MSFT continues its trend of forced attrition to this day. Even after HR claimed it was revamping its employee review process.
The company is struggling with the legal and fine line difference between cutting out underperformers vs cutting its lowest performers.
The company used to “stack rank” employees on a scale of 1 to 5 (think Jack Welch/GE). The 1s were the top performers and the 5s the lowest performers. The 5 score was given to all underperformers. 4s were people who had acceptable performance but were trending in the wrong directions. 3s were average performers, etc. Those scoring a 5 were cut during the start of the next fiscal year.
Even though the scores have gone away, the company continues the trend today. Only this time they are cutting much higher. All 5s and 4s are gone. They are now hacking away at the 3s.
The company keeps tossing good (sometimes great) talent just for the sake of turnover.
This is not a healthy environment any longer and the morale (especially in the Public Sector Services group) continues to decline rapidly.
A very sad state for what used to be a strong company.