'Year of intensity': Meta employees react to plans to cut low-performers

• Meta said in internal memos that it would cut 5% of workers, focusing on its lowest performers.
• Staff asked how the cuts would work. Some criticized the announcement after a "pretty rough" week.
• Some employees questioned the accuracy of internal performance ratings.

Mark Zuckerberg told Meta employees on Tuesday that the company would make "extensive" cuts to low-performers, affecting around 5% of the company's workforce. For some staff, the cuts raised questions about how performance would be measured and concerns about morale.

Employees immediately posted their reactions to an internal message board, seen by Business Insider. Several asked questions about how the cuts would work in practice. While some employees say they supported the decision to raise the company's standards, others wanted to know the specifics behind the process, particularly at a time when Meta is cutting third-party fact-checkers and rolling back DEI policies.

"This is going to be an intense year, and I want to make sure we have the best people on our teams," Zuckerberg told staff in a companywide note on Tuesday. While the company would typically remove low-performers over the course of a year, Zuckerberg said Meta would speed that process up for this review cycle.

A separate memo sent to Meta managers said the company planned to cut about 5% of its current workforce, according to a copy reviewed by BI. Meta employed 72,404 people globally as of September 30, 2024, according to its most recent earnings report, meaning the cuts would be equivalent to about 3,600 roles.

Some employees said they supported the decision to raise the company's standards. One wrote, "I realize there is a need to raise the bar and I absolutely support this." Others wanted to know more details about how the cuts would be decided.

"How much of this decision will be based on performance and how much will be based on area of investment," asked one employee. Another asked if anything was being done to affect what the cuts might do to "exploratory work" at Meta.

"Year of intensity?" wrote another member of staff, seemingly making a joking reference to Meta's 'Year of efficiency.'

"How will HR determine the level of optimism about someone's future at the company?" read another question that appeared to reference Zuckerberg's comment that Meta "won't manage out everyone who didn't meet expectations for the last period if we're optimistic about their future performance."

Zuckerberg said that employees based in the US who are impacted by the cuts would be told by February 10, while other territories could take more time. At the time of writing, 664 employees reacted to Zuckerberg's post with a shocked emoji, 386 with a like, and 66 with a crying emoji.

It's been an eventful week for Meta employees. On January 7, Zuckerberg announced publicly that the company would replace third-party fact-checkers with a community notes system and that it planned to bring political content back to the news feed. On Friday, staff were informed that Meta would roll back its DEI programs.

"Teams aren't exactly strong when morale is low, and this is already a pretty rough ride over the last week," one employee wrote in the internal message board on Tuesday following the announcement of cuts.

A Meta spokesperson didn't comment on the memos and the employee reactions.

'Monkeys throwing darts'

To determine which employees are at risk of being cut, Meta will use its internal performance review program, which scores employees into buckets such as "did not meet expectations" and "exceeded expectations."

One employee writing in the internal channel voiced skepticism that the company's performance review system was an accurate way to do this. "I would say the ratings and process creates marginally better than 'monkey's throwing darts' in terms of reflecting the actual performance and impact for a large majority of the people," they wrote.

Others asked if the changes would apply to low-performing managers and how individuals on maternity or mental health leave would be affected.

"How are we going to balance false positive terminations of people who have context about the products and are just having unlucky halves with the cost of ramping up new people who have an even bigger chance of not being able to perform at the desired bar?" another employee asked.

Janelle Gale, Meta's vice president of human resources, told employees in a comment that there would be an FAQ posted for staff posted later on Tuesday "with additional information around how this process will work."

One employee questioned whether employees who identify as LGBTQ+ would face "additional concerns" in relation to their performance rating.

They wrote, "As the company builds towards broader cognitive diversity, is there any outsized weighting for LGBTQ+ metamates in these perf reviews or in who gets offered severance? Just want to check whether that will be a factor."

Gale responded and said, "Absolutely not. This is not in any way intended to target the LGBTQ+ community or any group. Objectivity and integrity are crucial aspects of the Perf@ process and we work hard to remove bias from our systems. We do not tolerate discrimination in any way. Full stop."

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