A top Chinese PR executive has apologised after she made comments in a series of videos glorifying a work culture.

Qu Jing, head of communications at Baidu, sparked an outcry when she suggested in the videos that she was not bothered about her employees and was “not their mum”. She also said she was so devoted to Baidu that she did not know which year her son was in at school.

In a series of videos posted on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, she said that relations with her underlings amounted to little more than an “employer-employee relationship”, and the only thing she was interested in was results.

The response was swift, with many users of rival social media platforms castigating Qu for her lack of empathy towards her fellow workers. The videos have now been taken down.

Qu responded by apologising to “all netizens”, and admitted she had not got permission from Baidu before making the posts. She acknowledged that the videos did not represent Baidu’s stance.

In what must rank as the ultimate climbdown for a communications executive, Qu pledged to improve her communication, pep up her management style and show a bit more care for her colleagues.

“Many of the criticisms are very pertinent, I am reflecting deeply and humbly accept them,” she said. “There are many inappropriate [comments] in the video that caused external misunderstandings about the company’s values and corporate culture, causing serious harm. I sincerely apologise.”

Chinese technology firms have long been criticised for their long working hours. Jack Ma, the Alibaba founder, famously called it a “blessing” for anyone to be part of the “996 work culture”, where people work 9am to 9pm, six days a week.

It appeared on Thursday that Qu had abruptly left her job, according to the Chinese online media outlet 36Kr.

In the videos, she mentioned that she had received hundreds of complaint letters from employees, and threatened to ruin their careers by ensuring that they could never again find a job in the industry.

In one of the videos, she criticised an employee who refused to go on a 50-day business trip during the pandemic. “Why should I take into consideration my employee’s family? I’m not her mother-in law,” Qu said, adding that if employees refused to go on such business trips then they would not get salary raises or job promotions.

Baidu operates China’s dominant search engine as well as Ernie Bot, an artificial intelligence service similar to ChatGPT.