Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, but I’m afraid one more person won’t be happy today.
On the evening of September 14, Alibaba Group once again responded to the mooncake incident, saying that it had made the decision to dismiss all five employees who participated in the "Intranet Flash Sale of Mooncakes". Participating in the decision include Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma, CEO Zhang Yong and many other core management personnel.
"Sending my companions away on a full moon night should be the biggest regret of this Mid-Autumn Festival." Jiang Fang, chief human resources officer of Alibaba Group, posted an open letter on Alibaba's intranet on behalf of the company's management, saying that this is not an easy decision to make, but one must firmly believe in the right direction and company culture. Alibaba’s previous response was that five employees were suspected of showing off their skills and using tools to cheat, which violated the red line of integrity.
Just before the news of the management's review of the mooncake incident was announced, Alibaba employee Li Hui told Jiemian News that the shadow of the incident was still growing: In addition to the five engineers who used the cheat to steal the mooncakes, a colleague who originally took a screenshot of the company's intranet handling of the incident and spread it to the outside world is also very likely to be fired.
Although the penalty notice against the person who leaked the screenshots has not yet been issued, the news has already started. On Alibaba’s intranet, discussions on this topic have become very popular and are still continuing. We typed this word document and saved it as a picture based on the topic content, so that we can restore the tags under this discussion for everyone.
Judging from the topic tags, some advised the person involved to "hurry up and surrender", some said "I would rather break than bend", some lamented that colleagues were "cheated" and "innocent", there were many onlookers watching the fun, and some employees even questioned the company's control of public opinion and "are they deleting tags?"
"If this is found out, it will definitely be punished." Wang Wen, who works at Alibaba, told Jiemian reporters that Alibaba is particularly concerned about the external public opinion of its employees. If unauthorized screenshots are discovered, the consequences will be serious. "Many of our messages are printed with logos using the name and job number." (The logo of the name and job number here is more accurately a unique identification code.)
If the news of the dismissal is confirmed, this employee will probably be a little heartbroken, because he didn’t even forget to use Photoshop to remove the watermark, but he was still fired.Found it out. "Just this morning (September 14), a front-end (engineer) parsed the picture." Alibaba assistant Li Hui, who is suspected of knowing the information, revealed to reporters.
"It seems that based on the needs raised by HR, R&D added a layer of things that cannot be recognized by the naked eye." Wang Wen explained that this is probably because the upgraded technology can help the company identify the person who took the screenshot based on the leaked pictures. "Those who violate the rules will not be dismissed."
"Alibaba's intranet must be open to the whole society. Everyone knows what products we are developing and where they have gone." According to media reports, at the Alibaba Annual Shareholders Meeting in May 2010, Jack Ma gave a speech saying that openness, transparency, sharing, and taking responsibility are the most important corporate culture of Alibaba and will also be a creed for the entire company in the future.
In this incident, integrity has become the most prominent core value of Ali, and values, in Ali’s usual assessment, are a key factor in determining whether employees should stay or leave. In an interview with China Youth Daily in 2007, Deng Kangming, then senior vice president of Alibaba Group, talked about classifying employees into "wild dogs," "little white rabbits," and "hounds" based on performance. Employees with good performance but particularly poor values are called "wild dogs." The company's attitude towards such people is very firm: "They cause great harm to the team" and they must be "killed without mercy."
"Only a team built on trust can go a long way and fight tough battles." Although Jiang Fang still mentioned in the internal letter that trust will not end. But after experiencing five colleagues being fired for "cheating" by grabbing moon cakes, I learned that screenshots of the intranet were privately posted.After another colleague will be dealt with, we seem to be able to feel some subtle changes in employees' views on the company's trust. Li Hui described to reporters her psychological feelings after learning that the person who took the screenshots of the mooncake incident was found out, with only two words: "terrible".
Google has found that teams with trust and security are more efficient. Brian Welle, leader of Google's Human Resources and Innovation Lab and director of Google's human resources analysis, pointed out that giving employees a psychological sense of belonging and ownership is what Google managers value most. Therefore, the company must first provide absolute support to team members to ensure their psychological safety. In addition, instilling trust among members is the second priority in building a great team.
I don’t know what specific provisions on values, integrity red lines, etc. are included in Alibaba’s employee handbook and confidentiality agreement. An open letter was released on the intranet on the evening of September 14. Alibaba’s management seems to be ready to turn the page. As for the employee who took the screenshot and uploaded it, he Photoshopped off the watermark that might reveal his identity before uploading it. He should have known that doing so was a violation of company regulations. A third Alibaba employee told Jiemian News that Alibaba has made repeated orders to prohibit the leakage of intranet information many times, and has even "handled" those who violated the policy - the "handling" here refers to expulsion.
We still don’t know when Alibaba will announce how it will deal with this employee. In addition to violating the relevant employee code, the management will also determine which of the company’s values his behavior violated. But on Alibaba's intranet, more employees are paying attention to the sixth employee's fate, and their discussions reveal sympathy and doubt.
(According to the request of the interviewees, Wang Wen and Li Hui are pseudonyms)
