Inside Facebook's 'cult-like' workplace: 12 whistleblowers reveal how staff are 'ranked using cutthroat evaluations that mean dissent is discouraged, leaving workers wandering around feigning happiness'

A new report has revealed the complaints of some former Facebook employees who accuse the company of having a 'cult-like' workplac...

A new report has revealed the complaints of some former Facebook employees who accuse the company of having a 'cult-like' workplace culture.

The CNBC report, published on Tuesday, cites more than a dozen former Facebook employees who left between late 2016 and the end of 2018, and who declined to be named.

The ex-employees describe a workplace where dissent was discouraged and they felt compelled to feign happiness, while a harsh 'stacked ranking' system of evaluations encouraged short-term thinking.

It comes as Facebook's stock has taken a beating, with share prices falling nearly 30 per cent in 2018 in the wake of well-publicized scandals over user data privacy and the role of the platform in spreading false information.

A new report has revealed that some former Facebook employees accuse the company of having a 'cult-like' workplace culture. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen above in May 2018

Facebook declined to comment to CNBC on the claim that its workplace is 'cult-like,' and the company did not immediately respond to an inquiry from DailyMail.com.

Former employees said that despite Facebook COO Sheryl Sandbeg's mantra encouraging 'authentic self,' they rarely felt empowered to speak up to question company leadership.

One former manager said that after he asked tough questions about a company initiative at an 'all-hands' meeting, he and his bosses received a barrage of angry calls from the team running that program.

'I never felt it was an environment that truly encouraged 'authentic self' and encouraged real dissent because the times I personally did it, I always got calls,' said the former manager, who left the company in early 2018.

Other ex-employees said they felt forced to feign happiness with their work and participate in after-hours team-building activities. 

Facebook employees are seen in the company's 'War Room' in October. A new report reveals the pressure many Facebook workers feel to feign happiness with their jobs

What is Facebook's stacked ranking evaluation system?

Stacked ranking is common in Silicon Valley, and involves assigning a certain percentage of the workforce to each of several ranking categories, the lower of which could mean that firing is imminent.

Microsoft used stacked ranking until 2013, when the company abandoned it due to widespread employee complaints.

At Facebook, every employee is assigned to one of the following ranks twice a year:

'Redefine': The highest grade, is given to fewer than 5 percent of employees

'Greatly exceeds expectations': 10 percent get this high mark

'Exceeds': 35 percent are ranked with this grade.

'Meets all': About 35 to 40 percent of employees get this grade.

'Meets most': A low grade that puts future employment at risk, goes to most of the remaining 10 to 15 percent

'Meets some': These grades are extremely rare and are seen as an indication that you're probably getting fired, according to multiple employees.

'Does not meet': Exceptionally rare, as most employees are fired before they get to this level.

One, who was going through a divorce at the time, described getting criticism from a manager for failing to attend an after-work event.

'She definitely marked me down for not attending those team-building events, but I couldn't attend because I was going through my own issues and needed work-life balance,' the former employee told CNBC. 

Facebook said that its employees are not forced to attend any after-hours events. 

The former Facebook employees said that they also felt pressure to post positive news about the company on Facebook itself, aware that all of their colleagues were watching.

Another consistent complaint centered on Facebook's twice-yearly system of employee evaluations, called stacked ranking.

The system, which is common in Silicon Valley, involves assigning a certain percentage of the workforce to each of several ranking categories, the lower of which could mean that firing is imminent.

Microsoft used stacked ranking until 2013, when the company abandoned it due to widespread employee complaints.

At Facebook, anonymous peer reviews are also a key part of the evaluation process, which the former workers say pressures employees to forge friendships to curry positive feedback.

'It's a little bit of a popularity contest,' one manager who left the company in 2017 told CNBC. 

If a peer leaves negative feedback with a manager, it is considered anonymous and can't be challenged, the workers said.

'You have invisible charges against you, and that figures mightily into your review,' said an employee who left in October. 'Your negative feedback can haunt you for all your days at Facebook.' 

The workers said that the twice yearly reviews force employees to race to exceed expectations every June and December, putting in late hours and neglecting their home lives.

The report suggests that Facebook's workplace culture and employee review system has contributed to the company's recent scandals by encouraging a rush to roll out features without fully considering their long-term impacts on user experience and privacy.

'If you're up for promotion, and it's based on whether you get a product out or not, you're almost certainly going to push that product out,' a former engineer said. 'Otherwise you're going to have to wait another year to get that promotion.'