Meta began layoffs for U.S. employees at 5 a.m. PT on Monday, letting employees know in the event that they have been nonetheless employed through emails. The job cuts affected 5% of Meta’s 72,000-person international workforce, or about 3,600 workers, and have been framed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a strategy to transfer out low performers on the firm.
Nevertheless, a brand new report from Enterprise Insider discovered some affected employees had a observe file of excessive achievement, performing properly of their 2024 midyear critiques earlier than instantly being downgraded to a decrease tier in Meta’s 2024 year-end efficiency overview system.
Enterprise Insider interviewed eight laid-off employees who advised the outlet that they acquired mid-level “At or Above Expectations” rankings on their midyear 2024 assessments however have been pushed all the way down to “Meets Most,” a lower-level score, for his or her 2024 year-end efficiency critiques. The decrease score prompted them to be fired on Monday.
Associated: Meta Informs Staff that Layoffs Will Begin Monday Morning in a Now-Leaked Internal Memo
Inner steerage sent to Meta managers in January from Hillary Champion, Meta’s director of individuals improvement development applications, advised 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 have been shocked after they acquired the e-mail on Monday.
“Once I acquired 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 advised BI.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg through Getty Photos
Different laid-off workers posted their previous efficiency studies to Office, Meta’s inner platform, with one affected employee stating that they met or exceeded expectations for 4 years earlier than being pushed all the way down to “Meets Most” in late 2024.
One other employee mentioned they instantly dropped two score ranges from “Exceeds Expectations” of their midyear 2024 assessments to “Meets Most” for his or her 2024 year-end overview 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 slicing low performers, so it appears like we now have the scarlet letter on our backs,” one affected worker advised 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.
