PR executive at Chinese tech firm Baidu apologizes for comments seen as glorifying overwork

HONG KONG — A top rated general public relations executive from Chinese technologies agency Baidu apologized Thursday just after she designed responses in a sequence of videos that critics explained glorified a tradition of overwork.

Baidu’s head of communications, Qu Jing, drew a public outcry in China just after she implied in the videos that she was not concerned about her workers as she was “not their mom” and stated she only cared about success. She also stated that the connection in between her and her subordinates was purely an “employer-staff relationship.”

The backlash was swift, with many on social media platforms such as Weibo criticizing Qu as missing empathy.

Qu posted an apology Thursday on her personal WeChat account, where by she “sincerely apologized to all netizens” and clarified that she experienced not sought Baidu’s permission just before posting the video clips.

Qu mentioned that her quick films did not stand for Baidu’s stance. Baidu operates China’s dominant lookup motor as perfectly as the Ernie bot, an artificial intelligence company equivalent to ChatGPT.

“Many of the criticisms are really pertinent, I am reflecting deeply and humbly take them,” she reported. “There are numerous inappropriate (issues said) in the video clip that brought on exterior misunderstandings about the company’s values and corporate society, producing really serious hurt. I sincerely apologize.”

Qu also pledged to enhance her communication and administration type and care more for her colleagues.

Baidu did not straight away comment.

The videos, which have considering the fact that been taken down, arrived at a time when quite a few younger people in China are pushing back again from a culture of competitors and grueling hrs in the office.

Qu acquired criticism for a assortment of subjects she stated in the series of quick films on Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok.

In the sequence, she introduced up an incident of particular workers who despatched hundreds of grievance letters towards her to the office, and threatened to damage their occupations by guaranteeing that they could in no way all over again locate a career in the marketplace.

In a person of the films, she criticized an personnel who refused to go on a 50-day enterprise journey during the Covid-19 pandemic. China experienced executed stringent travel limits that at instances bundled weeks of quarantine for vacation even in the region.

“Why ought to I consider into consideration my employee’s relatives? I’m not her mom-in regulation,” Qu stated, incorporating that if staff refused to go on such business outings then they would not get income raises or position promotions.

Chinese technology firms have prolonged been criticized for their extended doing work hrs.

A public debate was established off in latest a long time about the “996” work culture, where workers in know-how corporations had been anticipated to function from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 6 times a 7 days. The issue was also spotlighted soon after the deaths of two employees of Chinese e-commerce firm Pinduoduo, just one of whom collapsed instantly on the road on her way dwelling from get the job done.

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, also faced criticism in 2019 for endorsing the 12-hour workday culture, expressing that those people who enjoyed their do the job would not uncover the “996” practice to be a difficulty.