07-19-2022
On July 11, 2022, the Washington Post reported a leaked memorandum from Facebook sent to its engineering managers. Maher Saba, the company's head of engineering, was the memo's author. He urged managers to identify team members who "need support" and report those individuals to human resources by the close of business on Monday. He said, "If a direct report is coasting or is a low performer, they are not who we need; they are failing this company. As a manager, you cannot allow someone to be net neutral or negative for Meta." Meta is Facebook's parent company.
The memo is reportedly one of many messages that Facebook managers have sent out as part of an effort to cut costs. The Post reported that employees fear potential layoffs, reduced bonuses, and fewer promotions. Some employees believe the company will manipulate performance issues and use them to justify terminating employees. The company's stock price reportedly has fallen almost 52% this year, and the number of daily users has also greatly diminished.
In July, Mark Zuckerberg, head of Facebook/Meta, warned staffers that if they were not meeting the company's standards, they should consider leaving "voluntarily." He also shared company plans to reduce the number of engineers it will hire this year by almost a third. He bluntly said, "Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn't be here."