“996” — you probably have never heard of this term before reading this article. It refers to a model of working hours mostly in Chinese tech companies: working from 9am till 9pm and 6 days a week. Sounds crazy right?
The reality is that this is not the only unreasonable working hours that exists in China. Tech industry has been growing in a rapid pace in the last 20 years in China. Numerous tech start-ups were founded and tech giants like Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent have dominated the industry for almost a decade in this market. However, their working hours are also very well known in this market.
Asian people are known for hardworking unintentionally. This has also been reflected in all kinds of stereotypes of the working culture in Asian companies. It is true for the majority of business here but the extreme long working hours is surely a shock to western eyes. Why do people accept this?
- Definition of success
Generally speaking, the definition of success in China means two things: fame and money. In most Chinese companies, these two are translated into two things: title and compensation. The managers are regarded as more successful career compared to just developers. The higher the position is, the higher the pay is. This is the golden rule in everywhere but this has been taken seriously in Chinese companies. For example, even the developers really hate the manager position, they still would like to become one. There is an old saying in Chinese: if a soldier doesn’t want to be a general, then this is not a good soldier. However, working long hours doesn’t get you more pay in most cases. But it is still accepted because it can make you look like a hard working person, and it helps with recognition from a Chinese manager’s eye.
2. Perception of power
It is a very common phenomenon in the offices in China that “if the manager is still here how can the rest of the team go home?” In a Chinese company, employees are not comfortable leaving the office if their manager is still in, because this can lead to the perception of you are not working hard enough from a manager’s eye and he/she has the power of deciding your growth in this company. The fear of leaving a bad impression to the manager has forced people to work longer hours than their managers. After all, office politics is still a thing, even in tech companies.
3. Long hours ≠ long working hours
I have a friend who works at a gaming company as an operational manager. They are the perfect example of a “996” company. He hates it and yet he’s still working there. He works from Monday till Friday, 9am to 9pm roughly and on Saturdays, the company has arranged full day trainings for everyone with mandatory attendance. How his 9 to 9 workdays look like does not necessarily mean working 12 hours in a row. “Flexible working hours” has been translated here in a different way. Because his responsibilities rely on the progress of the developers a lot, when his job is impeded by the developers, he usually just waits in front of his laptop and doing his own things, playing games, online shopping or chatting with friends. In some way it means more hours in the office, but the actual working hours are not equally long as the time you spent physically there.
That being said, the so-called “996” working hours or even “10–10–7” or “10–0–6” are still dominant in most Chinese tech companies. It works because a lot of the people have the thought that “I will just work hard for these two or three years and I will be out of it.” That is because with Chinese companies, if the business is doing great, the management won’t spare a penny with compensation bonuses. Those who believe that they will be out of it in two or three years are either the ones that are aiming at a promotion to the management positions or those who just want to make a big cash flow to start their own business or find another less exhausting job.
That being said, there is no right or wrong in this. The level of acceptance of long working hours is just another reflection of the culture differences between the east and the west. To the bottom of it, it’s a problem of finding what your employees value the most.
If you are interested in the topic, here is another deep dive I did in other aspects behind the unhealthy 996 working environment.
