“Our early analysis of performance data suggests that engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely,” Zuckerberg said in the memo sent out Tuesday. “This analysis also shows that engineers earlier in their career perform better on average when they work in-person with teammates at least three days a week.”
He emphasized that the company is “committed to distributed work” but did not rule out any changes to its current model. “That means we’re also committed to continuously refining our model to make this work as effectively as possible,” he said.
Meta has embraced remote work as part of its push for the metaverse, maintaining its remote work policy even as Apple and other titans of industry pushed hard for a large-scale return to office in 2022. “At Meta, we’re building a distributed-first future,” reads a section on Meta’s careers page, which features a glowing quote from Zuckerberg about remote work. (The company scrapped 5,000 open positions Tuesday in addition to the mass layoffs.)
Increased questioning about remote work is very much a sentiment shared among the tech elite. Late last year, Marc Benioff — one of the most vocal proponents of remote work during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic — said that new employees “are especially facing much lower productivity.” He went on to question if that reduced productivity was “a reflection of our office policy.”
And while Zuckerberg did not make any official statement on the future of remote work at Meta, he promises that “understanding this further” is going to be a key part of the company’s year of efficiency.
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“As part of our Year of Efficiency, we’re focusing on understanding this further and finding ways to make sure people build the necessary connections to work effectively,” he said in the memo. “In the meantime, I encourage all of you to find more opportunities to work with your colleagues in person.”
Meta shares went up more than 7% Tuesday at market close.
This content was originally published here.
