Cascading resignations, advice on how to better negotiate one’s salary, a quest for meaning that has become crucial in one’s professional activity: the social network TikTok has been giving a boost to the transformations of the Western world of work for several months.
Posted at 7:36
One trend particularly illustrates this phenomenon: the fashion for resignation filmed and broadcast live on the application. Since 2020, many TikTokers have used the feature live to film themselves slamming the door of their business.
A movement initiated by the American Shana Blackwell in October 2020. The 19-year-old young woman then announced on video her departure at the microphone of the Walmart store where she worked. “Fuck the executives, fuck this company! I fucking quit! “. A brilliance justified by two untenable years, poisoned by moral harassment, explains the young woman.
Unwittingly, the former employee is launching one of the biggest trends on the platform. Videos displaying the hashtag #QuitMyJob now have more than 200 million views.
These videos find a considerable echo in the United States, crossed by an unprecedented wave of resignations (entitled “the Great resignation”), and to a lesser extent in France.
With the key, more resignations, linked to “a strong effect of imitation”, explains Stéphanie Lukasik, teacher-researcher in information and communication sciences at the University of Lorraine, in the east of the France, even if it is difficult to precisely measure the impact.
When you see people quitting on social media, it raises awareness. We ask ourselves: is my work thrilling?
Stéphanie Lukasik, teacher-researcher in information and communication sciences at the University of Lorraine
Other major similar movements were born and/or grew thanks to social networks, such as MeToo, Black Lives Matter or anti-health passports, notes Stéphanie Lukasik, stressing that the platforms play the role of a “magnifying mirror”.
A new LinkedIn?
Beyond these shock videos, the subject of work has become very present on TikTok, and even one of the most popular with more than 50 billion cumulative views.
“Every month, more than a billion users around the world gather on the platform to create, share and discover short-format videos around themes that are close to their hearts, including social issues”, notes Eric Garandeau, director of institutional relations and public affairs France of TikTok. Unsurprisingly, “more and more users and creators are exchanging and sharing content related to employment and more broadly to the world of work”.
With her experience in the human resources field, Karine Trioullier (alias Career Kueen), is riding this wave, sharing work-themed videos with her 500,000 subscribers.
“I saw a lot of people gaining awareness about their professional situation thanks to Tiktok, I found it incredible. It does a lot of good to see them reflect on the meaning of their work,” she says.
And on TikTok, money is also a passion, with its corollary: how to get a raise? “There is a strong craze on the issue of salary negotiations and wages,” says tiktoker Maryam Kante (aka Mamajob).
But there is no question of pushing his audience to do anything. “We rather seek to teach people to know their value”, underlines “Mamajob”.
TikTok was not, however, designed as a platform to talk about work. Originally, the application was rather known for its short excerpts of covers of songs or humorous sketches.
“That’s the whole point of this kind of digital social networks, they offer possibilities, users are free to seize them and divert them from their first use”, analyzes Stéphanie Lukasik.
On the contrary, a network like LinkedIn, designed for workers, does not seem to find favor with all young workers. The way of communicating on LinkedIn, with more writing and more seriousness, “no longer corresponds to this generation, the tool does not have a good image”, estimates Karine Trioullier.
Tiktok assures him, however, the platform “is not intended” to become a specialist in employment.