As part of a reorganisation exercise, Chinese short-video making app TikTok has decided to reduce the size of its sales and advertising teams. This move is aimed at cutting costs and is expected to affect at least 60 employees in New York, Austin, Los Angeles and some locations outside of the US. While the exact number of impacted employees has not been disclosed, some media reports estimate it to be around 100. A townhall meeting has been scheduled for 23 January to discuss this further. TikTok’s US workforce consists of about 7,000 employees, while its parent company, ByteDance, has over 150,000 employees worldwide.
In October 2023, TikTok had made headlines when it was reported that the company had asked its managers to give lower ratings to employees during performance reviews. The company had cited that this move was aimed at ensuring a fair distribution of performance ratings among its worldwide workforce. Senior management and human resources staff had conveyed to managers the directive to increase the allocation of performance evaluations at the bottom end of the company’s bell-curve rating system, which was expected to double or even triple the number of subpar ratings assigned to certain teams.
Earlier in the same year, TikTok had also modified its bonus structure, which some employees believed would lead to smaller bonus payouts. The company’s annual bonuses are typically determined based on an individual’s performance reviews.
