The co-founder and CEO of Meta, Facebook's parent company, Mark Zuckerberg, has assured that the company's internal data analysis indicates that engineers who initially joined the organization in person performed better than those who did so remotely. .
These same data also suggest that "early-career" engineers perform best when working face-to-face and collaboratively with peers at least three days a week.
These conclusions emerge from the latest memo that Zuckerberg has sent to his employees, which also revealed that the company will cut another 10,000 jobs. In addition to announcing this new round of layoffs, the CEO has addressed various ways the company intends to improve efficiency, including canceling "lower-priority projects" and creating a flatter organizational structure.
However, these performance data handled by Meta suggest that the company is going to reduce the options for its employees to telework.
Remote work is one of the legacies that the global Covid-19 pandemic has left us. Meta, like most companies, was forced to adopt it much faster than it otherwise would have. In fact, in May 2020, Zuckerberg declared that what was then called Facebook was going to be the “most advanced company in remote work”.
To this we must add that Meta is reducing its real estate footprint, while redoubling its ambitions with technologies related to the metaverse, which at first glance would suggest that it expands the possibilities of teleworking. However, it seems that the company wants people to come to the office in person a little more often.
Based on internal company data, Zuckerberg has assured that engineers who started in Meta in person before moving to telecommuting "performed better than people who joined remotely."
"This requires further study, but our hypothesis is that it is still easier to build trust in person and that these close relationships help us work more effectively," added the CEO of Meta in the statement distributed to his workers.
With no study in hand, it doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that people just starting out in a particular job can benefit from being surrounded by colleagues, especially inexperienced newcomers to the world of work. But at a time when the option of remote work is one of the main arguments for attracting top technical talent, companies will have to tread carefully on this issue.
Meta does not yet plan to introduce any specific requirements in this regard, but that could change as other tech companies reevaluate their own approach. For now, Zuckerberg is limited to incentivizing his employees to work in person more often.
"We are committed to continually refining our work model to make it work as efficiently as possible. As part of our 'Year of Efficiency,' we are focusing on understanding these dynamics more fully and finding ways to ensure our employees build the connections necessary to work effectively. In the meantime, I encourage all of you to find more opportunities to work with your colleagues in person," the memo concludes.
