Zuckerberg's Meta to fire workers who refuse to work in office

CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg of Meta made a warning that employees who ignore a new three-day-per-week requirement of in-person office work will be fired.  

Earlier in June Meta ordered employees back into the office for at least three days out of their work week starting Sept. fifth. Now Zuckerberg has issued a warning if workers don't cooperate, they will be let go.  

In an email from Meta's Head of People Lori Goler, she wrote, "beginning September 5, people assigned to an office will need to spend at least 3 days per week in person to foster healthy relationships and strong collaboration.” 

She added that managers will be reviewing status information to determine on a monthly basis if employees are hitting their marks. The email, obtained by Insider, also said that "repeated violations may result in disciplinary action, up to and including a performance rating drop and, ultimately, termination." 

The change has been a part of Zuckerberg's "Year of Efficiency" initiative. Meta has been scaling back and layoffs of around 10,000 people and the 2023 year will close with 5,000 open roles, Zuckerberg announced in March.  

The company is shifting away from fully remote work with rare exceptions. New policy will only allow the practice for new workers with positive performance after 18 months of working at the company.  

In addition, any remote workers will not be able to "visit the office more than 4 days every 2 months,” unless they have a “clear business reason” to do so.  

"We believe that distributed work will continue to be important in the future, particularly as our technology improves," a spokesman at Meta told Insider.  

"In the near-term, our in-person focus is designed to support a strong, valuable experience for our people who have chosen to work from the office," the spokesman added. "We're being thoughtful and intentional about where we invest in remote work." 

The internal email wrote that the way to make the new policies "fair and effective" is through "accountability” being central to the process.