Facebook on Tuesday night announced that it has rebuilt its employee’s performance review system. The employee’s bonuses are based on new criteria like they are evaluated on how they help to solve “social issues.” Zuckerberg announced the change to the bonus structure, at a meeting at Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif. Headquarters. Facebook’s nearly 36000 employees are about to be judged with a whole new system. Previously, the Facebook staff earned a bonus based only on factors like improvements in product quality, user and revenue growth.
Other criteria based on which employees will be graded includes supporting businesses that rely on Facebook, communicating transparently about the work they are doing and building new experiences. These goals were outlined by Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO during the company’s earnings call with analysts and investors last week.
A Facebook spokeswoman said, “So in a nutshell: Facebook’s moving from a focus on growth to a focus on change.” In a statement made by the company, it said that “Over the past two years, we’ve fundamentally changed how we run Facebook. This particular change is designed to ensure that we are incentivizing people to keep making progress on the major social issues facing the internet and our company.”
Facebook has been under massive pressure from consumers due to illicit contents, data privacy issues, misinformation and hate speech. Now more than 30,000 people are working on safety and security issues, but none of the troubles seem to affect its revenue and profits in the fourth quarter. Every month the number of people who log on to Facebook rose by 9 percent to 2.32 billion in the fourth quarter. The user growth is crucial for Facebook, which makes its money by selling advertising targeted to user interests. Facebook has reported that its revenue grew by 30 percent to $16.9 billion in the fourth quarter, beating the estimate of $16.3 billion forecast by analysts. The company has posted a profit of $6.9 billion in the fourth quarter.
Mike Schroepfer, who is the chief technology officer of Facebook, said, there isn’t an easy way of figuring out progress on its new goals, including improvements to security and safety, even though the company is tracking and now implementing many metrics, like how many fake accounts it deactivates on a regular basis. “This is going to be our first time figuring this out,” Schroepfer said about the change.
Facebook comments about the change in bonus structure: “Over the past two years, we’ve fundamentally changed how we run Facebook. This particular change is designed to ensure that we are incentivizing people to keep making progress on the major social issues facing the internet and our company.” The change in bonus structure is considered to be the company’s latest effort to get over its recent troubles and to encourage its employee’s interest on social issues.