16 Saturday June 11 2022 | the times
News
Charlie was only at TikTok for five
months, but it felt like much longer. “I
wasn’t having lunch, I wasn’t having
dinner,” she said. A video producer who
had worked for other tech companies,
she was drawn in by the app’s mam-
moth reach and youthful, vivaciouson both sides of the Atlantic have com-
plained about the unrealistic expecta-
tions of their bosses in China. Insiders
attribute the issue to a clash between
Western and Chinese corporate norms,
coupled with a burnout culture com-
mon to many fast-growing tech firms.
A new shopping venture within Tik-
Tok UK has drawn particular attention.
This week, the Financial Times revealed
that at least half the original staff of the
London TikTok Shop — which works
with brands and content creators to sell
merchandise on the platform — had
quit since it launched, with two em-
ployees given payouts over working
conditions.
The Times spoke to a woman who had
worked in the division for nine months
and needed cognitive behavioural ther-
apy to cope with her workload.
Working days would often begin with
early international calls and end after
10pm. Despite being lured in with the
promise of flexible working, employeesVCG/GETTY IMAGESSelling clothes via livestreaming at a TikTok e-commerce base in Wuhan, China
TikTok workers burn out
trying to match Chinese
were under pressure to be “glued” to
their desks — the woman was once rep-
rimanded for taking five minutes to an-
swer a message on Lark, the company’s
equivalent to Slack. “We were constant-
ly compared to our China counterparts.
They had the right work ethic and we
didn’t,” she said.
TikTok denied that this was expected
of its teams and said: “We encourage
the use of time off to recharge, schedul-
ing regular ‘no-meeting times’ across
the company, and automatically
surfacing time-zone reminders to
discourage off-hours messaging.”
There have long been mutterings
about what it is like to work for the com-
pany. The career ratings website Glass-
door hosts a number of critical reviews,
for TikTok London, with employees
saying working there is a “horrible ex-
perience” and should be avoided “like
the plague”.
Ex-employees have also taken to
YouTube with videos warning others
about why they stopped working for
TikTok. In May, several people spoke
out about the company’s practices in
the Wall Street Journal.
Former staff say raising concerns was
not straightforward. Moderators — in
charge of removing content in breach
of the company’s guidelines — told The
Times they were expected to watch
1,000 videos a day and apply rules with
97 per cent accuracy.
Those who have ex-
perience of working in
China say events de-
scribed at TikTok il-
lustrate two very dif-
ferent work cultures.
Chris Marquis, profes-
sor of Chinese man-
agement at the Uni-
versity of Cambridge’s
Judge Business
School, said: “Young
people live in their of-
fices and put their jobs
ahead of their person-
al lives to a degree
that is not the same in
the West.”
The Chinese gov-
ernment recently re-
minded firms that it
is illegal to work 9am
to 9pm six days a
week — a pervasive
practice in the tech
industry known as
“996”. Yet Marquis believes that will not
make 996 disappear: “Work culture is
frequently more demanding than it is in
the West and more hierarchical. Ques-
tioning the boss, challenging
assumptions, is less likely in China.”
TikTok insists it promotes open lines
of communication through forums,
anonymous surveys and other avenues
“for employees to ask questions, share
their experiences, and help us create a
positive work environment”.
Although it is only six years old, Tik-
Tok’s popularity is soaring. By the end
of last year TikTok.com had become
the world’s most visited domain, ahead
of Google and Facebook, according to
Cloudfare, an IT security company.
The speed of this growth is adding to
the pressure on its workers. According
to a Reuters report, ByteDance’s 2021
revenue reached nearly £47 billion, up
70 per cent on the year before.
While burnout is rife in the techno-
logy industry — a shortage of talent
means the stress on the existing work-
force is increasing, encouraged by the
“always on” culture — former employ-
ees of TikTok say they have never expe-
rienced anything quite like this.p
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“9 96 ”
Workers who have now left TikTok
have posted videos on YouTube about
the culture within the companyenergy. After joining, she felt that her
own was being sapped.
Tasked with establishing TikTok’s
new e-commerce venture, Charlie was
getting up early to set up livestreams
and working late into the evenings,
which was when most people were on
their phones. “I was expected to work
weekends, Monday through Sunday,”
she said. It could have been worse,
though: she heard that some of her Chi-
nese colleagues were sleeping in the
office: “If we had streams at 11pm at
night [6am in Shanghai, where TikTok
is based], they’re still awake and in the
studio. They have beds there.”
TikTok says it neither recognises nor
would condone this behaviour, but
another former employee showed The
Times a photograph of a woman in
China setting up a camp bed. The pic-
ture was sent to the London team on
Black Friday as an example of a strong
work ethic.
TikTok set up its first European office
in London in August 2018, and now has
thousands of employees and more than
100 million users across Europe. Its
Chinese owner, ByteDance, says on its
website that its mission “is to inspire
creativity and bring joy”, yet the culture
inside TikTok’s offices seems at odds
with this and with the videos on the site.
Employees in international officesKatie Prescott
Technology Business Editor
Constance Kampfner