Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has reportedly dismissed approximately 24 staff members from its Los Angeles offices for misusing meal vouchers. The meal credits, worth $25, were intended for office meals but were used to purchase non-food items such as toothpaste, laundry detergent, and wine glasses.
The firings, which took place last week, followed an internal investigation into the misuse of the company’s food credit system. Among the dismissed employees was a worker earning a $400,000 salary, who admitted using the meal vouchers for household goods like toothpaste and tea. This individual, writing anonymously on the platform Blind, said they rationalised the purchases as a way not to “waste the dinner credit” on days when they were not eating in the office due to personal reasons, such as dining with friends or eating at home.
The person described their dismissal as “surreal” and explained that they were approached as part of a human resources investigation into the abuse of meal credits. The company also discovered that other employees had spent their credits on items like acne pads, while some had food delivered to their homes when they were not working in the office. Employees who violated the policy occasionally received reprimands but were not terminated.
Meta provides daily allowances of $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch, and $25 for dinner for employees at its smaller offices. While its larger sites, including the Silicon Valley headquarters, offer free meals in staff canteens, smaller locations rely on food delivery services such as UberEats and Grubhub. This perk is part of a wider benefits package that many large tech companies offer.
In 2022, Meta’s decision to delay its free dinner service at the Silicon Valley campus by half an hour to 6:30 pm as part of cost-cutting measures caused unrest among employees. The change made it more difficult for staff to collect free food before catching the last shuttle home at 6:00 pm, limiting opportunities to bring home leftovers.
Meta’s crackdown on voucher misuse comes as part of a broader restructuring effort, which includes layoffs and relocations within its WhatsApp, Instagram, and augmented reality divisions. The company, worth £1.2 trillion, had already announced the dismissal of 21,000 employees between 2022 and 2023 as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “Year of Efficiency” initiative, aimed at streamlining operations following over-expansion during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other major tech companies have also been tightening restrictions on employee perks. Google, for instance, has reduced fitness classes and restricted the frequency of laptop replacements. The company also implemented stricter controls on office supplies, requiring staff to borrow items like staplers from reception.
Source: Kessbenonline.com