Alibaba’s corporate culture

Alibaba’s corporate culture

We all know that corporate culture is very important to a company, and there is a lot worth learning from the corporate culture of large companies. I have compiled some information about Alibaba’s corporate culture for you below. I hope it will be helpful to you.

How does Alibaba train new employees?

After new employees enter Alibaba, they will go through three periods of training. The first is full-time training 27 days after joining. Within these 27 days, new employees will be exposed to three major types of training, namely cultural system type, product knowledge type, and skills and mentality type. The proportion of courses in these three categories is 42% respectively. ,28%,30%.

After taking up the job, new employees will also receive 3-6 months of integration program training. Generally speaking, on the first day of employment, new employees will be introduced to team members, and within a month, a team dinner will be arranged. Next, there will be different training content after one year, three years and five years later.

Ali’s talent concept firmly believes that many white rabbits are actually misplaced stars. Therefore, the most important part of Ali’s talent training is job rotation.

Alibaba’s five tools for building culture

Alibaba mainly uses five tools to build corporate culture.

First, cultural props. Alibaba will use some "stories" to connect with employees' hearts and manage their hearts by borrowing things. For example, all employees at Taobao must learn to stand on their heads. Taobao hopes that employees can look at problems from a different perspective at work.

Second, pass on evangelism. Ali believes that the promotion and transmission of values ??requires the formation of a certain communication mechanism within the enterprise. Employees should not be defenders, but should become evangelists. For example, Ali’s management of old employees. One noteworthy detail is that in Ali, only old employees with more than five years can wear orange work badges. This badge is only for seniority and has nothing to do with the position. This is what Ali gives to old employees. It is a kind of honor and respect from employees, and it also motivates old employees to take the initiative to spread corporate culture.

Third, the coordination of system and culture. Ali believes that a culture that lacks institutional guarantees is hollow, and a system that lacks cultural support is weak. For example, when a person who has seriously violated the rules is fired, Alibaba's general approach is to restore the original truth of the matter to employees within a certain range, rather than allowing rumors to continue to spread.

Fourth, fixed ceremony. May 10th every year is the date of the Alibaba Group’s collective wedding. No matter how busy he is, Jack Ma will personally host the wedding. In fact, May 10th is of great significance to Ali. This day is the day Ali defeated SARS. In addition to the collective wedding, this day is also Alibaba's open day. On the open day, Alibaba employees can work with their families or bring their pets to the company. What’s even more interesting is that at the 2009 staff meeting, Alibaba’s executives, under the leadership of Jack Ma, collectively performed a play - Snow White. The stills of Jack Ma that are now widely circulated on the Internet are from this performance.

Fifth, story dissemination. Every Alibaba manager must become a discoverer, collector and disseminator of stories. After new employees join the company, they usually hear several stories, some about how difficult it was to start a business, and some about hard work. In addition to telling stories, Alibaba will also make videos of its employees’ stories to inspire other employees.

Encourage job rotation

In Alibaba’s management system, it is particularly sensitive to talents. Alibaba has its own talent inventory system, that is, 30% have the most potential, 60% have average potential, and 10% have no potential.

The most well-known aspect of Alibaba’s talent management is that it encourages job rotation. This means that an employee’s ability is not determined by one supervisor, but by multiple supervisors*** The results of the same evaluation give employees a relatively fair evaluation. The inventory of Alibaba employees is carried out at any time. Supervisors can evaluate their employees every day and even record specific events. Each time a supervisor is changed, they will receive an evaluation.

Every year, 20% of Alibaba’s people are rated as outstanding employees, and this ratio is strictly enforced. For outstanding employees of a company, 20% is the most suitable ratio.

These 20% of employees will become the positive energy of the company, and this positive energy will influence 60% of the people to follow.

At the same time, there is a large gap in income between outstanding employees and ordinary employees. This gap motivates 60% of employees to move forward. The entire talent system forms a countercurrent, and those who do not give are unwilling to make progress. of employees leaving a hotbed. In addition, this gap also incentivizes the best employees to avoid cheating.

On the contrary, once 15% of the employees of a company are negative, then the company will be very dangerous. The proportion of negative employees must be controlled within 10%, and the 5% most negative employees should be eliminated in a timely manner.

Believe in employees

Alibaba goes to work at 9 o'clock every day, but the most crowded time in the elevator is between 9:30 and 10 o'clock. At Alibaba, employees are not required to clock in, which is why you can still see Alibaba employees in cafes and gyms during working hours.

"Corporate culture is a habit, and corporate culture is ultimately implemented in behavior." Teacher Jia believes that "in corporate management, hard things need soft management, and soft things need hard management." To control, culture is soft, behavior is hard."

Just like the Tai Chi movement advocated by Jack Ma, it emphasizes the harmony of yin and yang.

Perhaps in most people’s minds, the corporate culture of private enterprises is mostly determined by the boss, but in Alibaba’s management, what they follow is that “corporate culture is reflected in employee behavior. , we need to leverage the power of the group.” This is why Alibaba Group’s BBS has become Alibaba’s most important cultural front.

In the management culture of Alibaba Group, a very important thing is to believe in employees. The company is not sensitive to employee tardiness and includes a brief review process, which is based on trust in employees.

A more specific approach is that Alibaba provides free dinners to employees who work overtime, but enjoying free dinners does not require approval from superiors. Of course, people will naturally take advantage of the free dinner that does not require review. When Alibaba's management philosophy is to choose to trust its employees, "If you eat every day without working overtime, people will naturally criticize you." Another benefit that does not require review is that as long as pregnant employees, each employee can receive two pieces of maternity clothing. "The implementation of corporate culture is to believe in employees. Believing in employees is a very important corporate culture.

Expansion

Anyone and anything that conflicts with corporate cultural values ??will be rejected by Alibaba Decision makers were eliminated.

Alibaba has grown from a small company of 18 people to the "world's largest retail trading platform" today, and has experienced numerous setbacks along the way.

There are many old employees. They left Alibaba one after another, but the "Arhats" who followed Jack Ma to start a business not only stayed, but also became senior managers in important positions in the group and its subsidiaries, and some of them were even included in the list of Alibaba partners.

It is no exaggeration to say that without a stable core team, this Internet company may not be able to survive the 2008 financial tsunami and other crises and maintain a good development momentum.

In Jack Ma. It seems that this is mainly due to Alibaba's unified values.

Of course, Alibaba's value construction does not rely on making slogans and shouting slogans, but integrating them into modern corporate management systems.

Passion, dreams, and loyalty alone are not enough to maintain values. This was understood by the "Arhat" when Alibaba was founded.

Alibaba partner and group vice chairman. Tsai Chongxin made a great contribution to this.

When Tsai Chongxin gave up his high salary to join the fledgling Alibaba, he brought advanced modern business management concepts to Jack Ma and other partners, preventing Alibaba from becoming a family-owned company. It laid the foundation for Alibaba's international development and enabled the values ????advocated by Jack Ma to be truly implemented.

Whenever the company feels confused and confused, Alibaba will launch a "rectification movement" to re-establish itself. Unify everyone's understanding.

There are pros and cons in any decision. Sometimes the gains outweigh the losses.

Trying to maintain the former situation is the meaning of company decision-making.

However, when making decisions, decision-makers often make mistakes of one kind or another, resulting in "faint moves" and poor business operations.

One common mistake is making decisions that conflict with the company’s values.

Company values ??reveal the direction of an enterprise's efforts and are the overall source of the company's various strategic plans, principles and policies, organizational structure and human resources management systems.

The mission of Alibaba Group is to "make it easy to do business in the world." Whether it is Taobao or other software developed by the company, they are all based on helping customers (small and medium-sized enterprises) do more business. Simple and easier.

These are the fundamental values ??on which Alibaba Group makes decisions.

Jack Ma said: “All of Alibaba’s organizational structures, including the establishment of these seven companies and the establishment of Ali Academy, are closely centered around our mission and values, and none of our policies can be consistent with them. Any policy that violates our values ??and sense of mission must be removed.

It is precisely because of this set of values, sense of mission and culture that Alibaba is born today. "This is Alibaba's decision-making. first principle.

However, it is not easy to insist on doing this. The formation of company values ??requires a process and is not finalized at the beginning.

Therefore, Alibaba explored and summarized during the entrepreneurial process, making the company's strategy and values ????clear bit by bit.

Making money is the business purpose of all enterprises, but it is not the overall goal of all enterprises.

Because the profit models of companies in various industries are very different, if everything is just about money and not about business methods, you will keep messing around like a monkey picking corn, and you will not be able to do anything.

Therefore, a clear-minded company will first identify its own development direction, run its business along a relatively clear policy line, and make money more efficiently and stably.

This development direction can also be called "corporate mission."

Corporate mission is the overall goal of a company's development, like the North Star with a constant position.

The development policy that keeps pace with the times derived from the corporate mission is like the Big Dipper revolving around the North Star. Polaris and the Big Dipper were the basis for ancient navigators to identify directions.

So, the meaning of corporate mission to company managers and all employees is exactly the same.

Companies that do not attach importance to corporate mission often lack a sense of cohesion.

Employees do not have the same goals, they just passively operate in accordance with assessment requirements. When new employees replace old employees, the experience of outstanding old employees cannot be effectively passed on, and new employees also go their own way.

To this end, Alibaba has always required all employees to memorize the company's mission, and older employees must also play a "teaching and mentoring" role to teach the company's mission and values ??to new employees.

This approach is to maintain the unity of values ??and allow all kinds of talents to work towards the same overall goal.

It is no exaggeration to say that it is precisely because all employees of Alibaba can adhere to the same corporate mission and follow the same corporate cultural values ??that Alibaba can rapidly expand its scale. Maintains a high degree of cohesion without becoming loose.

The Alibaba team has summarized nine values: team spirit, mutual teaching, quality, simplicity, passion, openness, innovation, focus, service and respect.

Since then, Alibaba has attached great importance to values ??construction.

With the passage of time, Alibaba Group has summarized the essence of its value in constant changes, and finally formed its current six core concepts: customer first, teamwork, embracing change, integrity, passion, Dedicated.

"Customer first" means respecting customers and everything is based on customer needs.

"Embracing change" refers to the combination of the spirit of openness and the spirit of innovation, and regards actively seeking change as the main means to win future opportunities, so as to avoid being eliminated by the constantly upgrading and updating Internet industry.

Integrity, passion, and dedication are the common requirements of every enterprise, but Alibaba has very strict requirements on this.

Ali link: Smiling face culture, martial arts culture, handstand culture

Smiling face culture allows all employees to go to work with a smile.

In order to implement the smiling face culture, Alibaba even designed its logo into a smiling face.

This kind of corporate culture was born to enable the company to better adapt to the Internet era.

Life in modern society is stressful, especially in the ever-changing Internet industry.

This industry requires creativity, whether it is product development or marketing promotion. Conceiving ideas will definitely increase the amount of employees' brains and keep them in a highly nervous and busy state for a long time.

However, creativity is not something that can only be obtained by thinking hard. Being nervous or relaxing will not help. Only by having a degree of relaxation can employees maintain a comfortable attitude and give full play to their intelligence.

When the Taobao website was first built, the founding employee Chai Dong chose Wei Xiaobao as his Taobao nickname.

Upon seeing this, other employees also used characters from Jin Yong’s martial arts novels as nicknames, and placed martial arts place names such as Peach Blossom Island and Heimu Cliff around the company.

Starting from Taobao, martial arts culture spread throughout the Alibaba Group.

Within Alibaba, the core technology research project team is called "Dharma Academy", an office at the group headquarters is called "Guangmingding", and another is called "Xia Ke Island". Therefore, the company meeting was also jokingly called "Gathering at Guangmingding".

Alibaba’s top executives also have their own nicknames. For example, Jack Ma’s nickname is Feng Qingyang, Lu Zhaoxi’s nickname is Temujin, and Shao Xiaofeng’s nickname is Guo Jing.

When Taobao held its annual celebration event, Alibaba employees called it a "martial arts conference." The company also disrupted usual affiliations and asked employees to join various gangs according to their own nicknames to compete for "the world's number one". "Gang" title.

These practices with Internet characteristics have deeply imprinted the martial arts culture in the hearts of every Alibaba employee, promoted communication and interaction within the company, and provided a good basis for the implementation of the smiley face culture. Detailed support.

The inversion culture is even more incredible.

Taobao has special standards for testing whether newcomers from Alibaba are qualified.

That is to let new employees learn to stand on their heads during a week-long training, which is also a part of the training assessment.

This strange custom actually contains three meanings:

First, handstand is a simple way to exercise and helps maintain a healthy working condition.

Second, other people help people who cannot stand on their heads to learn to stand on their heads, which is a process of cultivating teamwork spirit.

Thirdly, handstand can allow people to change their perspective on the world. When people have different feelings, their ideas will often be opened up and new ideas will be generated.

On the surface, the handstand culture is a whimsical ritual, but in fact it uses personalized activities to broaden employees' horizons, enhance their perseverance, and stimulate their innovative thinking.

Through this form, Alibaba employees overcame psychological barriers during the challenge and experienced a sense of accomplishment in challenging themselves.

As a result, employees’ centripetal force towards the company will be stronger.

Smiling face culture, martial arts culture, and handstand culture are three important components of Alibaba’s corporate culture. They complement each other with the company’s Nine Spirits and Six Core Values, and together constitute Alibaba’s corporate culture. Baba cultural value system.

These intangible assets play an important guiding role in the construction of Alibaba’s human resources management system.

Corporate culture refers to the values ????that are adhered to by everyone in the company, which contains a large number of codes of conduct.

For a company, corporate culture is like a flag. Whichever direction the flag points, all employees will move forward.

Any company that aims for long-term survival will create its own corporate culture. Otherwise, when the company encounters difficulties, there will be no cohesion at all.

On the surface, human resource management is a purely technical activity, and real management tools are more reliable than invisible and intangible corporate culture.

In fact, this view is one-sided, because a company's human resources management system is a specific extension of its corporate cultural values. In other words, it is what kind of banner to use to gather what kind of talents. ;