Meta fires staff for abusing meal vouchers to order household goods
Meta has reportedly fired several staff members after they were discovered abusing the company's meal voucher system to buy household goods instead of food.
According to a report by The Financial Times, the employees of the tech firm are given $20 (P1,150) for breakfast, $25 (P1,437) for lunch, and another $25 for dinner daily in vouchers that are meant to be used for ordering meals at online food company Grubhub.
However, more than 30 people were reportedly caught using the meal scheme to buy other items such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, washing powder, wine glasses, and more, which resulted in their termination.
In one post on the anonymous messaging platform Blind, one former Meta staffer reasoned that they had used the $25 credits on household items to not "waste the dinner credit" whenever they cooked at home or grabbed dinner with friends.
Other policy violations include sharing the vouchers with others or going over budget.
Meta typically gives its employees free food through a canteen in its larger headquarters, but staff based in smaller offices without a cafeteria are offered Uber Eats or Grubhub credits
According to other sources familiar with the matter, the violators appeared to have abused the food credit system over a long period.
While others stopped after being reprimanded, they were fired three months later even after they discontinued the act.
The termination also applied to those making six-digit figures. A person with a salary of around $400,000 (P22 million) reported being dismissed following a human resources investigation into the issue.
The incident comes after Meta announced that it had begun laying off some employees, including staff at WhatsApp And Instagram, to realign its resources with its "strategic goals."
"Today, a few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy," company spokesperson Dave Arnold said in a statement sent to The Verge.
"This includes moving some teams to different locations and moving some employees to different roles. In situations like this when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees," he added.
The company previously laid off 11,000 employees in 2022 due to "over-optimism" about the company’s growth after the COVID-19 pandemic. It was followed by the dismissal of 10,000 more people as part of Mark Zuckerberg’s "year of efficiency" in 2023.