Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg leaves the Merrion Hotel in Dublin after meeting with Irish politicians to discuss social media regulation, transparency of political advertising and the safety of young people and vulnerable adults. On Tuesday, April 2, 2019, in Dublin, Ireland.
Artur Vidak | NurPhoto | Getty Images
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that 2023 is the company’s “year of efficiency,” and according to the release, that includes “refining” the Meta distributed operating model.
On Tuesday, Zuckerberg shared a memo with employees announcing plans to lay off 10,000 more workers and incur restructuring costs. Meta previously laid off 11,000 employees late last year.
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As part of the announcement, Zuckerberg said an internal analysis of employee productivity data shows that engineers who work in person “get more done.” He said Meta remains committed to distributed work, but urged employees to find more opportunities to work with each other in person.
“Our early analysis of performance data suggests that engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then switched to remote work or stayed in-person performed better, on average, than people who joined remotely,” Zuckerberg said. “This analysis also shows that early-career engineers, on average, perform better when they work face-to-face with teammates at least three days a week.”
Meta was one of the first tech companies to allow its employees to start working remotely in the early days of the COVID pandemic. The company continued its flexible working policy in 2021 when it announced that workers at all levels of the company can request full-time telecommuting.
Meta is still promoting remote roles in 2023, with many employees able to work in-person. But as the big tech companies love Amazon suddenly announced plans to return to the office at least three days a week earlier this year, Meta may have begun to reconsider its position.
“This requires further study, but our hypothesis is that it’s still easier to build trust in person and that these relationships help us work more effectively,” Zuckerberg said.
