Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Beijing, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) Facebook parent company Meta gave thousands of employees "poor" ratings in a recently concluded round of performance reviews, indicating that a new round of layoffs may be imminent, according to people familiar with the matter.

Earlier, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg) had declared 2023 to be the "year of efficiency", hinting that the company would take streamlined measures to pursue efficiency. To this end, Meta executives also began to take measures.

Meta managers gave about 10 per cent of employees a "Meets most" rating, according to people familiar with the matter. Meta has five scores for performance reviews, of which "basic compliance" is the second lowest. "partial compliance" (Meets some) is the lowest and rare score. Employees who have scored "basic attainment" twice in a row will be included in the performance improvement plan, and employees whose scores are lower than that standard will be automatically included in the improvement plan. Within Meta, some employees see the score as a sign of looking for a new job.

At the same time, Meta also cut a bonus indicator. Meta informed employees that a component of their bonuses-the company's performance-would be paid at 85 per cent of the target. This number is one of the three numbers that determine each employee's year-end bonus. According to people familiar with past bonus data, the proportion was 85 per cent, down at least 15 percentage points from the previous year and below 100 per cent for the first time since the first half of 2018. The distribution ratio has fallen to such a low level across the company only once before, in the first half of 2012, the person familiar with the matter said.

The Meta leadership expects the performance score to lead to more employees leaving in the coming weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. If the number of departures is not enough, the company will consider a new round of layoffs. About 11000 Meta employees were recently laid off, accounting for about 13 per cent of the company's workforce.

A spokesman for Meta responded that Meta's performance appraisal process was consistent with the company's message to employees. "We have always had a goal-based high performance culture, and our evaluation process is designed to encourage long-term thinking and high-quality work, while helping employees get practical feedback," he said.

The recently concluded performance review is seen as a return to the Zuckerberg model, according to people familiar with the matter. Before the outbreak, Zuckerberg was known for providing direct feedback to employees. One former employee described the process as the return of the "old school Zack".

"We are flattening our organizational structure, removing some middle management to make decisions faster and deploying artificial intelligence tools to help our engineers be more efficient," Zuckerberg told investors earlier this month. "

Since last year, Meta executives have said that underperforming employees will not stay at the company forever. "in fact, there may be a group of people in the company who shouldn't be here." Zuckerberg said at the city hall meeting in June.

For the past year and a half, Meta has been struggling to cope with increasing competition from Chinese rival TikTok and falling demand for advertising in a difficult macroeconomic environment. Since the company emphasized artificial intelligence technology in 2022 to improve targeted advertising and content recommendation tools, the company's prospects have begun to improve. Meta has also been grappling with the impact of changes in Apple's advertising tracking policy since April 2021. Meta said last year that Apple's new privacy policy would cost it about $10 billion in revenue in 2022. Meta's revenue has fallen in the past three quarters compared with the same period a year earlier.

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