ByteDance will significantly reduce its recruitment plan for 2022-2023, according to a ByteDance insider who referenced the CEO's OKR plan on the anonymous workplace network Maimai.

The short-term strategy of rising social giants is to avoid unreasonable expansion and focus on maximizing efficiency. "Facilitate leaner and stronger organizations, update HC (headcount) plans based on business status," Liang Rubo, CEO of ByteDance, wrote in his OKR plan.

The CEO added that the company will slow down the speed of organization expansion and drastically downside projections for hiring in 2022-2023. "Shift focus to business development and functions, and ensure tighter, more direct collaboration between teams," he said.

OKR, which stands for objectives and key results, is a planning and goal-setting technique made famous by Google.  ByteDance operates under such a management model, where everyone, from the management team to ordinary employees, needs to set their own quarterly and annual goals as a guideline for their daily work.

Liang did not specify how many head counts will be reduced in the OKR. As of May 2021, ByteDance has 100,000 employees in more than 200 cities around the world.

According to insiders of ByteDance, the company has already emphasized the importance of streamlining the organization before Liang’s OKR plan was revealed.

On July 20, TikTok, the short video platform owned by ByteDance, announced a restructuring plan internally, including layoffs and the closing of some vacant positions, affecting its businesses in the US, the European Union, and the UK Plans to expand some teams inside the company have also been put on hold.

The layoffs would touch less than 100 workers and are targeted at individuals and teams that managers believed were not contributing enough to the company. Previous statements by TikTok and company sources said it had at least 10,000 employees in the US and Europe.