Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and chief executive of Facebook parent Meta, has pointed to an analysis of internal data suggesting that engineers who initially joined the company in person performed better than those who joined remotely from the very start. moment.
He also suggested that younger engineers, or more accurately those “early in their careers,” perform better when working with colleagues face-to-face for at least three days a week.
Ideas come from a memorandum sent to employees today, in which Zuckerberg revealed that the company was cutting another 10,000 jobs. In addition to announcing the new round of layoffs, Zuckerberg delved into several ways the company was looking to improve efficiencies, including canceling “lower-priority projects” and creating a flatter organizational structure by eliminating multiple levels of management.
However, the fact that Meta is aligning remote work and performance data tells us a bit about how the powers that be at Facebook Towers are currently thinking about the whole remote work and caboodle kit, with Zuckerberg opining that “in-person time It helps build relationships.” and do more things”.
Remote control
Remote work is one of the legacies of the global pandemic, and Meta, like most other companies, was forced to embrace it faster than it otherwise would have. Speaking in May 2020, Zuckerberg said that Meta (then called Facebook) was going to be the “most advanced company in remote work at our scale,” and to this day his careers page highlights his mission to build a “future first.” distributed”. .”
Add to the mix the fact that Meta is actively reducing its real estate footprint, while doubling down on metaverse ambitions that would no doubt benefit from a more distributed workforce, and it would make little sense for Meta to abandon its recent embrace of remote work. However, it seems that Meta wants people to come back to the office a little more often.
Pointing to the “early analysis” of internal performance data, Zuckerberg said engineers who started at Meta in a fully face-to-face capacity before moving to a remote role, as well as those who remained in a face-to-face role, “performed better on average than people who joined remotely.”
“This analysis also shows that early-career engineers perform better on average when working in person with teammates at least three days a week,” Zuckerberg said. “This requires further study, but our hypothesis is that it’s still easier to build trust in person and that those relationships help us work more effectively.”
It’s not so absurd to suggest that people who are new to a specific job might benefit from being surrounded by colleagues, particularly inexperienced newcomers to the world of work altogether. But at a time when the option of remote work is a major selling point for in-demand technical talent, companies will have to tiptoe around the issue. Also, there might be a broader issue at play here in terms of as businesses manage their remote workforce. A company of Meta’s size and global distribution may have a harder time making the transition, compared to a company that has grown organically from the ground up as a remote company.
In any case, Meta doesn’t want to make direct demands just yet, but that could change as other tech companies reevaluate their own approach to the topic of remote work. But for now, Zuckerberg is gently pushing people to work with colleagues in person more often if they can.
“We are committed to distributed work,” Zuckerberg said. “That means we are also committed to continually refining our model so that it works as effectively as possible. As part of our ‘year of efficiency’, we’re focusing on understanding this further and finding ways to make sure people build the connections they need to work effectively. In the meantime, I encourage all of you to find more opportunities to work with your colleagues in person.”
