Following a scathing Q&A session from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Meta personnel are petrified they will lose their jobs and worry that their high salaries and long-appreciated privileges like free lunch may be history.
Employees who posted on an internal message board and were seen by The Washington Post expressed their worries about things like job security and workplace culture.
Those demonstrations erupted in response to complaints made by an irate Zuckerberg last month during a brutal company-wide Q&A session, during which he appeared to criticize staff members for growing complacent amid the pandemic.
The 38-year-old firm’s treatment of “coasting” employees was a continuation of a letter that was leaked and made public earlier this month, instructing managers to fire underperformers in the face of the company’s disastrous decline in value.
This decline, which is mostly attributed to greater competition for young users’ attention from platforms like Snapchat and TikTok, can also be linked to Zuckerberg’s generous post-pandemic measures that have now backfired, such as substantial financial incentives and additional vacation time.
Since then, the once $120 billion net worth of the creator of Facebook has decreased by half, and the company’s stock has fallen this year by more than 50%, to $167.27 from $338.54 at the beginning of the year.
The Verge obtained video of the June 30 Q&A in which an obviously irate Zuckerberg accuses staff members of coasting and claims that there are a “bunch of individuals” who “shouldn’t be here.” He continued by predicting a ‘intense’ future phase.
‘We’re sort of in this pretty intense period for the next 18, 24 months,’ he said during the all-hands meeting, adding, ‘It’s possible it’s even a little bit longer.’ Those unprepared, the mogul said, will be forced to come to the realization that ‘this place isn’t for you.’
The almost 70,000-strong employees of the Silicon Valley-based company, however, did not take the warning well and promptly complained about the meeting on a work app.
An employee who attended Zuckerberg’s class and witnessed the CEO lose his cool when a staff member inquired about whether additional vacation days permitted during the pandemic would carry over into 2023 described the rising uneasiness at work.
Zuckerberg, who was clearly agitated, answered by ignoring the question and pointing out the importance of his presentation.
The employee appeared to corroborate this dissatisfaction shortly after the address when he said that he could sense his coworkers’ uneasiness rising.
‘The atmosphere is intense,’ the unidentified employee wrote, in messages viewed by the Post. ‘People know budgets are being cut.’
Another claimed that the culture of the business was changing as management tightened their control over the workforce. The user said, “It is unfortunate [that] after many years in Meta things [are going down] this route, the culture is going to hell,” adding that he had chosen to quit the firm but was delaying leaving until he received his bonus in September. Before you say it, I’m going, the employee said. I’m only waiting for my September bonus payment because I worked hard to get it.
Another just questioned, “Does anyone feel safe here?”
Others, on the other hand, assert that executives’ focus on poor performance is driven by a desire to bring back the organization’s rigorous, pre-pandemic culture.
During the outbreak, Facebook ceased doing performance assessments and instead gave all employees a “exceeds expectation” rating, a $1,000 cash reward, and more time off.
The policy was primarily implemented to help employees who were coping with the pandemic manage work and personal responsibilities.
The company has always pushed for remote work; in fact, Zuckerberg told The Verge in May 2020 that “We’re going to be the most forward-leaning corporation on remote work at our scale.”
Since that time, the policy has remained the same for all employees, allowing individuals who can do their jobs from home in the near future to work remotely.
During this time, the company launched a significant hiring initiative that resulted in a 62 percent increase in the number of full-time employees, from 48,000 at the end of 2019 to more than 77,800 as of 2021.
Since the beginning of 2022, Facebook’s market value has decreased by roughly 52 percent. On the June 30 call, Zuckerberg said that his company had been overly permissive when it came to laws during the epidemic era.
‘I think during a lot of the COVID period, I kind of bias[ed] towards more flexibility and convenience for people.’
The CEO went on to admit that the measures he had put in place to assist employees during this historically extended time had backfired since individuals were booking personal appointments during the day, making it challenging for even him to gather the required staff members to attend a meeting.
However, employees remained defensive on the internal messaging app, asserting that the return to a tighter corporate culture would only be a cover for cost-cutting, making it harder to receive promotions, greater pay, or more alluring incentives.
Despite its difficult status at the moment, the company presently offers some of the highest salaries in the technology industry.
“This is a time of war; we need a wartime CEO,” said one commentator. Another said: “Did Mark just insinuate that there are certain individuals at this business who don’t belong here.”
I’m just honestly thinking about taking a break and living off savings or doing something low key till this economic cycle passes, another individual added. I don’t want to always be under pressure.
A spokesman for Meta, Joe Osborne, commented after the acrimonious tape was made public that “any group that intends to have a lasting effect must embrace strict prioritization and work with a high degree of intensity to achieve goals.”
‘The reports about these efforts are consistent with this focus and what we’ve already shared publicly about our operating style.’
The comments come after Zuckerberg was dropped from the top ten list of world billionaires in March as a result of his plummeting Meta stock. He is currently ranked No. 17 on the list and has lost a whopping $64.4 billion, which is more than his current net worth of $61.1 billion.
