The salad days of lavish Facebook employee perks may be coming to an end.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, told employees on Friday that it is cutting or canceling free services like laundry and dry cleaning and pushing back the dinner call for a free lunch from 6 pm to 6:30 pm, according to Seven. employees who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The new lunch time is an inconvenience because the company’s last shuttle, which takes employees home and back, usually leaves the office at 6:00 pm. bring them to your refrigerators at home.
These moves are a reflection of the changing workplace culture in Silicon Valley. Tech companies, which often offer perks in exchange for employees spending long hours at the office, are gearing up to adjust to a new hybrid work model.
At Meta, for example, many employees are due to return to the company’s offices on March 28, although some will continue to work from home and others will come to the office less frequently.
The changes to Meta could be a warning shot for employees at other companies preparing to return to the office after two years of the coronavirus pandemic. Google, Amazon, Meta and others have long offered amenities like on-site health care, sushi buffets, pastry shops and bean bags to lure and retain the top talent that remains a priority in the tech industry.
Meta has had a difficult past few months, though company officials say the change in benefits is unrelated. For the first time in years, investors have questioned the long-term prospects of the company’s advertising business model. Its market cap has halved to $515 billion. And some employees are debating whether they should look for a new job as they see the value of their share-based compensation plummet.
Meta spent months discussing changes to its perks program, two employees said, learning how to transition to a new hybrid workplace model. The company has also increased employee wellness stipends from about $700 to $3,000 this year in an attempt to adjust to the elimination of some other perks in the office.
“As we return to the office, we have adjusted on-site services and amenities to better reflect the needs of our hybrid workforce,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “We believe that people and teams will be increasingly dispersed in the future, and we are committed to creating experiences that help everyone succeed.”
According to several employees who reviewed the post, many employees were quick to protest in the comments section below the post announcing the change. Just minutes after the changes were announced, employees asked if the company planned to compensate in new ways and if Meta had conducted an employee survey to assess how the changes would affect staff.
Meta executives trying to fight disinformation related to the war in Ukraine and facing a total ban on Facebook and Instagram in Russia seem to have given up on questions.
In a tone that several employees described as belligerent, Meta’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth, strongly defended some of the changes and was annoyed by the perceived sense of entitlement shown in the comments, according to employees who saw the thread. Mike Schroepfer, outgoing CTO, also wrote in the comments in support of the changes.
According to two people who saw the post, another employee who worked in the company’s catering department fought back even more vigorously.
“I can honestly say that when our colleagues stuff three to ten boxes of takeaway steaks to take home, no one cares about our culture,” the employee said, dismissing others’ claims that the change would hurt Meta. workplace culture. “The decision was made to try to curb some of the abuse while removing six million takeaway boxes.”
It turned out that many employees agreed. As of Friday afternoon, the employee’s post was the most popular comment in the thread, with hundreds of employees showing support.