- In the UK you're not hired by Xiaomi but you're hired by an umbrella company called Roevin which uses a payroll company to pay you, ICS. This structure generates a lot of confusion and makes any complaint you have impossible to be heard;
- Your salary, way below average, won't be paid in full because Xiaomi divide it in 14 months (Chinese way) but they won't pay you the last 2 months as they're based on performance/permanence and they never ever make it result as a success, even if your KPIs are 200% overachieved. After all, at Xiaomi, saving money from the workforce is HR main KPI;
- Because of the previous points, what your contract says is absolutely irrelevant - including place of work, responsibilities etc;
- They relocate offices in the UK with a few weeks notice to accommodate HR comforts and needs. They don't offer the chance to negotiate compensation for transport costs to employees and these will be sacrificed from your current salary;
- You pay taxes on your expenses due to the fact that under Roevin you're effectively a contractor. Xiaomi and Roevin invite you to lie about SDC (supervision, direction and control) in order to get your taxes back;
- There's no budget for you to work on. Actually, the company has huge debts with all the main distributor and is facing formal notices because not willing to pay millions. The UK market goal was to get to 10% market share in the first year, however, the marketing investment made by Xiaomi to achieve that was £27K - equal to what competitors would spend in one day for team lunch;
- You won't have a line manager or any leadership. If you get one he/she will be a graduate or an intern sent from Xiaomi HQ as they don't trust non-Chinese/locals;
- Be ready for a high level of discrimination if you're not Chinese. Also, you can't progress in your career if you're not Chinese and even if your colleagues push you for that and offer roles in other teams/markets etc, your career progressions will be blocked by the local HR team in order to keep their staff turnover rate low and avoiding finding replacements. HR tends to use defamation against you for this purpose;
- The HR department is notoriously the worst in the whole industry. In Europe, the HR team is exclusively made of Chinese people who most of the time don't speak/understand English and their only responsibility is to report to senior management about local employees, effectively having a decision making role with absolutely no understanding of marketing, sales etc. Obviously they try to save as much money a possible from employees, meaning that they'll never ever pay you in full, no matter what your contract says. Be aware they use defamation a lot for these purposes as well;
- The management threatens employees to be fired in WeChat public groups every single day in order to boost performances. This is accepted internally as considered "a way to motivate and inspire people". Yes, it's disgusting just like the rest of this company.
