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China’s largest online travel company Trip.com Group to roll out hybrid work model, allowing employees to do their jobs remotely up to two days a week
- Shanghai-based Trip.com Group will implement its hybrid work policy across its global operations from March 1
- The push to a hybrid work model is expected to help the group retain employees and attract new workers ahead of a post-pandemic rebound in global travel
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Trip.com Group, China’s largest online travel services provider, will roll out a hybrid work policy across its global operations from March 1, enabling about 33,400 employees worldwide to perform their jobs remotely up to two days each week.
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The Shanghai-based firm – operator of online travel agencies Trip.com, Ctrip and Qunar, as well as travel metasearch engine Skyscanner – said this move would make it the “first internet company in mainland China to implement a comprehensive proactive hybrid work model”, according to its statement on Tuesday.
The policy will be implemented across the group’s offices on the mainland, Hong Kong and 16 other regions, adjusted according to local circumstances and Covid-19 protection measures.
“When a good part of the society works remotely, their job satisfaction will improve,” said James Liang Jianzhang, group co-founder and executive chairman, in an online group interview with media on Tuesday. “[This hybrid working model] helps reduce urban traffic congestion and contributes to employees’ work-life balance, which may even boost the country’s fertility rate.”
Liang said he expected the group’s appeal to existing employees and new workers would grow because of its hybrid work policy. “I hope that … more peers will join us [in carrying out this strategy],” he said.
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The effort could help Trip.com Group distance itself more from the Chinese tech industry’s infamous 996 work culture, while helping the firm engage valuable talent in anticipation of a post-pandemic rebound in global travel. The 996 schedule, which refers to working 12 hours a day, six days a week, has become an unwritten standard for many mainland Chinese tech firms.
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