According to the previous rank rules, when different employees join the company, they will be matched to the corresponding initial rank based HE Tuber   on their seniority, and the corresponding salary and stocks will be matched (stock exchange rights usually take effect after 4 years).

Gao Gao introduced "Fixed Focus" that at present, the largest group in Alibaba is P6-P8. P9 is a watershed and the highest level of the middle level. Generally, when you reach P9, you will automatically be affiliated to the M4 level, and P10 is equivalent to the vice president. In the eyes of the outside world, generally P9 and above can be called "high P". However, due to the large number of P8 and P9 people in the past two years, there has

  even been a phenomenon of "P inflation" in the market.

Under the wave of mobile Internet, Alibaba's rank system has been used as a frame of reference by other Internet companies for a long time, and Alibaba's high ranking has once become a symbol of wealth and social status. On social platforms, many people from major Internet companies will automatically convert their company's rank into the corresponding rank in Alibaba, trying to join the ranks of "Internet upstarts".

Comparison table of rank and salary of ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent

According to Gao Gao's description, the average annual salary (cash + stocks) of Alibaba's P8 can reach one million levels. For every high P level that goes up, the salary directly doubles, which brings a strong "wealth creation effect." High-level executives who join earlier and are promoted successfully have more hidden benefits - older internal qualifications, higher leadership trust, more high-value stocks, etc. In the earlier era of mass entrepreneurship and innovation, high P status was still a guarantee of successful

  financing and smooth recruitment.

However, as the Internet traffic dividend disappears, in the past two years, Alibaba’s high-profile professionals have gradually changed their taste.

On the one hand, under the circumstances of "inflation", the annual salary and gold content of high-income earners are declining, and the number of years required to compete for high-income earner status is lengthening.

A former P8 employee of Alibaba told "Ding Focus" that there are still many people who are still unable to lead the team even if they are promoted to P8. P8 and P9 in different departments will be ranked according to the strength of the business.

The above-mentioned employees said that the longer they stay in the company, the more they find that promotion to P8 can only depend on fate and "endurance".

On the other hand, under the excessive attention, the news associated with high-profile professionals is not only the myth of high salaries and entrepreneurial counterattacks, but also the use of high-profile PUA status as PUA subordinates, defrauding job seekers, and small and medium-sized factories rejecting Alibaba senior executives. P and other news came out.

Rank is determined by internal motivation, but is "hidden" by external pressure. In fact, as early as August 2020, Alibaba had hidden high-profile employees internally. Employees can no longer see each other’s ranks in systems such as email, DingTalk, and intranet. They can only see the group departments to which they belong, in an attempt to promote organizational management. Go flat.

This time, Alibaba has hidden the P sequence from internal to completely eliminated it, which has brought a high level of shock to Alibaba employees. Gao Gao said that when the high-profile policy was implemented in 2020, some people were panicked for a while, fearing that they could not grasp the scale of communication, but that was only a temporary and internal impact, and they gradually adapted to it later, depending on the other party's report. Anyone can guess one or two. However, the direct axing of high P this time also involves interests, which shows Ali's determination to adjust.

The judge believes that the current policy level sends a positive signal to Internet companies, and Internet companies should also consider public sentiment issues to avoid excessive attention to negative news about high-paid groups. "At the same time, it will also help Alibaba achieve the management goals of the entire enterprise."

3. The Internet no longer needs high P

As part of Ali's transformation, the change in the rank system, which involves the vital interests of the vast majority of people, is even more difficult to implement than changes in the organizational structure.

At the same time, this revolution started with Taotian, the vanguard of Alibaba. It remains to be seen whether the other five major groups will follow suit, what specific changes will be made, and what the effect of the changes will be.

Some insiders judge that a bigger storm is brewing across the entire group - some internal high-profile employees may leave because of dissatisfaction or failure to meet requirements, and some external talents may leave because of their past actions. If the employee's contribution fails and leaves; under the appointment system, it may become a new trend to engage in relationships with superiors instead of doing business.

The most important reason why Ali made this move is that both people and mechanisms serve the business. The biggest driving factor in the reform of the rank system is the slowdown in performance growth . "The people are still the same, the business is still the same, and ultimately we have to return to growth." Gao Gao said.

Judging from Taotian's performance, Alibaba will no longer publish GMV data for Double 11 in 2022, and Tmall's GMV growth rate for Double 11 in 2021 will drop to 8.45%.

At the same time, in the past two years, opponents have increasingly attacked Ali. According to financial report data, in terms of revenue growth, Alibaba’s revenue in the third quarter of fiscal year 2023 was 247.76 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 2.13%; lower than JD.com’s 7.08% year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2022 and Pinduoduo’s 46.23% in the same period year-on-year growth rate.

Although Alibaba has a strong family background, its business growth is still threatened. "When the group does not have so many new businesses and growth points, strengthening business competitiveness through institutional changes has become the

  most reasonable way." Gao Gao said.

More people are concerned about whether other large Internet companies that implement similar rank systems will make similar moves to “de-high-end” services. Many industry insiders said that this depends on the attitude of the No. 1 position and how they want to allocate the company's resources and funds based on the company's existing performance.

However, it can be seen that in the past five years, in order to avoid organizational rigidity, giants including BAT have made some adjustments to their internal rank systems - in 2019, Tencent changed the original 1.1-6.3 levels to 4- Level 17, in 2020, Meituan will cancel the original "M+P" dual-level line, "1-2 to 3-3" and other professional sequences, and adopt a single-level line named "L+number". The purpose of both They all make the internal promotion system simpler and the ranks clearer.

However, many interviewees also said that as long as any company involves resource allocation, there will be a power sequence, and there will also be objective class gaps, but some are obvious and some are dark . In other words, "high P" will continue to exist in other ways.

However, a human resources expert told "Ding Focus" that an irreversible trend in the Internet industry is that although "high-profile professionals" still exist, the industry no longer needs flashy high-profile professionals. In any case, the days when top players were overshadowed by the stars are gone forever.

The judge also has the same view. He believes that "elimination of high-end products" will gradually become an industry trend, and the overall trend will become more pragmatic. Because when companies are developing rapidly and have money and resources, they are willing to hire more people to make new attempts and expect surprises from some marginal departments. Now that the industry is in a low-growth stage, it is best to strip off redundancies and use defense instead of offense. Enterprises need more.

Therefore, for Internet people, it is important to switch expectations, and it is even more important to focus on oneself.

Many industry insiders suggested that what everyone should do most is to find their own place in the company and even society, and operate and plan themselves as an independent business and an independent company. In this way, even in the industry and environment When there are fluctuations, life will not be too bad.

*At the request of the interviewee, Gao Gao’s name has been changed in this article.

Author: Bruce; Editor: Xiang Yuan

Original title: Big factory and high P, step down from the altar

Source public account: Dingjiao (ID: dingjiaoone), profound impact on innovation.

This article is published with the authorization of Renren is a product manager cooperative media@dingjiao. Reprinting without permission is prohibited.

The title picture comes from Unsplash, based on the CC0 agreement

The opinions in this article represent only the author's own. The Renren Product Manager platform only provides information storage space services.

Comparison table of rank and salary of ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent

According to Gao Gao's description, the average annual salary (cash + stocks) of Alibaba's P8 can reach one million levels. For every high P level that goes up, the salary directly doubles, which brings a strong "wealth creation effect." High-level executives who join earlier and are promoted successfully have more hidden benefits - older internal qualifications, higher leadership trust, more high-value stocks, etc. In the earlier era of mass entrepreneurship and innovation, high P status was still a guarantee of successful financing and smooth recruitment.

However, as the Internet traffic dividend disappears, in the past two years, Alibaba’s high-profile professionals have gradually changed their taste.

On the one hand, under the circumstances of "inflation", the annual salary and gold content of high-income earners are declining, and the number of years required to compete for high-income earner status is lengthening.

A former P8 employee of Alibaba told "Ding Focus" that there are still many people who are still unable to lead the team even if they are promoted to P8. P8 and P9 in different departments will be ranked according to the strength of the business.

The above-mentioned employees said that the longer they stay in the company, the more they find that promotion to P8 can only depend on fate and "endurance".

On the other hand, under the excessive attention, the news associated with high-profile professionals is not only the myth of high salaries and entrepreneurial counterattacks, but also the use of high-profile PUA status as PUA subordinates, defrauding job seekers, and small and medium-sized factories rejecting Alibaba senior executives. P and other news came out.

Rank is determined by internal motivation, but is "hidden" by external pressure. In fact, as early as August 2020, Alibaba had hidden high-profile employees internally. Employees can no longer see each other’s ranks in systems such as email, DingTalk, and intranet. They can only see the group departments to which they belong, in an attempt to promote organizational management. Go flat.

This time, Alibaba has hidden the P sequence from internal to completely eliminated it, which has brought a high level of shock to Alibaba employees. Gao Gao said that when the high-profile policy was implemented in 2020, some people were panicked for a while, fearing that they could not grasp the scale of communication, but that was only a temporary and internal impact, and they gradually adapted to it later, depending on the other party's report. Anyone can guess one or two. However, the direct axing of high P this time also involves interests, which shows Ali's determination to adjust.

The judge believes that the current policy level sends a positive signal to Internet companies, and Internet companies should also consider public sentiment issues to avoid excessive attention to negative news about high-paid groups. "At the same time, it will also help Alibaba achieve the management goals of the entire enterprise."

As part of Ali's transformation, the change in the rank system, which involves the vital interests of the vast majority of people, is even more difficult to implement than changes in the organizational structure.

At the same time, this revolution started with Taotian, the vanguard of Alibaba. It remains to be seen whether the other five major groups will follow suit, what specific changes will be made, and what the effect of the changes will be.

Some insiders judge that a bigger storm is brewing across the entire group - some internal high-profile employees may leave because of dissatisfaction or failure to meet requirements, and some external talents may leave because of their past actions. If the employee's contribution fails and leaves; under the appointment system, it may become a new trend to engage in relationships with superiors instead of doing business.