Weeding out poor performers is always good for a business’ well-being and it better guarantees its continued success, but there’s something about Meta’s strategy that feels inauthentic. Meta is targeting “low performers” once more, urging managers to put more people into this particular bracket during performance reviews. Meta’s approach to ranking low performers is not unusual on its own—most businesses conduct periodic reviews to assess if employees are able to perform their jobs satisfactorily—but in this case, there is an obvious push to falsely represent worker capabilities.
A report from Business Insider claimed that an internal memo was shared at Meta, asking managers to categorize more employees with a “below expectations” performance ranking during their mid-year performance reviews. If these employees weren’t already falling within the category, there would be no need for external prompting to make the move, but this could just be Meta’s attempt at a performance-based layoffs strategy for 2025.
Meta’s approach to low performers is adding to the fears of incoming layoffs. (Image: Freepik)
Meta Targets Low Performers With Greater Vigor—Will This Make Layoffs Easier?
Meta’s alleged performance evaluation memo was shared on the company’s internal forum on May 14, and it was directed at managers with teams of 150 or more employees. The memo asked managers to mark 15% to 20% of employees as “below expectations” which is larger than its target last year, where 12% to 15% of employees were required to be marked as low performers.
This makes it clear that employees are not only being evaluated on their own merit and performance, but also pitted against the others to see which of them are most disposable. Again, this isn’t a new strategy and neither is it exclusive to Meta, but there is a growing sense of discomfort among employees whose jobs are at risk of being cut for a company turnover target.
The midyear review process will be kickstarted on June 16, and continue until August, so employees have some time to work on their performance as well as their resumes—in case they decide to move elsewhere.
Meta’s Performance Evaluation Memo Triggers Layoffs Fears for 2025
Earlier this year, Meta ranked low performers and conducted an early round of layoffs that affected around 4,000 workers. This new memo sparked off more Meta layoff rumors for 2025, hinting at the possibility that the business was gearing up to ask more employees to leave for failing to meet its expectations.
Meta’s performance-based layoff strategy has set a clear standard at the businesses and its future plans for job cuts remains unclear. On one hand, Meta indicated that it wanted to continue targeting low performers by clarifying that these performance reviews were an “opportunity to make exit decisions” at the organization. On the other hand, the company reassured workers that “there will be no company-wide performance terminations, unlike earlier this year.”
From the wording we can only assume that the Meta layoffs fear for 2025 are excessive and the company isn’t exploring immediate widespread cuts, but some of the low-performers could be asked to leave. Uncertainty like this creates a stressful environment for work and productivity, but it’s likely that employees at the organization are already familiar with this work culture.
Meta’s Promise of an “Intense Year” Comes to Life
Meta’s decision to target low performers is something that CEO Zuckerberg had warned employees about earlier in the year. With plans to double down on its AI investments, Zuckerberg explained that he would “raise the bar on performance management and move out low-performers faster.”
The AI race has caused a shift within the workplace across businesses in many different ways, from the termination of employees to bolster investments in AI, to the job cuts that have occurred to replace workers with AI tools. In every scenario, it’s apparent that workers are bearing the brunt of business decisions made by leaders.
This is a tale as old as time and employees are not surprised by the shift, but it’s clear that we are moving away from worshipping the “casual” workplace and going back to the days where hustle culture was the only way to live and earn.
Hustle Culture is Making a Comeback in 2025
Now more than ever, employees are being reminded that they are entirely replaceable. RTO policies have furthered this change, but even these policies are less about face-to-face interactions and human connections, and more about employers doing everything possible to make the workforce leaner.
This renaissance of the “fight or leave” culture is worrying and employers need to be wary of how it impacts workers. The last few years have been spent understanding the importance of employee mental health and the dangers of burnout, but in 2025, undoing all of the progress that has been made can set a business back by years.
HR teams need to be prepared to represent worker interests and ensure that there is a continued focus on what is best for them, beyond just their salaries. Meta’s performance-based layoff strategy looks like an appealing alternative to planning out targeted job cuts for bringing workforce numbers down, but such decisions can have unintended consequences in the long run.
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