Why Employees at Alibaba Are Hard to Lure Away

By Wang Xiaozhi

There is a popular saying among the headhunting circles: “Employees of Alibaba are hard to lure away. Those who work in the company are the most faithful, for those who disagree with Alibaba's orientation have already taken flight.”

Such a statement is by no means groundless. Maimai Research Institute of Data released its statistics of 2018 regarding the average length of service for employees from 31 wellknown corporations in China—all companies that have secured a strong foothold in such areas as electronic communication and internet information technology. According to the statistics, Alibaba's 2.47 years are of the longest average serving years among the Big Three Tech Companies, while Tencent's 2.28 years comes next, followed by Baidu's 2.19 years.

Secret to Selecting Talents

Alibaba has done a lot in both the selection and retaining of employees in its recruiting process. In 2015,Alibaba initiated its totally brandnew “talent strategy”—that is, “being an extraordinary man, keeping a peaceful mind and doing excellent work.”

How to identify “an extraordinary man”? At Alibaba, “an extraordinary man” is characterized by having great intelligence, being optimistic,showing tremendous resilience, and having the propensity to reflect—and these are the traits that Alibaba's recruiters give a high priority. Those who are intelligent tend to have high IQs and EQs, and are open-minded and highly professional. Being optimistic refers to those who are endowed with an inquisitive mind and are brimming with curiosity after a thorough evaluation of the overall situation. Those who are resilient are inclined to work well under great pressure, to recover easily and quickly from what is unpleasant, and to maintain equilibrium in the face of both criticism and compliments.Having the propensity to reflect denotes that individuals should be modest enough to contemplate their own conduct constantly.

But among the four traits,the first two are what Alibaba's recruiters value most. In other words, the qualities for an Alibaba applicant can be condensed into two keywords, namely intelligence and optimism, since the smart are in the habit of selfreflection, they tend to learn from past mistakes and avoid falling into the same trap again, while the optimistic are certainly the ones who are resilient and hopeful under adverse circumstances.

Measures of Retaining Staff

In the first quarter of 2019,Alibaba's payment from stock earnings reached 7.1 billion yuan,with a year-on-year growth of 14%. Alibaba's talent pools have all the more been characterized by being globalized, diversified, and sustainable—owing to the steady increase of funds into recruitment and welfare.

Alibabahas devot ed considerable time and effort to its welfare system, in which its concern for humanity is revealed. A package of benefit plans have been devised for the needs of the young employees,including the “iHome Housing Program” and “iBaby Plan,” all of which considerably alleviate the financial pressure that young employees face.

Also, employees' welfare at Alibaba involves various aspects with regards to the life of both employees and their families,such as “Carnation Plan” that extends benefits to employee's parents, the “iHelp Dandelion Plan” (financial aid for employees and their families who suffer from serious diseases), and the“iHope Rainbow Plan” (financial aid for employees whose family is severely deprived).

Everye mployee is an invaluable asset to the company.It is generally acknowledged that a company that is willing to bear corporate social responsibility will not merely aim at making profit or being accountable to shareholders. Rather, it contrives to shoulder the responsibility towards its employees and society as a whole, being committed to improve employees' quality of life and giving them chances to live a more decent and dignified life.

In a word, a range of benefit plans at Alibaba are critical in creating a strong and cohesive company culture and fostering a sense of belonging on the part of employees, making them greatly faithful to this corporation.

Alibaba's demonstration of great humanistic concerns earns it universal recognition and a good reputation nationwide.According to LinkedIn, among the list of “The Best Companies to Work for in China in 2019,”Alibaba Group ranks first.

It is worth noting that Alibaba's welfare system extends not only to in-service employees, but also to former employees. Alibaba's employees call each other“classmates,” and those who leave are called “graduates.” Gathering parties have been held regularly for former employees, which is referred to as the Ali Alumni Association. In addition, their ID numbers and nicknames will not be removed from the personnel management system. Jiang Fang,one of the co-founders of Alibaba Group, observes that “Ali's alumni have also been provided with access to our welfare system,involving a range of benefits such as physicals and airfare discounts.”

(From China New Time,July 2019. Translation: Huang Mengyuan)