For liability reasons, HR needs a reason to fire someone to avoid potential wrongful termination lawsuit. The meal vouchers just sound like it was an excuse they needed to let some people go. But it makes a good story for the interwebs.
Yea I've known plenty of people with performance issues that were let go as soon as HR found some technicality to pin them on. One left a guest unattended at the office during lunch for 15 minutes and they fired him for it the following week
I doubt that simply because they gave everyone they didn't fire who did it an official talking to. It's atypical for a BigCo to do that if they're simply manufacturing a pretext.
Do they though? You're an at-will employee. Unless there is a contract, you can be fired for any reason including cutting costs. Just like you can quit whenever. Wrongful termination lawsuit happen when employ fires employee for illegal reasons(gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or disability status).
In California, yes. It's trickier to fire someone due to the labor laws. It's not as strict as EU, but typically requires performance reviews and advance notification.
To fire someone in CA who does not have bad performance reviews, it much easier to find some other infraction as justification.
The critical word in this headline is missing (maybe a length issue)...
> Meta Fires Employee Making $400,000 Per Year Over a $25 Meal Voucher Issue
This wasn't one $25 meal voucher, this was employees buying homegoods and pooling credit for other purposes:
> some Meta staff opted to buy items like toothpaste and wine glasses with the credit, per The Financial Times. Or they would get dinner delivered at home or pool their credit money together
> The staff who were let go routinely misused their vouchers
The funny thing is that pooling the credit is probably the best possible ROI for meta because if they're pooling the benefit they're probably using it together which builds morale, cohesion and friendship and even if they aren't and it's a rotation as to who gets the benefit the interdependence of trading favors has the same effect just less so.
I agree that the other stuff is arguably abuse and defeats the point of getting the employees to come to the office and eat in the office.
I wonder how explicit and clear they were about the intended purpose of these vouchers. I can see myself saying fck it and using it however I feel without thinking much since it seems insignificant, unless they make a deal of it.
I suspect this is a result of acquisitions.
They buy some startup, bring them all under Meta's HR umbrella with all the rules and perks that comes with. Since these recently acquired guys are running out of random offices in random places they just give them a stipend rather than force them to all relocate to a campus with dining. Some people are happy, some are unhappy, some don't like their new overlords and don't feel bad abusing the system. That's just how it goes with these sorts of things.
The $400k employee was probably a higher up (or key SME Meta felt they needed to put in golden handcuffs) at one of these acquired companies and was probably already on his or her way out or they were in a position of authority and encouraging/condoning abusing the system.
You don't fire someone like that over ~$100/day unless there's more to the story.
At Meta, $400k would be high E4 or low E5. That’s someone earlier in their career who probably feels fairly anonymous and is used to taking all the deals they can get to live cheaply, even if they don’t need to anymore.
Of course but depending on how this was or wasn't messaged it probably doesn't fall into that category. At the very least using the word "blatant" is in error.
Sounds like the employees were let go for dishonestly abusing a perk. It's hard to tell from the linked article but I presume you get these meal vouchers if you are working early/late and are in the office during meal times. These bad apples were using the vouchers to have food delivered to their homes while not working, or buying non-food items. It's a clear abuse of the policy and hard to understand why someone making such a good salary would risk it for peanuts - but many of my high-earning friends are also some of the cheapest people I have ever met.
The logic is if you couldn't trust a banker to not defraud their employer by submitting dishonest meal receipts, how could you trust them with client money and confidential information. I don't disagree.
It might also be related to irs audits. even business meals are only 50% tax deductible. Personal items just aren’t. They are income and irs would want its share.
Readit News
The staff who were let go routinely misused their vouchers, while others who misapplied them less frequently, were reprimanded but not fired.
Doing things by the book provides evidence that the process is fair, objective, and was reviewed by multiple people.
To fire someone in CA who does not have bad performance reviews, it much easier to find some other infraction as justification.
Here's a random guide found on google: https://www.jibble.io/labor-laws/us-state-labor-laws/califor...
> Meta Fires Employee Making $400,000 Per Year Over a $25 Meal Voucher Issue
This wasn't one $25 meal voucher, this was employees buying homegoods and pooling credit for other purposes:
> some Meta staff opted to buy items like toothpaste and wine glasses with the credit, per The Financial Times. Or they would get dinner delivered at home or pool their credit money together
> The staff who were let go routinely misused their vouchers
I agree that the other stuff is arguably abuse and defeats the point of getting the employees to come to the office and eat in the office.
"The staff who were let go routinely misused their vouchers, while others who misapplied them less frequently, were reprimanded but not fired."
The $400k employee was probably a higher up (or key SME Meta felt they needed to put in golden handcuffs) at one of these acquired companies and was probably already on his or her way out or they were in a position of authority and encouraging/condoning abusing the system.
You don't fire someone like that over ~$100/day unless there's more to the story.
Salaries in the rest of the world really can't compete can they!
Here's Matt Levine on one of the incidents: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-09-04/wells-far...
The logic is if you couldn't trust a banker to not defraud their employer by submitting dishonest meal receipts, how could you trust them with client money and confidential information. I don't disagree.