Work as content: How HR should respond to the rise of #WorkTok

“I’ve got a random meeting in the calendar,” the girl on screen tells the camera. “I hope I’m not getting fired… I will die.” Seconds later, realisation dawns: “Someone else is in [the meeting].” she gasps. “I’m getting fired!” Over the rest of the two-minute video, you watch her reaction as she hears that her role is indeed being terminated. The caption reads: “Watch me realize I’m getting laid off lol” (although HR professionals will be relieved to hear, she does add: “I think this was one of the nicest layoffs tbh”). 

That TikTok video has had over 10 million views to date, and it's only one of many viral layoff videos. #WorkTok, the corner of short-form video social media platform TikTok that focuses on creators’ experiences and opinions about the world of work is booming. 

From layoffs to lazy girl jobs: Work becomes viral content

Alongside those live layoff videos, other videos range from live quitting to day-in-life vlogs, advice on how to find the perfect ‘lazy girl’ job to memes complaining about subpar salary increases. For many, particularly younger generations, work is effectively content, a goldmine of potential entertainment, clicks and likes. But if work, and your bosses, coworkers and HR itself become fair game for content creation, how should organisations respond?

The drivers behind work as content

It’s first worth exploring what’s driving the rise in work-related content. “Young people are inherently online: sharing their experiences is second nature,” explains Shosannah Davis, a consultant who works with employers to better engage with Gen Z. “Peer influence is a factor,” she adds. “On social media, posts that are controversial perform well. [Gen Z] value authenticity and are happy to share behind the scenes of their lives and see work as part of their personal brand and identity. They are also sick of employers treating them unfairly, underpaying them and ghosting them. Sometimes sharing these experiences can be a way of 'getting their own back' and warning others.” 

Georgia Dixon is founder of employee experience and HR consultancy Access HR and has built her own impressive following on TikTok, sharing career and HR-related advice and content. It’s a platform that she reflects has allowed her to “be more human as an HR professional”. 

While she points out that much of #WorkTok is driven by the US (other countries have much stricter employment protections around lay-offs, for example) this trend is nonetheless something HR professionals cannot afford to ignore. “We should be realistic: there are situations happening within the workplace that are being brought to social media,” she says. “That line of ‘it stops at the door’ doesn’t happen anymore. The lines between work and personal life have been blurred and social media is often used as an outlet of expression – the good and the bad.”

How remote work fuels online expression

The rise of working from home and reduction in frequency of informal in-person communication channels is also a driver, suggests Jo Carlin, SVP HR Europe at business management processor Firstsource. “Once we might have complained over coffee but that avenue often isn’t there anymore,” she says. “That, coupled with the massive explosion of platforms like TikTok and what can feel like a virtual popularity contest, means we are posting more and more.” However, she points out that employees have always been able to find ways to vent externally: “Before social media, people would send anonymous tips into newspapers. The concept isn’t new; the sheer volume is.” 

That sheer volume means the variety of posts on work range from the positive or fairly innocuous to things that could be far more damaging reputationally (layoff videos, the calling out of perceived poor practice or stories of doing the bare minimum, say). “HR used to worry about Glassdoor reviews, now we’ve got viral videos of ‘a day in the life of a junior analyst’, complete with sarcastic commentary,” says HR consultant Katherine Watkins. HR leaders should “be alert to the fact that what is discussed in private may not stay that way,” adds Audrey Williams, employment partner at Keystone Law.

The risks and realities for HR

So, how should HR respond to this rise in work-related content? Dixon is clear that proactively addressing culture to avoid people feeling the need to share negative content in the first place is the place to start. “If there’s not a culture of psychological safety where people can talk about their frustrations, then we need to proactively resolve that, rather than leaving it to boil up and have an outlet on TikTok,” she says. “Are we having continuous feedback conversations? Are we transparent internally so we avoid situations where people feel hard done by?” 

Creating other internal outlets for expression in a digital world, such as digital suggestion boxes and anonymous polls, could help catch negative feedback before it has a chance to go viral externally. One of Watkins’ clients has introduced a “meme contest” to channel digital creativity internally. “We should treat content creators as a signal, not a threat,” she says. “Treat this as informal feedback. What are the recurring themes and can you learn from them?  If someone is calling out bad leadership, the real issue is not the video, it’s the leadership. Use those moments to reflect, learn and improve the culture.”

Setting the right social media policies

When it comes to policies, organisations should take a principles-based approach, with guidelines rather than rules, advises HR transformation interim Melanie Steel. “Similar to how many gyms and other public spaces now have guidelines about being mindful about filming, we have to protect other people’s privacy and the data in our organisations,” she says. Any social media policy should strike the balance between being up-to-date but not “full-on Orwellian”, adds Watkins. “It’s about putting in guardrails, not having a policy that reads like some dystopian novel. Aim for a tone that acknowledges social media’s role in people’s lives, while outlining respect, confidentiality and reputation impact, because employees need to think about those areas.”

Indeed, while aiming to shut down expression on social media would be a fool’s errand, there is a need for HR to educate people, particularly those new to work, in appropriate usage. “It may not always be obvious to young people what's appropriate to share and what isn't, so be explicit and provide examples,” says Davis. Dixon adds that this should be built into on-boarding practices for all generations, ensuring information is easy to understand, principles-based and conveyed in an adult-to-adult tone.

Plan for virality: Reputation management in the social era

However, given the serious reputational damage that a negative viral video could cause, HR leaders need to get on the front foot and proactively mitigate these circumstances. “Plan some reactive messages in the event of a leak or something being posted and ensure a communications plan is in place,” advises Williams. Given the rise of such content, thinking through internal and external communications plans around events like restructures becomes more important than ever. In the event of confidentiality breaches, Williams says defamation law may become relevant, but as it is expensive to enforce, time might be better spent persuading the employee to remove the content. 

Dixon points out that given many organisations now expect their employees to act as advocates online, this needs to cut both ways. Employee generated content generates eight times more engagement and seven times more leads than traditional corporate content, she says, making it a powerful tool for employer branding and talent attraction. “We have to be transparent and honest with ourselves,” she adds. “If we want team members to associate with the organisation online, how are we going to respond in the very rare cases it doesn't go as planned?”

Why HR must lean in, not lock down

Ultimately, we are just at the start of the era of content. The #WorkTok genie isn’t going back in the bottle. While putting guardrails in place is necessary, HR should lean into rather than attempt to shut down work-related content. “It isn’t going away any time soon,” predicts Dixon. “Rather than resisting it, we should be embracing it. It offers such valuable insight and can be a strengthener of workplace culture. If companies don’t embrace it, they risk missing out on talent. It’s a way for HR leaders to be at the forefront of shaping modern workplace cultures and a better future of work.”

#WorkTok trends every HR leader should know

If you’re an HR leader who hasn’t spent much time on TikTok (and we estimate that might be quite a lot of you), don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here are just some of the #WorkTok trends worth knowing about…

Live layoffs and #QuitTok: The end of private exits

• Live layoffs: Employees posting videos of being made redundant or fired, usually over video call. One viral video posted by US account executive Brittany Pietsch is nine minutes long, with the caption ‘When you know you’re about to get laid off, so you film it”. In it, she defends her performance to the director and HR representative terminating her contract.
• #QuitTok: The rise of people publicly posting videos of them quitting their jobs, or talking about why they decided to quit and how they did it. One viral video of a woman in the lead up to quitting her corporate job and the moments after is captioned “it’s like an elephant took its foot off my chest”. 

Lazy Girl Jobs and BareMinimumMondays: A backlash to hustle culture

• #ActYourWage: With pay rises lagging far behind the rate of inflation in most countries, #ActYourWage means performing in your job at a level that matches your pay. So, if you’re paid minimum wage, you give minimum effort.

• Lazy Girl Jobs: Fed up with hustle culture? You might just need a lazy girl job, a role that is relatively easy, pays well and allows for a good work/life balance. According to one popular video, the best jobs to channel the Lazy Girl dream are the corporate side of finance, the administrative side of academia, government jobs and government-funded positions. See also: BareMinimumMondays, exactly as it sounds (and something that has always existed if people have had a bit too much fun over the weekend…).

Day-in-the-life content: A hidden gem for employer branding

• A day in the life: ‘Spend the day with me as a corporate girl in her 20s’; ‘come to work with me as an executive assistant’; ‘first day of my new job’. Day in the life videos giving a snapshot into someone’s working day are incredibly popular, and could form a creative, impactful and authentic part of any employer brand and talent attraction strategy.