.
There are still many entanglements between the choice of large factories and the replacement of flats.
01
Why has "Ping" companies become the new favorite of job hunting?
Although there is no unified definition of a "replacement" company in large factories, there will always be some typical consensus when talking about a replacement company in the workplace, such as many job opportunities, room for development, good work experience, and relatively lack of public popularity.
Li Jia, who graduated from artificial intelligence related majors in 2023, thinks that she is in a "replacement" company. Compared with the new car-making company chosen by his classmates, his company is mainly engaged in B-end business, and its reputation is not high, and its salary is not at the top level in the industry. But the company's business is relatively stable, and his boss discourages overtime, and he usually leaves work around 7 a.m. unless he has an urgent project, which allows him to devote more time to his hobbies. During the chat, Li Jia learned that several of the company's technical middle-level employees have jumped from the autonomous driving business departments of Baidu and other large manufacturers, and they used to work at a very fast pace, mainly to take a breath and spend more time with their families.
As a newcomer to the workplace, Li Jia chose this company because of its steady and rising business development. He learned that autonomous driving is the company's core business, and the number of projects undertaken by the company has been increasing in the past year, and several new investments have also been made. Business development has always been an important driving force behind the replacement company, and small companies are more flexible in business development and release more development space to the company's people. This also confirms the company's complaints about large factories on the Maimai platform, one of which is concentrated in the fact that after the business is highly mature, the personal growth space is greatly compressed.
When selecting the list of "large factories and replacement companies", Maimai considers multiple dimensions such as job opportunities (the number of new jobs), difficulty of job competition (talent supply and demand ratio), employee salary level, popularity (Maimai search index), and work experience (the company's review score and reputation on Maimai). Among them, the number of positions, salary levels, and popularity actually point to the development status and prospects of a company.
In the past few years, when the overall development situation has been better, replacement companies are often just candidates for professionals, and they have also gone through a process from candidates to being seen today.
Anker Innovations knows this well. Liang Bei, the head of the company's employer brand, told YiMagazine that before 2020, "the popularity is not as good as that of large factories" and "the competitiveness of offers is not as good as that of large factories" are the two major problems they face when recruiting at school. Faced with college students with offers from multiple companies, HR teams often need to work hard to convince them to choose Anker. It wasn't until 2022 that the situation improved. This year, Anker Innovations received several times the number of resumes received from the school compared with the previous year.
Liang Bei believes that this aspect has something to do with the general environment. In recent years, the recruitment of large companies has shrunk suddenly, but Anker Innovations, which is in the development stage, is still releasing more jobs steadily. On the other hand, it is also related to Anker's business expansion and influence in the industry.
This is also a characteristic of the replacement company favored by the company, which does not need to be too famous, but it cannot be completely unknown. Maimai's survey shows that when choosing a replacement company, the company's development potential is the primary consideration for employees, and 53.9% of people regard it as the most important indicator.
Behind the business development, there is the possibility that replacing the company will bring more lucrative returns to the workplace. According to Anker Innovations, in addition to the year-end bonus, the company will set aside a "business results sharing bonus" for employees every year, and nearly 40% of employees will receive an additional bonus of an average of 10 to 15 months' salary in 2023.
Outside of business, the work experience depends on a positive and healthy work atmosphere. A former employee who has worked in both large and small Internet companies told YiMagazine that because of the large scale and large number of employees, the company has to develop more cumbersome communication mechanisms to ensure that a strategy is implemented. Due to the large number of intermediate levels, once the "human" factor plays a role, it is difficult to ensure that the action is not deformed, which is also one of the reasons why many large factories roll documents and report volumes. In the replacement company, your own workstation may be next to the boss, and the level of reporting is simple, which not only improves the communication efficiency, but also facilitates the promotion of work.
"When an industry is moving forward vigorously, it will not focus on the corners. Because the core goal is to make money, only consequentialism. However, when the entire industry presents a state of decline, and the benefits are not so clear, it can only rely on standardizing the daily behavior of employees as an assessment indicator. The above-mentioned professional said.
02
"Substitution" is not always good
It can be seen from the survey results of Maimai that when looking for a job, today's professionals pay more attention to the deep needs of individual value embodiment, work-life balance, career development space, etc., rather than just the superficial factors such as high salary and fame halo. We look forward to working in an environment of mutual respect and support, while continuing to accumulate practical experience without being at the forefront of industry change. This led to the formation of the concept of a "replacement" company.
However, is it necessarily good to replace the company? Must it represent the ideal workplace we want to look like? YiMagazine found in an interview. Replacement companies that are still in development often mean risks and immature management mechanisms.
"The company's prospects are not as good as imagined" is Du Mao's real feeling after experiencing a replacement company. After experiencing the impact of the overtime culture of the previous Internet company, Du Mao paid special attention to avoiding this problem when choosing a job. It is true that the company he went to later rarely worked overtime, but the pressure on performance is no less than that of large factories. A few months later, Du Mao found that the company's promotion system was not perfect enough, and out of consideration for his own career development, he chose to leave after one year of employment.
Recalling these two work experiences, Du Mao feels that the biggest difference between the two companies may be the ability of the leader. For example, the software manager of a large factory is responsible for a larger number of product users, has a wider vision of the problem, and has a stronger ability to solve urgent problems. And following a leader who has something to learn from is especially important for newcomers to society.
Zhang Xin has a deep understanding of this. She entered a game company through school recruitment to work as a game creative-related work, and after joining the company, she found that she was the first school recruit in this department, and no one in the department knew how to cultivate a young person who had just left school, so her position and responsibilities in the team changed several times, and the space she expected to play was actually not so large, "I didn't have a lot of authority, and my rank limited me, so I could only watch my creativity being taken to the ground by my colleagues." In Zhang Xin's view, this company is not rolled, and the pressure is not so great, but for a newcomer like her, it is a bit of a boiled frog in warm water, which is not conducive to long-term career development. If he can choose again, Zhang Xin feels that it is necessary to go to Dachang to exercise first.
This idea also matches the research of Maimai, in the acceptance of "large factory replacement", the resistance of fresh graduates is the highest, 1/3 of the graduates said that they only consider large factories, do not consider "replacement", and the attitude is more resolute than those who have worked in the workplace.
Du Mao and Zhang Xin's work experience shows that not all replacement companies are small and beautiful, and the employment experience is affected by the specific situation of the company and the position. This is also a risk that may be brought by well-known small and medium-sized enterprises, after all, it is difficult for any company to achieve transparency of information, including overtime, department weight, work experience, team atmosphere, business prospects, etc. However, relatively speaking, large companies are more likely to see relevant information on various platforms due to the higher degree of discussion, while it is more difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to obtain and distinguish information.
Liu Chuan has also experienced the transition from a large factory to a flat job. He believes that the system of large factories is very complete, and employees only need to do the work in front of them, and the replacement company provides a broader space for development. But at the same time, he is also worried that the industry is developing too fast, which may lead to many norms "not keeping up". Wild growth means opportunity, but also higher adaptation costs.
Xu Yichao, research director of Genyuan Consulting, has long been concerned about the issue of corporate culture, and in his view, the term "replacement of large factories" is still rooted in the discourse system of large factories, and the values it represents are actually consistent with the high salaries and benefits symbolized by large factories. It is understandable for people in the workplace to choose "cost-effective" jobs, but the standards of good work vary from person to person and from time to time. "Substitution" is not suitable for all job seekers. The pluralistic values of the profession essentially motivate everyone to pursue their inner desires more on the basis of considering their own resource endowment and life stage. At present, the sense of meaning of work is not necessarily given by society or organization, but by oneself. It can be "cost-effective", with time outside of work to explore or enjoy life, or it can be to go to the Chaoyang Circuit to spell out the future.
On the other hand, large companies are facing a dilemma today - when employees are disenchanted by the organization and only treat the job as a job, how to better attract and unite employees through means other than compensation and benefits? These are the problems that replacement companies also face, especially when their organizations scale up to a certain extent.
(At the request of the interviewee, Li Jia, Du Mao, Zhang Xin, and Liu Chuan are pseudonyms in the article)
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