Meta Employees Experience Morale Crisis due to Mass Layoffs and Absentee Bosses

Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has designated 2023 as the "year of efficiency" for his firm. So far, efficiency has resulted in widespread layoffs of Meta employees. Over the previous six months, he has made two waves of layoffs, laying off over 26,000 individuals, or approximately 30% of his company's workforce.

At the same time, several of Meta's senior executives have relocated and are now running substantial portions of the Silicon Valley corporation from new locations such as London and Tel Aviv, Israel.

What is the cause of wrecked morale at Meta Employees?

According to nine current and former workers and texts examined by The New York Times, layoffs and absentee leadership, as well as fears that Zuckerberg is making a terrible bet on the future, have wrecked the morale of Meta employees.

Meta employees, once one of the most coveted places to work in Silicon Valley, face an increasingly uncertain future. The corporation's stock price decreased 43% from its high 19 months ago. More layoffs are expected this month, according to Zuckerberg's Facebook page. And, for the first time, some of those layoffs may be in engineering departments, which would have been impossible before the problems began last year, according to two employees.

Is Meta the only technology firm with reduced investment?

Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, is only one of many major technology firms with reduced investment. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce, among others, have let off thousands of employees in recent months, reduced office space, reduced incentives, and backed away from experimental programmes.

However, Meta looks to be the most challenging. Last year, the firm recorded consecutive quarters of falling sales for the first time since becoming public in 2012.

Zuckerberg has placed a large bet on the metaverse

While Meta's contemporaries are pursuing a wave of artificial intelligence innovation, Zuckerberg has placed a large bet on the metaverse, an immersive online universe. However, it is still being determined if customers will accept his idea as he intends. While the business has sold 20 million virtual reality headsets — more than any other company manufacturing comparable technology — it has struggled to retain users to use the product regularly.

Complaints about diminished incentives and privileges at Meta

Meta employees have made memes and internal jokes about how much time they have left. According to screenshots obtained by the Times, workers have been using skull-and-bones emoticons in messaging groups and office conversations in recent weeks to communicate to one another that they may be part of the layoffs.

Those that have remained have complained about diminished incentives and privileges. One programmer built a bot to automatically determine the value loss of Meta shares held by workers as part of their compensation plan.

The corporation is also reducing some extravagant incentives, which were long thought crucial to recruit top staff. Last year, Meta discontinued its free washing service for staff and shifted dinner service to later in the evening as a cost-cutting measure.

Many Meta employees were already sceptical about Zuckerberg's push toward the metaverse. Employees claimed their fears have risen as customer interest in the virtual world has waned.

Insights from Meta

According to two current workers, insiders at WhatsApp, Meta's popular messaging software, anticipate fewer business layoffs and structural changes than the rest of the firm. Zuckerberg wants to boost the frequency with which new, revenue-generating features are released in WhatsApp, which he purchased for $19 billion nine years ago. While workers say they don't hear enough from Zuckerberg, he shocked several this year when he dropped into a Metamates discussion group.