TikTok reportedly threatened to terminate remote employees who don’t live near their assigned office location

Huge tech’s campaign on distant work is gaining traction. 

Earlier this month, short-form video app TikTok despatched a tricky warning to a gaggle of US staff whose residence tackle did not match their workplace tackle. 

TikTok advised the staff that they is likely to be topic to disciplinary motion — and even run the chance of dropping their jobs — until they will show proximity to their assigned workplace location, in accordance with The Info, which first reported the information on Monday primarily based on a message despatched on TikTok’s inside software program, Lark. 

The inner message additionally advised these staff who had already moved again to their designated workplace places that they would wish to replace their residence tackle promptly with a purpose to keep away from disciplinary motion, The Info stated. 

The warning is simply the most recent in a collection of steps TikTok has taken over the previous few months to clamp down on distant work. The corporate introduced final July that staff would wish to come back into the workplace at the least twice every week starting in August, in accordance with the Wall Road Journal. TikTok subsequently rolled that date again to January 1, in accordance with The Info. 

Over the previous yr, firms starting from Twitter to Apple have additionally been rolling again their pandemic-era allowances on distant work. 

Since Elon Musk took the helm of Twitter in October, he is repeatedly urged staff to return to the workplace.

In August 2022, senior leaders at Apple advised staff they wanted to return to the workplace at the least three days every week. 

In early March 2022, Google advised staff in sure places to come back into the workplace three days every week beginning April, in accordance with an inside memo seen by Insider. By late March 2022, Uber had advised its staffers they might have to be within the workplace “at the least half the time” beginning April, Insider reported primarily based on an inside memo. 

Whereas many of those firms are actually making massive cuts to their workforce, TikTok has but to announce mass layoffs. Nonetheless, the Chinese language video large is up towards mounting safety considerations as increasingly more US entities have begun banning TikTok.

In December 2022, the Senate voted to ban TikTok on authorities gadgets and virtually 30 states have now launched partial or full bans. Universities are additionally taking steps to ban the platform.  

TikTok didn’t instantly reply to Insider’s request for a remark.