Those who refused to join TikTok

Some people living in the UK refuse to work at TikTok because of harsh ‘996’ working culture concerns.

Talking to CNBC, 6 people said they refused to be interviewed, offered a job or left TikTok as soon as they learned of the company’s 996 culture, whether through online review or direct experience. Culture 996 is very popular with Chinese business. It comes from the requirement that the work begins at 9am to 9pm, 6 days / week, or 72 hours / week. Meanwhile, the number of working hours in the UK and the US is about 40 hours / week. In the UK, working in excess of 48 hours per week on average is considered illegal. “I stopped discussing immediately” An employee invited to act as a communicator for TikTok said 996 culture is really a concern. When researching TikTok on the Glassdoor recruiting site, the most common downside is work imbalance – insane working hours and life. This person “stopped talking immediately when he knew that they were not very flexible about the location and working policy”. A few weeks later, the person was offered a similar role at ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, but declined. Another senior artificial intelligence researcher revealed that he did not accept TikTok’s invitation even when the employer announced the salary of more than £ 100,000 / year (3.25 billion / year), not including bonuses. The expert also went to Glassdoor to look for TikTok reviews. For this person, the balance between public – private is very important. Of course, online reviews are not the only factor to refuse to go with TikTok. While Glassdoor is recognized as a useful platform when searching for a company’s internal culture, it’s not perfect, and reviews are for reference only. People can post many different reviews. However, 4 former TikTok employees told CNBC that they have had a really negative experience here. A former employee said TikTok is the most “poisonous” office I have ever tasted. “Everyone there is completely miserable and life is too short. In the first year before the epidemic swept, I counted only four or five weekends without work… I know TikTok is having trouble with hiring but in the end they don’t care. People to them are just numbers ”. Another former employee shared that, on average, he had to work 15 hours a day at TikTok. “For them, that is normal. Everyone complained but still accepted, perhaps because of good pirated wages “. This person also dislikes the company’s very opaque culture because he doesn’t get an answer when asking a question about his or her workplace. “Stay away, stay away, stay away” Two other former employees of TikTok concur with the above point. One person even sent CNBC a review of the company on Glassdoor titled: “Stay away, stay away, stay away”. In the 1-star review, there are 10 reasons listed why people should refuse to join TikTok and look for another company. This person criticized the “unbalanced public – private life” to “toxic groups” and “terrible management”. TikTok is expanding its workforce globally to deal with the pressure of becoming too popular. The company seeks content management, technical or policy staff. To improve the working environment, TikTok recruited Michal Osman from Facebook to be the European Cultural Director in January. However, countless people left before. Currently, TikTok employees in Europe are more than 3,000 people, up from 1,600 people in September 2020. Many people used to work at Facebook and Google. A TikTok employee said not to go through 996 culture at the company. In addition, they have rules such as prohibiting meeting on Wednesday lunchtime or not meeting on Friday afternoon. Like any other development startup, employees work hard and sometimes have to work overtime when urgent, said a TikTok spokesperson. Song TikTok has no 996 policy. In the UK, consulting firm Great Place to Work ranks TikTok as the 30th best place to work based on employee experience and anonymous feedback. Du Lam (According to CNBC)