By Katarina Arambasic-Pivic
Photo: Pexels/Brett Jordan
May 26th, 2023
The third round of layoffs at the company Meta (Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp) is underway, and unlike the November and March cycle when the focus was on “core” businesses, this time, thousands of employees in the so-called support functions (user experience, marketing, communications, recruitment, etc.). Previously, in the April wave that is part of the current round, workers in technical jobs were dismissed. April and May will take a total of 10,000 people.
We already know that the reduction in the number of employees is part of the so-called Meta’s “efficiency year,” which Zuckerberg cited as necessary for the company to “lean down” and become more agile amid a troubled economy and a weakened digital advertising market. It is, in essence, a cost-saving strategy.
But let’s go back to the good old communication in crises because what are layoffs but crises for the company? Since layoffs, especially mass layoffs, were always unpopular, in times before social media, companies mostly tried to keep the public from finding out about them and reacted if they had to. As the world has changed significantly with the emergence of social media and hardly anything can remain a secret, multinationals have introduced the practice of proactive response to minimize damage and prevent the press and public from learning about big plans from someone else.
So, how did Meta and Zuckerberg externally communicate the latest layoffs, which, you’ll admit, are not insignificant even for the large American market? They didn’t do it. Meta declined to comment on this latest round of layoffs, and Zuckerberg was nowhere to be found. As there is no official position of the company on this matter, social media are full of impressions of people who have been fired, while traditional media mainly broadcast old information and reminds Zuckerberg’s old blog, saying the last cuts will begin at the end of May.
How and why did we get that large companies like Meta, especially those that boasted a modern and progressive approach to employees, benefits, and “comfortable” jobs, remain silent in these situations? Did they think that it still pays them more to keep quiet and wait until they stop being news, while CEOs no longer want to be the person who delivers bad news? Or did the lousy experience Meta and Zuckerberg had after his internal speech to employees in November (the leaked video) influence the decision not to say anything outside the company now? Maybe this is an introduction to the new-old practice of communicating as little as possible, and only if we can be “faceless” and in as impersonal a tone as possible. It is also possible that the company’s key people are no longer ready to take responsibility for what is happening, and we may be entering an era of weak leaders.
It is important to mention the chance this remains an isolated case, primarily caused by the fact that, in recent days, Meta, in addition to mass layoffs, had another serious inconvenience – the European Union imposed a record fine of 1.2 billion euros on it for violating EU data protection rules. The company did not make an announcement on this occasion either, probably aware that addressing one issue necessitates responding to another.
Although there are many unanswered questions, this is undoubtedly an exciting time for communicators. We don’t want Meta’s case to serve as a primer on the corporate “no comment” policy because it ultimately served no one in the long run. The fact that, at least internally (to the employees), they communicated the upcoming layoff is not very comforting for many reasons. Zuckerberg did not deliver it, and the video was again leaked to the public; we live in a time when the internal quickly becomes the external, and even the people who built modern technological empires seem to forget that.
Whatever the case may be, one thing is becoming clear: as the New York Times reported, after months of layoffs, the increasingly common practice of top management operating online from their new homes in London and Tel Aviv, doubts about Zuckerberg’s future business moves, and other factors have destroyed the morale of the employees (those who are still there) in Meta and currently do not make the company an appealing employer in Silicon Valley. It is clear that Meta will need to concentrate on boosting staff morale and winning back their trust.
One more thing becomes obvious: since the company’s shares are increasing in direct proportion to the reduction in the number of employees, the only people looking forward to the current Meta situation are the investors.
