#performancemanagement

What is a Targeted Review?

Total insensitivity for those that have been part of the many layoffs. Metrics are almost impossible to meet and performance reviews are calculated so unfairly. Not the company everyone used to know. Associates are crying, frustrated and disappointed in how the way they make their lives are being handled. SO SAD.

Can’t wait for the first level apocalypse that’s surely coming this year.

if yes, do you feel it was justified or just a game to push you out. i am in the second camp. all was rosy and all of the sudden NI

So here it is the Enron model for managing headcount - forced ranking with 12 different goals, most out of your control. BOTTOMLINE, just another way to reduce 10% each year. Interested what comments are:

Wondering how the next few months usually go during this time of year.

In high-trust societies, people assume good intent. Information flows freely. Collaboration feels natural. In low-trust systems, the opposite happens: people protect themselves first. Energy shifts from building to guarding.

Consider modern Russia. Decades of opacity and centralized control have cultivated widespread skepticism toward institutions. Citizens often rely on private networks rather than public systems. Information is filtered. Incentives are distorted. When trust erodes, talent adapts by becoming cautious, political, and self-protective.

Our corporate environment shows similar warning signs. Competitive ranking systems pit colleagues against each other. Information becomes currency. Feedback is filtered for safety rather than truth. Instead of asking, “How do we win together?” people ask, “How do I avoid losing?” Innovation slows because risk feels dangerous. Collaboration weakens because vulnerability feels unsafe.

Over time, this trajectory leads to silos, quiet disengagement, and eventually mediocrity. High performers optimize for optics. Emerging leaders learn to manage perception instead of outcomes. Trust, once depleted, is expensive to rebuild.

If we continue reinforcing internal competition over shared success, we shouldn’t be surprised when initiative declines and politics rise (and one may say that we are already there). But the reverse is also true: when trust increases, performance compounds.

The future of our company will not be determined by strategy alone, but by whether we choose fear-based competition or trust-based collaboration. We sit in a moment when the system to identify future Management is hindering the ability to run the organization. Perhaps its time to not burden the majority of the organization with PDS classifications and let them operate with a stable performance reward system. No system is great but we sit in a time of history where a credible change is necessary.

Anyone else feel like this is taking an illegal turn of directions? Constructive discharge and hostile work environments? Instead of just laying people off the normal way, we’ve turned into this…. I hope that everyone affected will utilize their benefits and protect their mental and physical health. Crazy what is going on after the last few years. I guess this is our reward for being loyal to the company.

For any engineers on the board, I have a couple of questions. Don't take offense, they are legitimate questions:

1. Why can't engineering ever release any projects on time?

2. Why is anything you do release full of bugs and half complete?

3. Why are we as a company years and years behind the competition when it comes to full-stack enterprise IT solutions?

4. Why can we never see a roadmap with anything on it when requested?

5. Why is there seemingly never any accountability to address failed projects or missed deadlines?

This is by far the worst engineering environment I've ever seen at any company I've ever worked at. Seems to me it's engineering comp plans that need to change, not SCPs.

How would one do this?

AK made clear on feb office hours that 15-70-15 here to stay. Is this means 15% layoff every year in the form of PIP?

I’ve been at WF almost 10 years and never really heard of anyone getting inconsistently meets until last year, where good and hard working colleagues told me in confidence their managers gave them IM rating. I also noticed that on this site, there appear to be more topics related to this rating. Is this a new thing at WF? I have been an individual contributor so never needed to give rating, but I am finding that the IM’s are coming not because the employees are doing a bad job, but because their managers are micromanaging everything. It makes me want to voluntarily leave as I don’t want to fall victim to this. The ones who I know personally who received IM were shocked when they got it. Some of them had an exceeds rating the year earlier. One of them was only in their role for a few months.

Listening to HR discuss how to move up in your career is such a joke. The company is reducing expense everywhere they can, eliminating positions, and have completely shut off the promotion pool as part of the yearly promo / merit changes. If you want to move up, you have a better chance leaving the company and then applying to a higher position somewhere else in the company (as long as you have 18 months to ki-l).

Let me save you some time scrolling through the portal. Key info:

Will there be layoffs this year? Yes. Why? Because Oracle does layoffs every year.

Which roles will be affected? All roles.

Will my product be affected?

If your product makes money and revenue is growing → less likely to be affected. low performers will be let go.

If your product isn’t making money or revenue is shrinking → higher chance.

Being part of OCI or AI → safer.

Not in cloud or AI → more at risk.

End of story.

Is there a time period or deadline after the year end evaluation the employee is told they’re on a PIP plan?

My team is tired of writing quarterly check- ins and monthly practice reviews. They work hard and spending all this time is getting to them. I had a few just not submit one this quarter despite my weekly reminders. Can’t say I really blame them.

Project Mongoose was supposed to wipe out many jobs in 2025 and replace them with AI. And from 2026 onward, we were supposed to have at lease 1-2% in layoffs every year.

So far I have heard that there are no layoffs planned. I have also heard that lists to lay off employees are being created and they'll lay off as soon as they get a green light. I have also heard that Betriebsrat and HR and executives are taking legal action against each others regarding layoffs. I have also heard that they are empowering managers to give a bad performance rating to anyone they want gone and use this new performance management to lay off employees every year.

I also heard that many colleagues in the US were laid off but when I ask my manager, she says it is fake news and I should focus on my work.

What happened to Project Mongoose?

PS: I would prefer non-political answers. Also, please keep your racism to yourself.

How the scorecard looks like?

Both Microsoft and Oracle are increasing their stock price massively to increase their market capitalization. They are also laying off employees to be less cash poor.

On the other hand, SAP is performing several steps to prepare for an acquisition. there have been share buybacks to negotiate a better deal. There are regular layoffs planned to stabilize the share price to negotiate for a better deal. HPOM and other reorganizations are bringing SAP closer to how Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce operate. SAP is also cutting down salary hikes and benefits to match those at Microsoft and Oracle. The new performance management system is a vehicle for moving away from role-based compensation and adopt region-based compensation. This is in line with what Microsoft and Oracle does as they determine compensation based on zip code. The newer acquisitions by SAP are also inline with the offerings from Microsoft and Oracle. In fact, SAP is bridging the gap so existing SAP products and products from these acquisitions can be easily rebranded. SAP is also steering away from European worker protections and want a more Silicon Valley like approach where employees live in fear and the executive board makes millions to create more disparity and give them more power.

Do you think that all these actions are taking place to bring SAP into an acquisition mode for Microsoft or Oracle? What do you think the impact would be on SAP layoffs?

They are due by the end of the week and I have not heard a thing, is that normal?

More of a cover, really, giving higher-ups maneuvering room when deciding on layoffs or firings. They rarely reflect an employee's actual performance, skills, or value to the team. When your number's up, it doesn't matter that your role is critical or that you've excelled for years and know your corner inside out. Nobody's safe. The main guide is profits, and pretty much nothing else matters.

Is it true that upstream, downstream, and EmTech have different PIP percentages, and which one has the lowest?

I heard what makes the new evaluation system different is 15 percent have to be marked low performer while in the past it was 10 percent and that it has always been stacked. Is that true? It seems like there are many more steps for managers this time. The bonus thing isn’t a big deal when the bonus was often nothing to begin with

People make sure you document everything during conversations with managers. It’s obvious they are making it uncomfortable for all of us and they do not want to pay out severance. Annual reviews are taking place shortly and they need to dish out a % of NIs. This is how they start putting the wheels in motion for terminating for cause. Document everything!!! Ask your manager to put items in writing!!! Protect yourself. 2026 is going to be a very challenging year for all of us. They simply want a toxic work environment so we leave and they keep the money.

In my experience, what’s happening is not genuine coaching or development. It feels like a system designed to manage people out rather than set them up to succeed. When expectations are unclear, goals change without notice, and performance plans are inconsistently documented or applied, that is not transparency — it’s avoidance.
These practices are widely recognized and discussed in employment and legal spaces as:
Bad-faith performance management
Retaliatory or discriminatory coaching
Corporate managed attrition
They exist, and pretending otherwise doesn’t make them ethical.
What’s most troubling is that leadership is aware. Employee surveys, engagement feedback, and exit data consistently highlight the same concerns. When the data “says it all,” the real question becomes: at what point does leadership get held to the same standard they enforce on everyone else?
People should not be forced to choose between their livelihood and their dignity.
So here’s my message to anyone experiencing this:
Stop internalizing it
Start documenting everything
Save emails, feedback, shifting goals, and timelines
Ask for expectations in writing
Ask for documentation — especially when none is provided
Accountability doesn’t come from silence. It comes from patterns, paper trails, and people refusing to carry systems that don’t operate in good faith.
This isn’t about attacking individuals. It’s about naming a process that causes harm and demanding better from those who design, approve, and benefit from it.
Leadership accountability is not optional — it’s overdue. We don’t just work for them they work for us too.

• band 4+ individual contributors: add a personalized leadership goal aligned to at least one leadership competency (great, we have to provide leadership without the pay or title)

• starting with the 2026 year-end review, all employees will receive a 4-point performance rating, building on the band 6+ approach used in 2025 (no way could this be used as a "rank and yank" method to target workers for termination)

Great things ahead for those not lucky enough to get the VRP!

“Pay will be tied more closely to differentiated performance…”

Once again, raising the bar to heights they themselves did not have to achieve.

It went to someone in our group. The person was told what they were being paid to actually do at Ford did not include being a Social Media Influencer all day long while on the clock while working from home the past two years.

Surprising the person got off with a Performance Improvement Plan handed to them and not fired and walked out the building for everyone to see. Like a Perp walk.

No suprise that they have given out a lot of 4 ratings to tenured folks as part of the curve.
How does this affect RIF coming up?
Severance policy is not too clear it mentions that if your job is eliminated as part of re org you are entitled to severance , however there is a bullet that explains (perfomamce based firings dont apply) question is what if you have a 3,4 overall rating. Had even a 2 in ome section (i know citi makes 0 sense)

How will this impact the folks who have bwwm forced 4s?

All I’ve seen over the past year is top performers being shown the door, while the slickest office-politics players stay and continue damaging teams. Why is leadership so allergic to retaining actual talent?

Lets use a system that slows down the entire sales process. Lets use outdated software that a monkey manages. We now know the reason why we use salesforce. To slow you down. To create failure - where it did not exist. If you want to hinder a sales channel and further failure - introduce an operating system that runs like cr-p. Salesforce. Look, I get it, you want COR to fail, so you can turn it into AR. That's fine, it is what it is. Comp plan, bend over, promo's here today , gone tomorrow, brought back a month later, then gone again, oh wait bring it back again. Really. Really. Why in the world would you do that, unless you want failure. This was all thought out, tin hat and all. Just top it off with some HTP and sugar on top.

Horrible the way those making the most
Money are targeted with bad performance reviews without discussion until time reviews are shared. If your not supported during the review discussion your targeted as the one who is put on a Coaching or Performance Plan that you are unable to be successful to achieve. There are soo many unhappy people who work there an stay because they need a job. Very sneaky and arbitrary!

Pay all employees in RSUs only. No base. No PSP. Only RSUs. Let’s see those slackers then.

Disclaimer: due to local regulations, EMEA folks will continue to get a symbolic €1/month base. Ba dum tiss.

JD, hit me up if you need a chief of staff in your next stint ;)

After the several rounds of layoffs and Intel using performance management to reach their final HC:

If you get put on a PIP, consider it a paid interview process… don’t even bother with burning yourself out at a company who is trying to wear out good employees.

Its just comedy at this point. Fourth P1 ive seen this peak season where the entire Optum tech ecosystem cant hit endpoints, all from this vendor tech that we didnt need that ESRO forced everyone to switch to.

A P1 during peak season used to be rare, now its a almost weekly occurrence here. This company is a mess and is gonna lose all its customers

My friend was just asked to go in BH she said low performer

Supervisors in CTC have been told that under no account should they ever give 2x EE. If they want to they need approval from JK

How's that for motivation?

They almost never say the quiet part out loud. They build a “paper trail” that makes it look like performance… even when the numbers don’t line up.

Common plays:

Inflate quotas to levels nobody in the territory has ever hit.

Move accounts or shrink territory potential, then blame you for lower output.

Suddenly start documenting “issues” after years of no issues.

Switch you from retention-heavy to acquisition-heavy segments with no rationale.

Push older reps into PIPs, even when metrics are objectively normal for the segment.

Put you under a manager who’s “resetting the team culture” code for turnover.

Replace you quietly with someone 20 years younger at half the comp.

On paper it’s “performance.” In reality it’s engineered.