Meta began layoffs for U.S. staff at 5 a.m. PT on Monday, letting staff know in the event that they had been nonetheless employed by way of emails. The job cuts affected 5% of Meta’s 72,000-person world workforce, or about 3,600 workers, and had been framed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a option to transfer out low performers on the firm.
Nonetheless, a brand new report from Enterprise Insider discovered some affected staff had a observe document of excessive achievement, performing nicely of their 2024 midyear evaluations earlier than immediately being downgraded to a decrease tier in Meta’s 2024 year-end efficiency evaluation system.
Enterprise Insider interviewed eight laid-off employees who instructed the outlet that they obtained mid-level “At or Above Expectations” scores on their midyear 2024 assessments however had been pushed right down to “Meets Most,” a lower-level score, for his or her 2024 year-end efficiency evaluations. The decrease score brought about them to be fired on Monday.
Associated: Meta Informs Staff that Layoffs Will Begin Monday Morning in a Now-Leaked Internal Memo
Inside steering sent to Meta managers in January from Hillary Champion, Meta’s director of individuals improvement progress applications, instructed managers to carry workers from larger efficiency classes into decrease efficiency tiers to satisfy targets. Managers had to make sure that 12% to fifteen% of their workforce was grouped within the “Meets Most” or beneath classes, making them eligible for layoffs.
Terminated workers with regular histories of excessive efficiency had been shocked once they obtained the e-mail on Monday.
“After I obtained the e-mail I used to be stunned by it principally as a result of I’ve a really stable efficiency historical past and no indicators of the final six months of efficiency issues,” a terminated Meta worker instructed BI.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs
Different laid-off workers posted their previous efficiency stories to Office, Meta’s inside platform, with one affected employee stating that they met or exceeded expectations for 4 years earlier than being pushed right down to “Meets Most” in late 2024.
One other employee stated they immediately dropped two score ranges from “Exceeds Expectations” of their midyear 2024 assessments to “Meets Most” for his or her 2024 year-end evaluation with none supervisor suggestions about why that they had been downgraded.
Associated: Meta Reminds Staff of Its Strict No-Leaks Policy — That Has Since Been Leaked to the Press
These terminated workers query Meta’s public stance that the layoffs solely affected low performers and say that the corporate may harm the reputations of affected workers as they search for new work.
“The toughest half is Meta publicly stating they’re reducing low performers, so it looks like we have now the scarlet letter on our backs,” one affected worker instructed BI. “Individuals have to know we’re not underperformers.”
“Now folks have to return out into the job market with a label that’s extremely unfair,” one other Meta worker previously told BI.
