Layoffs Lead to Uplifting Corporate Perks for Meta Morale Boost

After facing a morale crisis due to the layoff of 20,000 employees in the past year, Meta Platforms Inc. workers are gradually finding pleasure in returning to the office. This positive shift can be attributed to the revival of various pre-pandemic perks, including branded T-shirts and happy hours, which have been well-received by the employees.

Workers have spent most of the year fearing for their jobs amid ongoing cuts. Productivity slowed because workers weren’t sure what to do or whether they should be working at all. The workers who survived the layoffs were saddened that their friends were no longer with the company and that the perks — fun additions to the job — were being cut, several current and former employees said.

Now entire divisions of Meta, which owns Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, are re-ordering their branded products, which wouldn’t have been considered worth the expense in the past eight months, in what CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared “a year.” efficiency.” One employee said they see that as a positive sign for the company’s performance after two consecutive quarters of beating Wall Street expectations for profits and revenue. Meta has also begun hiring back some previously laid off workers, said other employees, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss working conditions.

At the company’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, most restaurants have reopened since closing due to the pandemic. The dinner time, which used to be in the evening, has been moved to 18:00, the employees said. Laundry services and haircuts are also back, Thursday happy hour is on, and unique vendors have set up food stalls – making a personal appearance more appealing now that an office job is required three days a week.

A spokesperson for Meta confirmed that the company will bring back the amenities when employees return to the office. Other benefits were never left. “Dinner, happy hour and company drinks never went away, they were just adjusted based on the pandemic and budgets,” the spokesperson said.

Employees are not only noticing that the benefits are there, but that they appear to be subsidized — a contrast from last fall, when Meta’s snack bars began to look suspiciously bare, they said. At headquarters, La Croix, the fruit-essence-tinged sparkling drink favored by millennials, started to run out of office refrigerators.

When employees began to notice fewer selections, Meta’s stock had its worst performance in history. Investors weren’t buying Zuckerberg’s vision for virtual reality, and advertisers were tightening their budgets. Depressing snack bars foreshadow a bigger move: Meta’s first major layoff, 13% of its workforce, or 11,000 workers.

Then in March, Zuckerberg announced that more layoffs were coming, without saying exactly who would be let go, leaving staff in limbo. The company made a series of cuts in April and May, reducing its workforce by another 10,000 employees while closing 5,000 open positions. The protracted nature of layoffs added to anxiety as workers wondered whether they would lose their jobs or have to say goodbye to people with whom they were planning future projects. Other major tech companies announced their own hiring freezes and layoffs, making the idea of entering the job market more daunting.

Now, months after the latest layoffs, Meta’s employees are more eager to bond with each other and plan for each other. The atmosphere is much more positive and the mood is better, said one employee who is most excited about the return of dinner time. Another, who recently left the company, said he liked the free cafeteria that was opened – a new benefit that didn’t exist before the layoffs.

Meta’s morale has always closely followed the company’s stock performance, which has more than doubled this year to an 18-month high, thanks in part to Zuckerberg’s “efficiency mandate” and his AI work. Meta predicted double-digit revenue growth for the current quarter.

But Meta is still dealing with some existential threats: User and revenue growth at its flagship social networks has stalled; Zuckerberg’s virtual reality efforts continue to consume resources; and development in artificial intelligence is expensive and in its early stages.

Some evidence of Meta’s cost-cutting remains. Certain benefits are not as good as they were before the layoffs, workers said. For example, Meta’s laundry service used to be free, but now the company charges a fee. Some employees swear the food isn’t as good. And some roles are still being cut or at least not being filled as people leave, employees said.

If the company turns around again and does another big layoff, any progress in restoring morale will be lost, said one of the workers. For now, however, there is still a lot of La Croix to go around.