- Meta reported a blowout fourth quarter of growing revenue, profits, and users.
- While CEO Mark Zuckerberg is committed to lean operations, he's sharing some success with staffers.
- Meta announced internally this year's cash bonuses will increase significantly.
Meta employees who made it through a year of layoffs and tougher performance reviews will get to share in some of the company's financial resurgence.
The company formerly known as Facebook on Thursday reported a blowout fourth quarter, sending the stock to a new all-time high. The same day, Meta told staffers their annual performance bonuses would be 1.5 times the amount originally planned, according to two people familiar with the company. The company is set to inform employees of their performance ranking this month to complete the 2023 performance-review cycle, and it will pay out bonuses in March.
A Meta spokesman declined to comment.
"This was a good quarter," Zuckerberg said in the Thursday earnings call about the company's performance.
He added later, "Our business is back on track."
The amount of an individual Meta employee's bonus is based on their internal level and performance. Meta sets a baseline employee bonus depending on their job title and level, typically 10% to 20% of their base salary. That bonus is then increased based on an individual's yearly performance ranking. A person who is deemed to have met all expectations will receive their baseline bonus; one who "exceeds" expectations will have their bonus increased by 25%; "greatly exceeds" expectations means a bonus increase of 65%; someone who "redefines" expectations gets a bonus increase of 150%.
Meta's announcement means workers will receive 1.5 times their original bonus amount.
This one-time bonus increase comes as some comfort to Meta employees who managed to hold onto their work. Meta's head count decreased by 22% over the past year, and the company made performance reviews tougher than ever. It went through two waves of mass layoffs in multiple rounds, while "flattening" the overall reporting structure. Efforts to become more "efficient," as Zuckerberg termed it last year, are ongoing, as Business Insider reported, and some job titles this year have already been eliminated entirely.
This efficiency mindset is now "permanent," Zuckerberg said Thursday. The billionaire is adding $27 billion to his wealth thanks to the stock surge and stands to gain a $700 million payout from Meta's new dividend payment alone.
