On June 1, according to leifeng.com, a netizen broke the news that BiliBili (hereinafter referred to as "station B") issued an internal notice to punish the senior technical director, deputy general manager and senior vice president of the game distribution division. Previously, the audio recording exposure of the layoff at station B triggered public debate. Caijing.com asked the relevant person in charge of station B whether the above internal punishment was true, and station B said that there was no official response.
On May 27, the famous Sina Weibo blogger "Wang Luobei" exposed a 46 minute recording of the meeting on the social platform. The recording showed that a director of station B proposed how to "reasonably and formally" lay off and "clean" employees at the layoff mobilization meeting, so as to reduce costs, increase efficiency and control costs.
On the 28th, an employee who claimed to be an employee of station B responded by posting on Sina Weibo that the recording was made in an internal meeting, and the recording topic was performance appraisal management, not layoffs. The party said that the purpose of the recording was to make an internal complaint against the improper remarks of the speech leaders.
"Downsizing tips": set an impossible goal
According to the audio content exposed by the microblog blogger "Wang Luobei", a director proposed at the meeting how to "reasonably and formally" lay off and "clean" employees, so as to reduce costs, increase efficiency and control costs. The director also mentioned many "downsizing skills", such as: "setting a PIP target that he can't achieve, and leaving the company directly after the PIP assessment" and "being sure to make it clear to him that he is incompetent". According to Sina Financial News, Wang Luobei disclosed that many employees of station B had contributed relevant content to him. The recording was a recording of the internal meeting of station B. the "director" in the recording is not sure which department it belongs to.
On May 28, Weibo user "6168632663" responded to the blogger "Wang Luobei" by sending a message as a party concerned, saying that the topics involved in the recording were the normal expected management after the annual performance appraisal, and how to plan the post year turnover tide and personnel management with poor performance, rather than layoffs. He said that the recorded content took place at the performance management meeting on February 11 this year. In the recording, the person in charge of the game platform technology who has managed hundreds of people in the company for many years was talking, and the person in charge of each group was present at the meeting. The parties were listed at that time. The user said that from the 13th minute of the meeting, the person in charge of the platform spoke fiercely, instigated the team leader to take the opportunity to get rid of the "disobedient" people, and said that he would take one year to get rid of some people.
In addition, the user said that because he was difficult to accept the person in charge's remarks and office politics, he complained about the person in charge's remarks within the company and attached the above 46 minute recording. The human resources department of the company contacted the user after receiving the complaint, so the user deleted the online recording, but it was unexpected that the recording was spread by colleagues.
On June 1, the news that the relevant leaders involved in the above layoff mobilization meeting were suspected of being punished came out. According to the company's internal processing documents circulated on the Internet, spark, the senior technical director of the game distribution division, made improper remarks at a department backbone meeting in early 2022, which seriously hurt the employees' feelings and trust in the company, and also violated the company's professional standards and code of conduct.
According to the document, after study, it was decided to impose the following penalties on the person responsible for the incident: spark, senior technical director of the game distribution business unit, was directly responsible for the incident and gave a serious warning. In the first half of the year, the performance was reduced to one star, and the Department issued a notice of criticism; Lihuajing (Huajing), deputy general manager of the game distribution division, was responsible for management. In the first half of the year, the performance was reduced by one level, and the Department circulated a notice of criticism; Zhangfeng, senior vice president of the company, was responsible for management. In the first half of the year, his performance was downgraded by one level and his department circulated a notice of criticism.
However, when caijing.com technology confirmed to station B whether the above punishment documents were true and whether it was a routine action to formulate "uncompleted assessment contents" for employees so as to dismiss them, station B said that there was no official response at present.
Lawyer: there are multiple considerations in the judicial process to terminate the labor contract with "incompetence"
According to the recorded text circulated on the Internet, the above technical director said at the meeting, "Let me tell you, write him a PIP goal, set a PIP goal that he can't achieve, and give him an assessment period. For example, one to three months. After the PIP assessment, he just leaves. That is to plan the standard process for him, and then he can't achieve it in the end. How to say this, it was invented by Amazon, and 90% of Amazon's people can't pass the PIP."
It is understood that the so-called PIP (performance improvement plan) is a means of enterprise human resources management, which means that managers formulate periodic work performance and work ability improvement plans for employees according to the aspects that need to be developed and improved.
"Different from the purpose of improving employee performance advocated by the enterprise, more and more employees regard PIP as a 'prelude to layoff', 'sugar coated shell', 'better notice before dismissal', etc." Hongguibin, a partner of Huiye law firm, analyzed in his article that "there are two reasons why employees turn pale when they hear about PIP: first, many enterprises implementing PIP apply the implementation object to those who have been defined as" incompetent employees ", so that failure to pass the PIP may immediately lead to the termination of the labor contract (according to the provisions of the labor contract law, unqualified employees who are still incompetent in training can terminate the labor contract), Let employees feel that if PIP fails, dismissal will follow. Second, many enterprises have never practiced positive PIP cases, that is, PIP employees have actually improved their performance or successfully implemented job transfer. If the results of many PIP cases are not to continue to perform the contract but to terminate the contract, it will undoubtedly convey the message that 'pip is just a disciplinary tool' to employees, because no one can escape the curse of PIP. "
However, in the case of labor disputes arising from incompetence and failure to complete PIP assessment, lawyer Hujie, a labor law expert and partner of Beijing zhonglunwende law firm, said in an interview with the media that in judicial practice, the court's consideration of performance management assessment and incompetence is very complex. It is not that the employer sets an impossible target task and terminates the labor contract at will. In case of any dispute over the termination of the contract, employees can defend their rights through labor arbitration and litigation.
Specifically, lawyer Hu Jie believes that from the perspective of judicial adjudication, we should first see whether the target management of the employer is reasonable; Secondly, not being able to complete the task is not equal to being incompetent. In addition, as for how to comprehensively measure "incompetence", lawyer Hu believes that there are three dimensions to consider. One is that the requirements of the employer are reasonable, the other is that the employees clearly recognize the above requirements, and the third is that the behaviors of the employees meet the establishment conditions of incompetence. Under these circumstances, it is legitimate for the employer to terminate the labor contract with "incompetence".
From the perspective of management effectiveness, hongguibin also proposed that the company should try its best to avoid unilaterally promoting the performance improvement plan. Therefore, such operations usually have no management effect, labor and capital confrontation intensifies, and most of them end in the removal of disciplinary violations. For an employee with performance problems, there are actually many ways for managers to manage. They can directly arrange work, arrange training, set goals, strengthen work feedback, etc., rather than necessarily implement performance improvement plans.
In less than half a year, it has been exposed that there have been two rounds of layoffs
It is worth noting that since this year, station B has been exposed to two rounds of layoffs.
In April, there was a market rumor that the live broadcasting business department of station B planned to lay off staff, and the list had been preliminarily prepared. After Shanghai returned to normal, the layoff interview would be conducted, and the scope of layoffs would affect the whole live broadcasting department. At that time, station B responded that the live broadcasting business was developing normally, and the gross profit margin continued to increase for three consecutive years. The company continues to invest in the live broadcast business, and continues to recruit and iterate the talent echelon.
In mid May, the scope of layoffs in station B was expanded, and news about business departments including OGV (occupatively generated video), main station, games, e-commerce, etc. was spread again. Nanduwan finance news agency reported that a person close to station B said that the compensation scheme for the business departments involved in this round is n+1, plus a one month buffer (normal salary and social security). However, some relevant people said that the method adopted by station B is "to terminate the labor contract through negotiation", the compensation scheme is n+2, and different departments will abolish it in proportion. Station B responded to this. The rumor was untrue. Recently, there were some business adjustments. Therefore, with the personnel adjustment, there were no large-scale layoffs.
In March this year, station B released the fourth quarter and full year financial statements of 2021 as of December 31. The financial report shows that the total revenue in fiscal year 2021 reached 19.38 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 62%; The net loss was RMB 6.809 billion, with a year-on-year increase of more than 120%; In 2021, the net loss attributable to the shareholders of station B was RMB 6.789 billion, an increase of 125% year-on-year. In the fourth quarter of 2021, the revenue reached 5.78 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 51%; The net loss was RMB 2.096 billion, a year-on-year increase of 149%.
Station B said in its financial report that in 2022, while continuing to promote user growth and commercialization, the company will focus on improving organizational execution, improving the operational efficiency of each business line, and reasonably controlling expenditure, so as to achieve the goal of narrowing the loss rate in 2022.
In addition, chenrui, CEO of station B, stated that revenue growth will be the core of station B's strategy. "We should reduce costs and increase efficiency, control all the money that should not be spent, and improve the efficiency of the money that should be spent." Fan Xin, CFO, also said that station B plans to achieve non GAAP break even in 2024.