Meta to address low employee morale with snacks

Morale at Meta is reportedly near the worst it's ever been. To help fix it, the tech giant will offer staff more snacks.

Business Insider reports that Meta's chief technology officer Andrew "Boz" Bosworth admitted the grim mood during an internal call earlier this month, stating that while employee morale has been worse before, the current situation is "probably up there" on the scale of severity. 

"I can think Cambridge Analytica was probably the worst," Bosworth reportedly said in the June 2 meeting. The Cambridge Analytica scandal made international headlines in 2016 after it was discovered that the firm had acquired over 50 million Facebook users' data without informed consent and used it to target voters.

Meta's current cratering morale appears attributable to recent shake-ups by management. The company conducted a mass layoff of 8,000 workers last month — amounting to 10 percent of its workforce — while at least 6,500 others were involuntarily reassigned to work on its AI models in its new Applied AI division. Employees have reportedly found the work drudging, menial, and "soul-crushing," with the overwhelming majority deeply unhappy with the change. The tech giant is further facing backlash after announcing it would track U.S. employees' keystrokes and mouse movements to train AI.

Bosworth acknowledged widespread employee dissatisfaction in an internal post this Monday, as reported by WIRED. Though he reportedly stated that employees will need to make sacrifices and work on jobs they find "don't find as personally fulfilling," he pledged to fix Meta's culture and make it a "fun and enjoyable" workplace.

"We've undermined the trust you have that your specific expertise and contribution will be valued, that you will grow and advance your career, and that this will be a place where you can actually have an impact," Bosworth wrote in the post seen by WIRED. "We shook up the management structure that was providing you stability while rapid changes in strategy, including the boom/bust cycle of hiring, left entire teams in the lurch."

As such, Bosworth stated that Meta will give managers a maximum of 20 direct reports and provide employees with more personalised support. He also assured employees that Meta doesn't intend to fully replace AI workers with AI, however they do need to know how to use it, and will be given access to optional "AI coaching" tools.

"We obviously did an atrocious job explaining the vision, giving people a clear picture of how we would support them and their careers in the shift, and painting a picture of how it would change over time," wrote Bosworth.

Bosworth further attempted to raise employees' spirits by promising improved snack areas, increased travel budgets, and investments in office social events. Considering the dire state of morale, it seems as though the time-honoured tradition of the office pizza party has a formidable amount of heavy lifting to do.

WIRED sighted internal memos earlier this month in which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged there would be no further mass layoffs, and Applied AI vice president Maher Saba said that those who'd been reassigned to the team would now be allowed to apply for other roles within the company. Even so, assurances that their situation merely may not get worse is likely of little comfort to already disgruntled employees.