- Some Meta workers who lost their jobs Monday said they were "blindsided" given their track records.
- Meta announced in January plans to lay off 5% of its staff, with a focus on low performers.
- Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing to streamline the company's workforce.
Several Meta employees who said they received positive performance ratings in their midyear reviews last year had their jobs cut Monday, and some expressed fears about their future employment prospects, given that the stated goal of the layoffs had been to eliminate underperformers.
Business Insider spoke with eight terminated employees, who said they received "At or Above Expectations" ratings — the middle tier in Meta's three-level midyear review system — in their 2024 assessments. These employees said they were surprised to learn they received the "Meets Most" rating, one of the lower tiers in Meta's year-end performance system that refers to meeting most, but not all, expectations and made them eligible for Monday's cuts. They asked to be anonymous because they weren't authorized to discuss internal company matters.
The job cuts stem from Meta's push to let go of roughly 5% of its employees, which it announced in guidance sent to managers in January.
While Meta framed these cuts as targeting underperforming workers, internal guidance sent last month by Hillary Champion, Meta's director of people experience, and viewed by BI, allowed managers to include employees from higher performance tiers if they couldn't meet their reduction targets from lower-rated employees alone. Some employees said they were caught off guard by their inclusion in the cuts, as that guidance had previously been shared only with managers, not the broader workforce.
"When I received the email I was surprised by it mostly because I have a very solid performance history and no indicators of the last six months of performance problems," one affected employee told BI.
Meta began its year-end performance review process for 2024 in December, though most employees wouldn't learn their final ratings until the coming weeks.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing to streamline Meta's workforce as the company pours billions into artificial intelligence and virtual reality. The cuts could become an annual event as Meta seeks to regularly trim those it considers its lowest performers. At the same time, Meta plans to ramp up the hiring of machine-learning engineers to work on AI.
"Simply because someone had a history of meeting or exceeding expectations, does not mean they continue to consistently meet the bar," a Meta spokesperson said in an email to BI after publication. "Employees at Meta have always been held accountable to a goal-based culture of high performance."
Some employees received lower ratings
Multiple employees told BI they felt frustrated that Meta had framed the layoffs in companywide communications as targeting consistently low performers when some of those affected had previously received strong performance reviews.
In posts on Workplace, Meta's internal communications platform, several laid-off employees shared their performance histories, according to screenshots viewed by BI. One employee who said they were "unexpectedly" terminated posted documentation showing they'd consistently met or exceeded expectations for four years before receiving "Meets Most" in late 2024. Another employee reported being cut shortly after returning from parental leave, despite receiving an "At or Above Expectations" rating in early 2024.
"I am super confused how I got terminated," they wrote. "I still think this is an error."
The lower performance ratings left many employees feeling misrepresented by Meta's stance on the layoffs. Some employees worried that being branded as a "low performer" in companywide communications could harm future employment prospects.
"The hardest part is Meta publicly stating they're cutting low performers, so it feels like we have the scarlet letter on our backs," another employee told BI. "People need to know we're not underperformers."
"I would certainly challenge Meta's narrative about cutting only low performers," another affected employee said. "I have a really, really difficult time believing I was a low performer based on past feedback I was given by my manager."
Another employee said their manager had given them no indication their job was at risk.
"We were told by leadership that if we would be impacted by this, then we would already be expecting it, based on conversations our managers should have been having with us in our weekly one-on-ones," one former employee said. "But I was completely blindsided by this. My manager had been telling me that I have been doing great and did not provide any areas to be worked on. My manager even said that I would be fine and not impacted."
Likewise, another worker who received an "Exceeds Expectations" rating in their midyear review said they were surprised to be "dropped two ratings" to "Meets Most" without explanation.
"We are not even able to see the feedback that our manager wrote for us," they said.
If you're a current or former Meta employee or have an insight to share about the company, contact Pranav Dixit from a nonwork device securely on Signal at +1-408-905-9124 or email him at pranavdixit@protonmail.com.
Reach Jyoti Mann via email at jmann@businessinsider.com or via Signal at jyotimann.11. Get in touch with Hugh Langley at hlangley@businessinsider.com or reach him on Signal at hughlangley.01
Correction, February 11, 2025 — An earlier version of this story misstated which workers Meta said it was cutting. It was 5% of the total workforce, not 5% of the lowest-performing employees.