Engineers who joined Meta (formerly Facebook) when its offices were open performed better than those who joined the company remotely amid the pandemic, its Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stressed.
According to him, the early analysis of performance data suggests that engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely.
“This analysis also shows that engineers earlier in their career perform better on average when they work in-person with teammates at least three days a week,” said Zuckerberg in a memo, in which he announced to further cut 10,000 jobs and close around 5,000 additional open roles that it has not yet hired.
“Our hypothesis is that it is still easier to build trust in person and that those relationships help us work more effectively,” he added.
As part of its ‘Year of Efficiency’, Meta is focusing on finding ways to make sure people build the necessary connections to work effectively.
“In the meantime, I encourage all of you to find more opportunities to work with your colleagues in person,” said Meta CEO.
He said that we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years.
“Higher interest rates lead to the economy running leaner, more geopolitical instability leads to more volatility, and increased regulation leads to slower growth and increased costs of innovation,” Zuckerberg noted.
Given this outlook, we’ll need to operate more efficiently than our previous headcount reduction to ensure success, he added.
In the face of this new reality, most companies will scale back their long-term vision and investments.
“We put together a financial plan that enables us to invest heavily in the future while also delivering sustainable results as long as we run every team more efficiently. The changes we’re making will enable us to meet this financial plan,” he elaborated.
