As usual, this place is a follower and as mentioned in many posts, this place has adopted a continuous layoff model and no end in sight. See article below to fully appreciate layoff implications. That's exactly what seems to be going at this place.
It's that time of the year to dole out the performance reviews here at the farm and many will be surprised to learn that despite all the layoffs and the hard work and high productivity of the remaining poor souls, many will be ranked in the lower percentiles. Why? because many of the managers are told to make sure they don't give out high marks even if all their people are high performers. They must conform to a distribution curve so that a list of candidates to be wacked is readily available for every team.
The incompetent managers will protect their favorite brown noses as usual. No doubt, instructions are given to encourage promotion of selected group of people, again deserving or not, to meet DEI quota, and opposite is true, give low ratings for groups of old timers or position them for next layoffs. Some directors and VPs have been known to arbitrarily override frontline managers to ensure they have enough low ratings regardless of whether people their folks deserve it or not.
When asked, the so called ELT will say "we don't assess base on a curve" but observe the actions for yourself.
Signs you may be on the target list are low rating despite high productivity and hard work, lower than average merit award, no promotion or underpaid for work done by higher salaried new hires, no RSUs awards for retention, less than 100% AIP bonus pay, and the biggest sign, lump sum payment in lieu of annual salary increase. These are all signs you are capped.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/manager-amazon-boss-encouraged-quit-180800983.html