马斯克的反HR管理模式:从企业到联邦政府Elon Musk’s approach to workforce management, first seen during his Twitter takeover, is now playing out on a national scale. As an advisor to the Trump administration and head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk is applying his “lean efficiency” philosophy to federal bureaucracy. His tenure at companies like Tesla, SpaceX, and X has been marked by mass layoffs, rigid accountability, and controversial HR policies. While his leadership style prioritizes efficiency and rapid change, it often leads to legal challenges and employee dissatisfaction. Organizations can learn from Musk’s aggressive tactics by balancing accountability with strategic communication and employee well-being.
当一封名为**“十字路口的选择”(A Fork in the Road)**的邮件突然出现在员工的收件箱中,内容警告他们若不回复将被视为自动辞职时,许多人感到不安。这种强硬的管理手段并不是新鲜事,而是埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)多年来一贯的管理风格。
早在2022年11月,马斯克收购推特(现X)后,他便裁掉了近一半的员工,并迅速废除远程办公政策,要求所有员工返回办公室,除非获得他的个人批准。随后,他发出了一封标志性的邮件,要求留下来的员工接受“极度硬核”的工作模式,即高强度、长时间的工作节奏。
这次大刀阔斧的改革为外界提供了一个窗口,让人们得以一窥马斯克的管理哲学:极端效率、高度问责、快速决策。这一模式已在他旗下的多家公司——特斯拉(Tesla)、SpaceX 和 Neuralink 等得到了体现,如今,他正试图将其应用到美国联邦政府。作为特朗普政府的顾问及“政府效率部”(DOGE)负责人,马斯克正在推行一系列激进的机构改革,包括裁员、重组和强化绩效考核制度,而这些措施无一不让人想起当初的推特改革。
HR眼中的马斯克模式
尽管马斯克因创新和商业成就备受推崇,但他的管理风格在HR领域却争议不断。过去十年间,特斯拉因工作环境问题、种族歧视指控、加州工厂的安全隐患等多次被起诉。2024年,特斯拉刚刚解决了一起涉及多次陪审团裁决的歧视案件,而SpaceX和Neuralink也因不公平的劳动实践和工作环境问题受到关注。X(推特)更是深陷与前员工的法律纠纷,许多前员工因被裁员后未能获得合法的遣散补偿而成功通过仲裁维权。
更值得关注的是,马斯克的企业文化刻意削弱传统HR机制。2020年,特斯拉曾推出一份被称为“反手册”(Anti-Handbook)的员工手册,明确表示公司不推崇传统的规章制度,认为“政策和规则只是为了设定最低标准,而我们不是那样的公司。”这一理念强调员工的高绩效要求,但也意味着更少的保护和支持。
从企业到联邦政府:HR的挑战与机遇
如今,这一反HR模式正被复制到联邦政府。最明显的例子之一是美国人事管理办公室(OPM)近期向部分政府雇员发出的裁员通知,邮件的标题恰好也是“十字路口的选择”。在政府机构,马斯克正在推行更严苛的绩效管理体系,例如要求员工每周提交五项工作成果,然而,这种方式在高度官僚化的政府机构中难以实施,并已导致部分裁员决策被法院驳回。
专家分析指出,马斯克的模式核心在于高度问责,但缺乏过渡和沟通,这也是其争议所在。“他的管理风格强调立刻执行,而不是渐进式调整,” 谈判专家安德烈斯·拉雷斯(Andres Lares)表示,“但在政府这样的大型机构中,像泰坦尼克号掉头一样,不可能一夜之间完成变革。”
与此同时,HR行业也在思考如何应对这一趋势。一方面,组织可以学习马斯克在提升效率方面的成功经验,打造更具执行力的文化;另一方面,企业需要避免极端化,确保变革过程中员工的信任和稳定性。例如,在远程办公问题上,马斯克持强硬立场,认为“远程办公的员工大多是假装工作”,但HR专家指出,灵活办公模式对于许多员工(如照顾家庭的职场人士)至关重要,过度削减灵活性可能会导致人才流失。
结语:HR该如何应对马斯克模式?
马斯克的HR模式已经不再局限于企业,而是进入了政府机构,并可能对未来的管理模式产生深远影响。对于HR从业者来说,这是一个思考如何平衡效率、问责与员工福祉的机会。HR需要关注的不仅是绩效,还包括组织文化、信任和沟通方式。企业可以借鉴马斯克的高效执行力,但要避免因过度强调效率而破坏员工关系。
毕竟,一个可持续的组织,不能只靠“极端效率”运作。
作者:Ryan Golden
The Key to a Thriving Workforce? A Smart Approach to AI微软的最新数据强调了人工智能对员工赋权、活力和生产力的积极影响。领导者可以通过关注其员工队伍是否在“繁荣”中来促进良好表现,微软将“繁荣”定义为被赋予权力和充满活力地进行有意义的工作。员工信号调查显示,人工智能的使用能通过减少乏味工作并促进有意义的工作来提高生产力、努力和影响。人工智能工具还与更高的赋权和活力得分相关,表明员工队伍的“繁荣”。成功的关键在于将人工智能与支持性文化相结合,提供必要的培训,并使人工智能项目与公司目标保持一致。
New data reveals how access to AI can help employees feel more empowered and energized, and find more meaning in their work.
what’s the best way for leaders to foster good performance? How can they tell if their efforts are successful or not? Often, companies try to answer these questions by measuring metrics like engagement or financial results. And while those are critical to business success, at Microsoft, we also want to explore whether the workforce is thriving.
“Thriving has become the North Star for how we understand employees,” says Microsoft VP of People Analytics Dawn Klinghoffer, who leverages data to help leaders understand and improve employee’s experience. “We define thriving as being empowered and energized to do meaningful work. Are people excited to come to work every day, excited about the opportunities ahead?”
One of the ways we gauge this at Microsoft is with our Employee Signals survey, a biannual company-wide poll. The recent results not only offered insights into the tangible benefits of thriving, they also uncovered a key catalyst for fostering it: access to AI.
The Benefits of Thriving
We are focused on fostering a culture of thriving because our research suggests that doing so can boost how effective our workforce perceives itself to be. We also found that employees who are thriving are likely to have the highest scores on our indicators of high performance, like productivity, effort, and impact
Additionally, survey results suggest that employees who are thriving are more likely to go above and beyond what is expected of them. They take more pride in their work and they are less apt to look for employment elsewhere.
Recent Employee Signals survey results give us some new insights about what it means to thrive in this new era of work. We discovered that higher scores on what we’ve identified as the most important factors that support thriving—finding meaning in work, feeling empowered, and feeling energized—also translate to a measurable boost in productivity. Furthermore, access to AI seems to correlate with higher scores on each of these pillars.
Meaningfulness: According to our data, employees who find their work meaningful are 59% more likely to say they are productive at work—and 28% more likely to say they put in extra effort. Key to that is minimizing time spent on tasks that don’t feel meaningful. This is where AI comes in: AI assistants can lighten the load by generating rough drafts, sifting through piles of data, or simply acting as a sounding board and brainstorming partner to help people nail down a plan of action. Crucially, incorporating AI into the day correlated to a 20% jump in scores relating to meaningful work.
“What we find is that AI is really there to help you take friction and toil out of the system, and to remove the drudgery of work,” Klinghoffer says. “And when people are able to remove some of that drudgery, we see that they’re more productive, and they thrive more.”
Empowerment: Survey results also point to a future in which AI empowers people in their jobs. People who are empowered do not feel they have resource constraints, and they aren’t overburdened with people telling them how to do their work, Klinghoffer says, “so they have more freedom to do things the way they want and need to get the job done.” Access to AI tools and resources, we found, correlated to 34% higher scores for questions related to empowerment.
Energy: Our employees who say they feel energized are 44% more likely to say they feel proud of their work, and 22% more likely to say they take the initiative to be productive and put discretionary effort into their work. All levels of AI use— learning about it, grasping its value, incorporating it into processes and products, or simply having AI resources—correlated to higher reported energy levels. In fact, scores on energy-related questions for those using AI jumped almost 27%.
These results offer solid evidence that AI can be a catalyst for thriving and high performance. But how a company goes about making AI available will determine whether the company can reap these benefits. If employees are equipped with the right knowledge, tools, training, and resources to leverage AI in their work, they can begin to tap the full potential of an AI companion.
The key to success, Klinghoffer says, is integrating AI in a way that spans culture, learning, and people management. That way, everyone will understand how AI can help them focus on the most meaningful work.
The ABCs of Thriving with AI
Klinghoffer recommends keeping the following blueprint top of mind.
Accelerate alignment: Strengthen connections between employees, the company’s mission, and the transformative potential of AI. Clarify how AI initiatives align with the company’s goals and employees’ roles. Celebrate contributions to AI projects to highlight their impact on the company and customers.
“Employees who felt more connected to the mission and really understood how their work fits into the larger system were also the ones who were really thriving,” says Ketaki Sodhi, Senior HR Data Analyst at Microsoft. “When we looked at Copilot and employee sentiment around AI, these were also the folks who were willing to experiment and find ways to use AI to take some of the drudgery out of the day-to-day.” Smart leaders should seek out those internal champions and offer them support and encouragement.
Be inclusive: Create an environment where all employees feel equipped to engage with AI. This includes providing AI education, training, and resources, as well as fostering a culture of innovation and supporting a safe space for experimentation. Regular check-ins and feedback sessions can help employees express concerns and share ideas related to AI. Once users are encouraged and equipped to explore the possibilities of AI, our research suggests that a time savings of just 11 minutes a day is all it takes for them to start to appreciate its value.
Cultivate collective growth: Create a culture that empowers employees to decide how to do their best work, while investing in moments that matter together. Provide employees with the flexibility to plan their days and create time to meaningfully engage with AI. Encourage them to explore how AI can help them free up time for creative and strategic work. Then highlight use cases and foster collaboration among teams to encourage knowledge sharing.
Collective growth encompasses in-role experiences (how do we create time and space for employees to learn within their role?) and beyond (what comes next for me? Is there a viable career that excites me at this company?). AI can help with both—by eliminating the drudgery that keeps employees from doing more creative work, and by facilitating positive employee movement. “You see a huge boost. People get excited doing something new, growing their skills and experiences, and furthering their career,” Klinghoffer says. “A couple of months ago on my team we had people who were interested in a different role raise their hands, and we facilitated changes for about 20% of my org.”