Employees at Facebook parent company Meta are up in arms after it informed staff on that it would be cutting down on perks such as free laundry, dry cleaning and a free evening dinner at its Silicon Valley campus.
A company spokesperson confirmed the changes to tech website Protocol, explaining that the free evening meal would be moved to 6.30pm rather than 6pm, meaning that those who get the last shuttle bus home would miss out.
“Our culinary services are first and foremost an onsite perk for people while they’re working in the office … We want food to be served to meet that need while people might be working late,” Tracey Clayton told the site.
Employees vented their frustrations at the planned changes to benefits on anonymous corporate messaging board Blind, with one claiming the company was “ruthlessly” cutting benefits.
One wrote: “Laundry benefits GONE. I have been using laundry benefit and love that cleaners come home, pick up stuff and bring it back…. Why, why WHY??”
Another Meta spokesperson, Andrea Beasley, said the decision to revamp the benefits package had come as the company moved to a more hybrid working model. Meta employees are due to return to the office at the end of this month.
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“As we return to the office, we’ve adjusted on-site services and amenities to better reflect the needs of our hybrid workforce,” she said in a statement. “We believe people and teams will be increasingly distributed in the future, and we’re committed to building an experience that helps everyone be successful.”
While certain popular benefits have been removed, Meta also announced it would increase a “wellness stipend” for workers from $700 to $3,000. Employees can spend this money on physical or mental health services, financial planning, child- or petcare.
One employee from the company’s food service team welcomed the free-meal delay, claiming that employees had been “cramming three- to 10 boxes full of steak to take them home”.
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In February, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the company would be updating its “values and cultural operating system”, and that employees would be known as “Metamates”.
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