Seems like a bad exchange for both the employee and the company. TBH I feel Meta could have just ended the program for these folks rather than flat out firing them.
I am almost sure that this employee in particular was not deemed especially important. If it was e.g.: an exec or some high level engineer, they would just be reprimand.
Do you imply the person didn't eat that day or what? The company compensates employees food expenses. The employee's partner made the food and thus the food can't be expended, so they bought something else at the equivalent price to compensate for what would otherwise be covered by the company.
I can't find a logic by which this is "stealing". Please clarify.
Right, so then the most optimal outcome is always buying food even if you don't need it, and perhaps even throwing the food away immediately. If your total comes out 22.00, then go ahead and buy 6 ranch dips and bring it up to 25.00.
Now, it's not stealing. Does this outcome feel more morally correct to you? I think, if you answer "no", then your logic on how this stealing works is faulty.
If I was meta I wouldnt want to employ people who are interested in stealing from me, especially when I pay them $400,000. The fact that the theft wasnt that bad or that the policy doesnt make the most sense is irrelevant. The company trusts employees to use benefits with responsibility and this dude used your logic of "leaving money on the table" even though hes being paid 400,000
> dude used your logic of "leaving money on the table"
But my logic is correct. If he had just spent it on food he didn't need, he would be in the clear. So then the conclusion must be the policy doesn't work.
The policy is very relevant, in fact it's the only relevant piece of information. You want to prevent stealing? Don't offer your employees stipends. Problem solved, I'll send everyone my invoice.
This is a simple case of having their cake and eating it too. You cannot simultaneously be "generous" and be stingy. Meta intends to keep a certain image, while they maintain actions that contradict that image.
> The company trusts employees to use benefits with responsibility
Correct, the company is being incredibly stupid and naive. They maintain a purely transactional relationship with their employees, and it's in their own best interest to keep that kind of relationship. Such a relationship is not, and will never be, one of "trust" or "morals". The company seemingly forgot what they are.
>If you value these employees so much that you pay them $400k/yr
A company isn't paying you X amount of money because it "values you", they pay you that because of the market forces that force them to pay you that amount of money. They'd gladly pay you nothing and crack a whip on your back if they could get away with it.
"Valuing you" is something your family will do, but rarely a company, especially a publicly traded one.
>be careful what message you want to send.
The message was exactly the one they wanted to send: "Everyone is expendable".
Because training employees is expensive & may not be obvious how the $ could be used. In the employee side it is a small % of total comp so it doesn’t make sense for them either.
It isn’t clear that they fired the employees to send a message. From the article, it doesn’t look like Meta told other employees, “we fired people who abused the free meal service,” so I don’t know how others would get the message. Instead it was posted on Blind and picked up by news which seems like a poor way to send a message from a PR perspective.
Whether or not they intended to send a message, if I work at the facebook the blaring loud message I just received is "do not under any circumstances try to expense anything, ever."
> the blaring loud message I just received is "do not under any circumstances try to expense anything, ever."
did you not read the article?
the message was, quite reasonably, "don't take the fucking piss, if we give you food vouchers to buy your dinner, then use it for buying yourself dinner".
That's obviously not a serious question, so it doesn't deserve a response.
> if we give you food vouchers to buy your dinner, then use it for buying yourself dinner
I don't know whether there even is a "message", but if I worked for a company that just fired a bunch of people for discrepancies in really minor expense reports I would simply avoid submitting an expense report for something like a meal ever again. They're clearly looking for an excuse to fire people, and it's better to not make oneself a target.
These aren't expense reports. They are digital vouchers.
Imagine if your boss has a stack of gift cards on their desk in case people need a taxi home, and some employees start using it as their personal expense fund.
If I was looking to fire someone, the thieves would be at the top of the list.
It's an assumption, but groceries are food and I'm assuming the person just threw in toothpaste as well. And, apparently, that one dollar worth of toothpaste was too far.
Well it was a credit replacing the food that’s normally available. If the stated purpose is credit to get a meal while working there, it’s fraud to buy other stuff with the credit. I can see why an employer would want to terminate you, they have to trust you and your work.
Right, if you're looking at from a surface-level view. Using such a surface-level view means I could, instead, buy a meal and choose not to eat it. Because the credit is only for food.
But that's worse, right? Okay, then the conclusion is that this basis doesn't work, and you need some leniency. Simply sticking to rules, especially if they're stupid, almost always backfires.
We have to do cost analysis. Is it really worth it spending 100,000+ dollars to rehire and knowledge transfer over a few bucks? Do we really want to set the precedent that we are anal dictators? What affects does that have on other employees in our company?
It's very tempting to be technically right, and then believe that means you can do whatever you want. I mean, you can, but as a company that can bite you. Being correct is not a hall pass from human perception. If you're an asshole, you will still be treated as such, regardless of how correct you may be. Naturally, I'm sure this move eroded much employer trust at Meta - almost all of it being in innocent employees. Collateral damage, but somehow, I doubt anybody sat down and did the cost analysis on if it's worth it.
> Employees who had only occasionally broken the rules were reprimanded, but were able to keep their jobs, the newspaper reported.
It sounds like the fired employee’s abuse was especially egregious and most Meta employees doing this got off with a warning.