TikTok employees in the United States expressed frustration and dismay last week after the company introduced an office attendance tracker and threatened disciplinary action for non-compliance with the new attendance requirements, in an unusual effort to bring workers back to the office using custom data collection technology.
Employees at TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, received notifications this week about the new tool, an app called MyRTO. The app, which is integrated with the company’s internal software, monitors badge swipes and asks employees to explain “gaps” — absences on days they are supposed to be in the office — according to emails and screenshots screenshots shared with the New York Times.
A dashboard containing the data is visible to employees, their supervisors and human resources staff members.
TikTok is asking most of its roughly 7,000 U.S. employees to work in offices three times a week starting in October. Some teams are expected five days a week.
TikTok employees were disconcerted by the disciplinary tone of the messages and the appearance of the MyRTO dashboard, which reminds them that the company is monitoring their daily comings and goings, according to interviews with several employees, who would not speak only under cover of anonymity. One, who said it was important to work in person, added that enforcement and threats of punishment were unnecessary and colleagues now feared the consequences of not compliance with these rules.
Zach Dunn, hybrid working expert and founder of hybrid management company Robin, said it was “extremely rare” for companies to monitor badge passes so closely and threaten disciplinary action over failure to do so. ‘attendance.
“We’ve seen people say, ‘This will be considered as part of your overall performance evaluation.’ This is not the same as saying, “If you don’t do this, you will be punished.” »
Jodi Seth, a TikTok spokesperson, said the tool was intended to help set expectations for office attendance.
More than three years into the return-to-office planning saga, many companies have adopted hybrid work arrangements. According to a Stanford study, just over a quarter of American workers’ workdays are worked from home, and according to Kastle, a workplace security company, offices across the country are busy less than 50% compared to the period before the pandemic.
Many tech companies, including Zoom and Meta, have asked their employees to start reporting into the office this summer and fall. Some of these policies have sparked backlash, including at Amazon, where company employees staged a walkout in May.
Some companies are stepping up their implementation efforts, saying they will monitor badges to ensure employees actually show up to the office. Google, which has asked most of its employees to be in the office three days a week, will use the badges to identify extended absences from the office, which could be incorporated into performance reviews.
TikTok employs workers in U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Washington, and New York. The company saw strong growth during the pandemic, but it struggled to bring its remote employees into its offices.
In an email to employees that introduced MyRTO, TikTok outlined its goals for working in the office and said that “we are now providing the next round of tools and information for employees and leaders to better allocate time spent in the office and optimize collaboration”.
In August, the company told employees in New York that a lunch allowance would be tied to an app that would require checking in from the office to access the funds, according to two of the employees who spoke on condition of anonymity. Employees said the app felt like another way to check their location.
TikTok’s attitude toward in-person work could be influenced by TikTok and ByteDance executives overseas, Dunn said. He cited data from his company showing that workers in the Asia-Pacific region have largely returned to their pre-pandemic daily commutes.
“Companies, especially those with management based in the area, probably don’t see what the problem is because they’ve been doing this for over a year,” Dunn said. It is expected that there will be an office. »
