Some departments in the WeChat Business Group (WXG) have started a “1065” working hour system, starting at 10 AM and ending at 6 PM, Five days a week. The work schedule is being tried out from the Chinese New Year. Such a “relaxed” working pace is not common for Internet giants in China.
According to a WXG employee, “Before that, each department of the WXG had different working hours. Working overtime is much less prevalent in the departments of WeChat Pay and WeChat Open Platform. Some departments where working overtime happens all the time, such as WeChat Channels and WeCom, employees even leave work after 12 pm.”
“Now, we require the management (e.g., department leaders, directors, etc.) to leave work at 6 pm. Even if the team members must work overtime, they would be forced to leave work by 10 pm, and security guards come around 9:40 to enforce this.”
Another employee of the WeCom department confirmed that he had received a notice of “request to get off work at 10 pm”, but he did not know the statement that “management gets off work at 6 pm”.
There are also WeChat employees who said that it is not as exaggerated as “getting off work at 6 pm”. The team leader usually gets off work at 7 pm, and the team members work until 10 pm at the latest, which has been carried out since the Chinese New Year.
As for whether the “1065” working hour system can finally be successfully implemented, the internal employees of the WXG are not sure. For the above adjustment of working hours, Tencent has not yet officially responded.
