Gorgeous onsite facilities may be a thing of the past at Meta for employees who will now have to do their own laundry due to the company’s cutbacks.
Facebook’s parent company informed its employees that it would cut various perks, including free laundry, dry cleaning and valet service, as well as delay the daily free dinner by half an hour from 6 p.m. to 6.30 p.m., The New York Times reported. Reported for the first time. ,
Push-back dinner service means fewer employees will get to eat on campus, as the company’s last shuttle bus leaves the office at 6 p.m. As a result, employees no longer have to decide between a free meal or a free ride home. It would also make it harder for employees to stock up on free meals to bring home as leftovers.
Confirming the changes in an email to the Protocol news site, company spokesperson, Tracy Clayton, said: “Our culinary services are first and foremost for people when they are working in the office… Meals should be served to meet the need when people are working late.
The announcement comes as many Meta employees are set to return to the office on March 28, though the company has offered a remote work option for others.
According to seven employees who spoke to the New York Times on condition of anonymity, staff members were disappointed to hear the news.
Some employees who saw the post said that several people announced the change in the comment section of the post. Some asked whether Meta planned to compensate employees in other ways and whether the company had conducted an employee survey to see how the new changes would affect the workforce.
In response to the changes, Meta said it would increase its employees’ welfare stipend from $700 to $3,000 this year. The current stipend covers costs related to physical or mental health, financial planning, and care for children, older people, and pets.
According to employees, Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s chief technology officer, defended the changes and criticized the sense of entitlement in the comments.
According to two other employees, an employee on Meta’s food service team criticized those who said the comments would harm Meta’s workplace culture.
“I can honestly say that no one cares about our culture when our mates are cramming three to 10 boxes full of steak to take home,” the employee wrote. “A decision was made to try and prevent some abuse while eliminating sixty million to-go boxes.”
The employee’s comment garnered support from coworkers and became the most liked comment in the thread as of Friday afternoon.
A Meta spokesperson told the New York Times that the changes reflect the diverse needs of the company’s hybrid workforce.
As we return to the office, we have adjusted on-site services and facilities to better reflect the needs of our hybrid employeeswe are confident that people and teams will be increasingly delivered in the future, And we are committed to creating an experience that helps everyone succeed, the spokesperson said.
In February, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, unveiled changes to the company as it pivots to the Metaverse, a still mostly fictional virtual world used by virtual and augmented reality technology.
In addition to various new slogans and internal branding changes, such as renaming the News Feed to “Feed”, Zuckerberg said he would call employees “Metamates”.
Despite Zuckerberg’s confidence in change, the company made a historic jump last month following its most recent earnings report and its revelation that it experienced the first-ever decline in daily user numbers.
Meta shares fell 26.4% in one day in February, one of the biggest one-day losses in the history of a US company. Zuckerberg’s personal wealth fell nearly $30bn as a result of the recession.
The company also reported a rare drop in profit due to a sharp increase in expenses as it invests in various metaverse projects.
