this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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This is the typical Jack Welch stack-ranking nonsense. The theory is that there will always be a bell curve or similar distribution that requires a certain percent (Welch said 10%, but it's all over the map) be cut while new hires are constantly brought on.
It kills morale and forces employees into short-term impact patterns to avoid the constant churn of cuts. It also means that performative work rather than actual substantive work is encouraged, since the appearance of productivity in whatever metric is stack-ranked is all that matters.
Finally, it encourages people to do the minimum, because the alternative is to compete for bonuses that are only going to the people who meet the highest appearance of productivity metrics, which doesn't correlate strongly with actual productivity, just as actual productivity (in terms of "producing" output) is also not strongly correlated with value (such as by knowing enough to efficiently complete tasks such that you are not appearing to "produce," due to being extremely efficient).
i worked at fb a long time ago, it was already exactly like how you describe. everyone was optimizing for their performance review—juicing metrics and prioritizing for the short term. accountability only existed in a 6-month cycle.