A tech giant Meta Platform Inc. revealed a plan to kick off inefficient middle managers, but not enough clear instructions brought the company chaos.
Meta asked its managers to convert into individual contractors or to leave the company, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the issue. Individual contributors usually aren’t in charge of others, instead focus on tasks like coding, designing and research.
Higher managers are sharing the directive with subordinates in the coming weeks, aside from their regular performance reviews.
But, the current lack of clarity on details, including budget and future headcounts, led the workers unable to proceed to work or managers to project plans, reported Financial Times. It also delayed the company’s priority tasks, including metaverse and advertising, according to employees.
This chaos came from pursuing Meta’s New Year’s resolution, known as the “Year of Efficiency,” which aims to cut off needless costs.
“Next, we’re working on flattening our org structure and removing some layers in middle management to make decisions faster,” said chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in a recent earnings call.
Meta already fired 11,000 employees last November, which consist of 13% of its workforce, during its first major layoff.
Some criticized that the sudden change in middle management without preparation can cause chaos. “You’ve cut people before you’ve figured out what they do and how to get the work done,” said Peter Cappelli, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to Bloomberg. “The next phase is a lot of people doing two jobs at the same time. You might say that’s kind of efficient, but the cost of that is pretty big — things don’t get done well, or done at all.”
Meanwhile, some employees admitted there has been an unnecessary workforce within the company. Meta employees told Bloomberg that they felt the change was needed as some teams were working towards similar goals and some managers oversee only one or two employees.
The upcoming company’s restructuring is scheduled for March.
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