Longtime “Dilbert” readers will likely know what’s coming when businesses start getting really in the moment about performance reviews. That’s what’s going on at Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), and based on the current crop, there might be more firings now than were already seen. However, this doesn’t seem to be sitting well with investors, as Meta is down today.
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Meta put out performance reviews for a big swath of its staff, and reports note that the results were not pretty. “Thousands” of reports came back with poor performance numbers, and that got some thinking about layoffs. Meta already engaged in a round of job cuts back in November, but it didn’t take long for some to wonder if more were to come. In fact, CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself suggested that this would be the case.
Thus, 2023 is now the “Year of Efficiency.” Perhaps more interesting is the report that the employees may not have been performing as poorly as their performance reviews suggest. Reports note that Meta, back in December, wanted managers to deliberately rank twice as many people as low performers as they did last year. An emailed statement from the company, meanwhile, noted that the performance review process had not changed. Reports also said that Meta was shifting its overall structure to remove middle managers in several areas.
The shakeup comes during a time when the firm enjoys excellent Wall Street support. Analyst consensus calls Meta stock a Strong Buy. With an average price target of $215.20 per share, it has 25.86% upside potential.
