Facing high employee turnover, the company says the changes aim to build longer-term relationships with staff.
By He Qitong and Wu Yufei
Facing mounting pressure to reform work culture, popular Chinese lifestyle app Xiaohongshu, known in English as RedNote, announced it will scrap its overtime-heavy workweek and cancel non-compete agreements starting May.
The move follows a broader push among Chinese tech companies to cut back on excessive work demands, amid growing government and public campaigns against overwork and “involution.”
In an internal letter last week, Xiaohongshu said the changes, including ending the “big-small week” next month, aim to foster longer-term relationships with employees and encourage a work style that “best unleashes creativity.”
Under the controversial “big-small week” system, employees worked six days one week and five the next, effectively giving them just three days off every two weeks. The practice, common in China’s tech industry, has faced growing criticism for pushing staff into excessive overtime.
Under Chinese labor law, companies using the “big-small week” system must pay double wages for extra work during weekends and cap monthly overtime at 36 hours.
Xiaohongshu’s decision follows similar moves by major tech companies like Kuaishou and ByteDance, and quickly sparked widespread discussion online, with a related hashtag on microblogging platform Weibo drawing over 23,000 posts and 140 million views.
While some welcomed the move, saying two full days off would give them more freedom and improve work-life balance, others worried about potential pay cuts and feared that the same workload would simply be squeezed into fewer days.
During “small week” workdays, Xiaohongshu staff could earn as much as 4,000 yuan ($550) in a single day under the company’s double-pay policy, according to domestic media reports.
In 2021, video platform Kuaishou scrapped the system, followed by ByteDance, which owns TikTok, as tech companies faced rising criticism over excessive overtime. A 2023 survey by DT Finance found that more than 95% of respondents reported experiencing overwork, with finance, tech, and real estate among the hardest-hit sectors.
At the annual Two Sessions legislative meetings in March, the government mentioned “involution” for the first time, signaling a push to curb excessive competition, price wars, and widespread overwork. Involution — or neijuan — refers to the exhausting practice of employees working harder but for little gain.
Since then, companies across industries have announced measures to ease work pressures. Drone maker DJI ordered employees to leave offices by 9 p.m., appliance giant Haier introduced mandatory two-day weekends, and retailer Miniso pledged to simplify internal processes to cut down on “formalism.”
Experts say cost pressures are also behind the reforms. Lou Yu, director of the Institute of Social Law at China University of Political Science and Law, noted that China’s internet firms are no longer in rapid expansion, and many are adjusting work schedules as growth slows.
Xiaohongshu also announced it will cancel all non-compete agreements starting in May, becoming the first major Chinese internet company to do so. It said it would no longer introduce new non-compete clauses tied to cash or stock options, and all existing agreements of this kind would be voided.
Under typical non-compete deals, employees receive cash bonuses and access to discounted company stock in exchange for agreeing not to join rival firms for a set period. Such clauses have become common among China’s tech giants and have drawn criticism after reports of penalties exceeding one million yuan for violations.
Editor: Apurva.
(Header image: At the Xiaohongshu office building in Shanghai, Nov. 11, 2023. VCG)