For Meta, 2023 must be “the year of efficiency”. After a catastrophic 2022 financial year, concluded by the first drop in its annual revenues since its IPO in 2012, the North American group has decided to reduce the airfoil for the coming months, revising its investments downwards and laying off 11,000 employees. , i.e. nearly 13% of its workforce. However, this reorganization is taking place in chaos, according to revelations from the FinancialTimes.
There has been a lack of clarity on the group’s budgets or future workforce in recent weeks, according to two Meta employees who spoke to the British daily. Thus, projects and decisions, which usually take only a few days to be validated, now slumber for up to a month, including in priority areas such as the metaverse and advertising, report these two sources.
Internal morale down
As a result, Meta staff members complain that they have no tasks to perform since managers are unable to plan their upcoming workload. “The year of efficiency begins with a group of people being paid to do nothing”, summarizes an employee on social networks. Three other employees informed the FinancialTimes that the staff is demotivated and demoralized by the recent loss in the workforce and the uncertainty caused by the austerity cure put in place to rectify the situation.
Morale at Meta is expected to remain low in the coming months as a new wave of layoffs is expected around March as the company currently assesses the performance of its employees, current and former employees said. Facebook’s parent company. In the corridors of the headquarters, the terms “calibration” And “flattening” would be used to describe the actions taken by the staff to optimize operations while reducing costs.
Most employees fear that future job changes are just an excuse to demote some, or even push them out. If the internal climate is not festive, shareholders were reassured by the outlook given by Mark Zuckerberg, but also (and above all) a share buyback program on the occasion of the publication of financial results for the fourth quarter of 2022.