Meta is asking some managers not to be managers — or quit, report says

• Meta is asking managers and directors to move to different roles or quit, sources told Bloomberg.
• It wants these staff to switch to other roles which don't involve managing people, per Bloomberg.

Meta is asking some managers and directors to move to different roles or quit the company, Bloomberg reported.

People familiar with the matter told the outlet that the company wants these staff to transition to individual contributor jobs, which don't involve managing other people, in its bid to improve efficiency and become more nimble. Higher-level managers will be sharing the news with their reports in the coming weeks, the people said.

Meta didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment about Bloomberg's report.

In Meta's earnings call earlier this month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company was "working on flattening our org structure and removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster."

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, laid off more than 11,000 employees in November — roughly 13% of its workforce. Zuckerberg said the company had significantly increased its investments during the pandemic as revenue boomed due to the shift to online shopping, but that this trend had since dulled. "This did not play out the way I expected," he wrote at the time.

The job cuts as part of the "flattening" will be more gradual and carried out on an individual basis, Bloomberg reported, citing the people familiar with the matter.

Zuckerberg told investors in Meta's most recent quarterly earnings call on February 1 that 2023 will be the "year of efficiency" for the company. "We're focused on becoming a stronger and more nimble organization," he said, in a report accompanying the results.

Tech giants, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, PayPal, and Salesforce, have collectively laid off tens of thousands of workers over the past few months as they prepare for a looming recession. As well as reducing headcounts, companies have been cutting costs too, including paring back staff perks and reducing office space.

"I view layoffs as a last resort, so we decided to rein in other sources of cost before letting teammates go," Zuckerberg said when he announced the layoffs in November, adding that Meta was cutting discretionary spending and extending its hiring freeze through the first quarter of 2023.

Meta recently sublet one of its San Francisco offices, and has cut the leases at some of its New York offices to cut costs.

Zuckerberg said during the February earnings call that the company was also deploying AI tools to help its engineers be more productive and be "more proactive about cutting projects that aren't performing or may no longer be as crucial."

"My main focus is on increasing the efficiency of how we execute our top priorities," Zuckerberg said.