Meta employees encountered performance-based layoffs, which shocked many high-rated workers.
According to BI, several employees who received positive performance reviews had their jobs cut on Monday, as the company let go of almost 4,000 workers in its latest round of workforce reduction.
A significant number of the terminated employees had an “At or Above Expectations” rating, which falls in the middle tier of Meta’s three-level mid-year review system.
The tech giant portrayed these cuts as targeting underperforming workers, but internal guidance sent last month by Hillary Champion, Meta’s Director of People Experience, allowed managers to include employees from higher performance tiers if the cut-off requirement couldn’t be met.
Some employees were left in shock with their names on the layoff list, with one worker noting, “When I received the email, I was surprised by it mostly because I have a very solid performance history and no indicators of performance problems in the last six months.”
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing to streamline Meta’s workforce as the company pours billions into artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality.
The layoffs are expected to become an annual occurrence as Meta aims to trim down its lowest performers, but the company is planning to increase the hiring of machine learning engineers to work on AI.
