Why is Meta management getting big bonuses amid massive layoffs, losses?

Despite heavy losses and massive layoffs in recent months, Meta's management has received high praise for its work—and no less high bonus payments.

This fact seems to have confused many employees of the company. And that was one of the most painful questions raised by employees in an online meeting with Mark Zuckerberg. The Meta CEO, taking a short leave to take care of his newborn daughter, wanted to assist Meta employees after another wave of layoffs; he company recently laid off another 4,000 people—and another 11,000 before that. The Meta employees had previously prepared questions and voted for them, and Zuckerberg had to answer the most popular ones.

As Insider notes, most of these questions, quite expectedly, related to why the company is laying off employees again. It seems that the main reason for these layoffs was never explained, but Zuckerberg took responsibility for what happened and said that the burden of the layoff decision is put only on him. Also, he confirmed that recently about 20% of the company's managers were either fired or transferred to non-management positions. Moreover, Zuckerberg did not deny that there may be further job cuts in the future.

Many of the Meta employees were worried also about why the problems facing the company hardly affect the top managers. All company managers, passing the so-called attestation which evaluates their efficiency and quality of work, have received ratings from 125% to 165%, as well as large bonuses—more than $700,000 in bonuses for 2022. Chief Product Officer Chris Cox received the largest bonus at $940,214, and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg received the smallest at $298,385. But she left the company last September.

If a Meta employee gets an 85% grade during the attestation, it shows that this specialist lives up to the expectations in his/her position, and in the case of a higher grade—even more so. Scores this high should, in theory, indicate outstanding achievement. But these acquisitions don't seem to have any impact on the company's financial performance.

Mark Zuckerberg explained this situation by the fact that many of the Meta top managers were promoted in 2022. But the bonuses they were paid, he said, were not that big compared to the bonuses they could have received if the company's business performance had been better.

At the same time, the bonuses given to the rank-and-file employees of Meta were reduced, and last year, according to the employees, their efficiency evaluation was conducted much more strictly than ever.