Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Workers laid off by Meta in its recent cull that publicly targeted low performers were quick to fight back.Conscious of the potential stigma of being labelled in this way, affected employees took to LinkedIn to bemoan their former employer and bat for their reputation. Many insisted they were in fact high performers; some even shared lists of their previous positive evaluations as evidence.\u201cLet\u2019s be clear: that label is misleading, and for many of us, it\u2019s flat-out wrong,\u201d said Steven Sczepanik, a former Meta product designer, on the platform. \u201cI was swept up in a process that had more to do with hitting numbers than fairly evaluating individual performance.\u201dMeta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s decision to brand roughly 5 per cent of its workforce as low performers before firing them this year marked a shift in how the technology company approached restructuring. The company had already cut nearly a quarter of its workforce in the past few years, as it reversed a pandemic hiring boom. But this time was more personal: the Meta boss told employees in a memo published in January that he had decided to \u201craise the bar on performance\u201d with a further cull of roughly 3,600 employees. According to interviews with multiple current and former tech workers at companies including Meta, as well as academics and lawyers, the change in tone from restructuring to mass performance-based initiatives injects a more Darwinian ethos into Silicon Valley. It has cast doubts on the competence of workers who would have previously left a company with their reputation intact.Microsoft in January also made redundancies based on performance, targeting a small percentage of employees who had received \u201cless than expected rewards\u201d \u2014 wage increases, stock and bonus payments \u2014 at their last review. It followed efforts to make it easier for managers at the company to fire underperforming employees, according to one person familiar with the matter.The person said fierce competition in artificial intelligence, particularly against new start-ups, meant companies needed to be more agile to maintain an advantage.Defenders of performance-based culls argue they make business sense. But for affected staff looking to continue their career elsewhere, they can be a worrying black mark. One former Meta worker affected by the recent lay-offs said they had received rejections in their job hunt since \u2014 although they had not been told this was specifically due to the low-performer label. Observers have also warned such targeted cuts have a chilling effect on innovation, with remaining employees taking fewer risks as they seek to beat certain metrics. \u201cUsually, lay-offs aren\u2019t done in such a performative way,\u201d said Anna Tavis, a professor at NYU and former HR executive at Motorola and Nokia. \u201cUsually these things are said behind closed doors\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009There\u2019s a cruelty involved in a company announcing to the world that these people are being let go because of their performance.\u201dThe practice of firing someone based on professional shortcomings is not unusual \u2014 but the decision to shed so-called low performers en masse has only entered large tech employers\u2019 tool kits in recent years, having first emerged at social media site Twitter.Elon Musk\u2019s $44bn acquisition in 2022 of the site, now known as X, was accompanied by an email titled \u201cA Fork in the Road\u201d. This laid out an ultimatum for employees to accept an \u201cextremely hardcore\u201d culture, or leave \u2014 before Musk cut headcount by about 80 per cent, to 1,500 employees. The billionaire has since applied the approach to federal employees in his role leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) under US President Donald Trump. Lawyers and academics said Musk\u2019s behaviour in government had provided cover to big technology companies taking a more aggressive approach with their own employees. A tighter labour market has also emboldened companies that once felt less secure competing for staff. \u201cThere are seismic changes in employment practices amid a cultural shift in the US,\u201d said Deena Merlen, an attorney at Reavis Page Jump. \u201cThis is impacting decision making and the types of procedures that are being followed.\u201dMeta\u2019s job cuts came as Zuckerberg loosened the company\u2019s moderation approach and called for more \u201cmasculine energy\u201d in corporate America, which many have interpreted as overtures to the Trump administration. Several former Meta employees have claimed they were dismissed following a short period on either medical or maternity leave and had only recently returned to work. \u201cI had never previously received a review below \u2018meets all\u2019 [during] my three-plus years at Meta, and I was on maternity leave for six months until November,\u201d said Elana Reman Safner, a former lawyer for Meta, in a social media post. \u201cMany laid off today seem to have similar stories \u2014 a history of good performance, and a recent leave of absence.\u201d \u201c\u2018On Leave,\u2019 by definition, is not a performance rating. I thought wrong,\u201d said Nichole Schwartz, a former research manager at Meta.Some insiders and former staff members suggested the lay-offs were a scare tactic to dissuade employees from dissent over Zuckerberg\u2019s overhaul. One former senior staff member suggested some of those let go had criticised his plans. \u201cIt\u2019s setting up an environment of \u2014 \u2018you\u2019re either with us or against us\u2019,\u201d the person said. Meta declined to comment.One current Meta employee told the Financial Times that remaining staff were now playing it safe to survive. \u201cPeople are worried this disincentivises risk-taking. I personally have decided to cut [down] my ambition and focus on safe easy wins,\u201d the person said. \u201cNot only are people scared to take big bets, but they are now scared to take bereavement and parental leave.\u201dA former Microsoft employee said the firings had created a \u201cbit of fear internally\u201d and that the decision to label people low performers represented a \u201cvibe shift\u201d for the company. They noted that most unionising activity across the sector had been stopped several years ago.Microsoft said: \u201cWe focus on high performance talent. We are always working on helping people learn and grow. When people are not performing, we take the appropriate action.\u201d Some employees are expected to bring discrimination claims. However there are few safeguards for the majority of employees caught up in performance-based dismissals in the US \u2014 where most large technology companies are headquartered \u2014 even where the underlying justification may not have been based on performance. \u201cGenerally the rule is \u2018employment at will\u2019,\u201d said Shannon Liss-Riordan, a labour rights lawyer who has brought class actions against companies including Uber and Twitter. \u201cIf an employee is terminated on the basis of performance, where there\u2019s no legitimate issue, the law doesn\u2019t automatically let you contest that.\u201d The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (Warn) Act requires employers in the US with more than 100 staff to provide at least 60 days\u2019 notice before a mass dismissal. But they are not required to do so in instances where the decision relates to performance.Employees let go for performance reasons are not entitled to severance payments or certain unemployment benefits. At some companies, including Microsoft, they lose access to internal application and interview resources that are available to peers let go for restructuring reasons.One senior recruiter at a large technology company said companies could be forced to qualify their decision to fire staff on the basis of performance in court, particularly if they did not backfill the role.The same recruiter added that employees were unlikely to be tainted by the culls given the revolving door that existed in Silicon Valley. \u201cPeople know that internal and external politics play a huge part in all this,\u201d they said. \u201cGood people know good people. And lay-offs don\u2019t [tarnish] the image of a good hire.\u201d\u201cAt the end of the day, it depends on how you wear it,\u201d the recruiter added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Workers laid off by Meta in its recent cull that publicly targeted low performers were quick to fight back.Conscious of the potential stigma of being labelled in this way, affected employees took to LinkedIn to bemoan their former employer and bat for their reputation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-269367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}