You've probably seen the news out of Meta, focusing on moving low performers out of their organization this year. If not, in a recent memo, Mark Zuckerberg told employees he "decided to raise the bar on performance management" and act quickly to "move out low performers." https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2025/01/16/meta-and-microsoft-are-cutting-low-performers/.

Over the past year, I've noticed a significant shift in how companies refer to layoffs. Many now go to great lengths to avoid using the term "layoff," even though that's exactly what they’re doing. Instead, they use phrases like "raising the bar on performance management" or "non-regrettable attrition." Cutting jobs can severely damage morale, leading to lost productivity and employees leaving before they are next. Using the word "layoffs" spooks everyone. Companies will also sometimes say they plan to backfill the positions of those who leave. This is true even for companies like Meta, which stated that it planned to "backfill" roles in 2025. Translation: we plan to hire better people — better than you. I also think companies are using other tactics to avoid calling it layoffs. (e.g., forcing everyone to return to the office 5 days a week). I talk about that some here: https://world.hey.com/mtruty/flexibility-the-new-gold-standard-in-employee-benefits-308b40a8

The dreaded performance improvement plan (PIP) is a corporate tool that almost always seals an employee’s fate at an organization. In my experience, PIPs rarely work; they are stressful and traumatic for both the employee and the manager. They consume an enormous amount of time for everyone involved, all for something that is ultimately ineffective at improving performance. 

The Wall Street Journal has an insightful article on this topic: https://www.wsj.com/business/firing-someone-performance-improvement-plans-more-popular-the-pip-7cac7062.

You also end up with managers refusing to participate in the process, understanding what's at play, and that leads to a toxic relationship with the company and loss of trust. An example at Amazon: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-manager-put-on-pip-focus-pivot-helping-team-member-2024-6.

There has to be a better way: a clearer and kinder way for the employee and employer to go their separate ways. (Keep reading)

What thoughts come to mind when you think of performance management? Do you think of it as a clarifying and supportive process, or combative and litigious? I’d wager that most managers and employees have a negative reaction to the words "performance management."

Traditional performance management practices often center around annual reviews or merit-based reviews. These processes often offer little meaningful value to help employees grow and succeed. Get the review over with and move on. Subjective and arbitrary rating systems that are poorly taught are used to measure performance and dictate compensation adjustments. Managers and employees alike labor through the performance review cycle: managers scramble to find things to write about their employees, often not having enough bandwidth to provide meaningful feedback, while employees anxiously await the praise or critiques they weren’t previously informed about, then wonder how those will impact their cost-of-living raise.

Callout: If you work at a company that conducts annual performance reviews and you lead people, please check out this playbook for how to give a professional performance review: https://www.manager-tools.com/map-universe/preparing-review. My best advice is that if you have to do annual performance reviews, your review should be boring. If you're breaking news in that meeting about something that should have been discussed with the employee earlier, it's a huge disservice to them.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m a big supporter of performance management when done the right way. It should be a clarifying and supportive process, not a tool to push employees out of the organization. The entire system needs to be rethought. Here’s a playbook for how to rethink it completely: https://www.tablegroup.com/131-blowing-up-performance-management/.

When an employee consistently fails to meet expectations and uphold company values, it's in both parties' best interest to part ways. In fact, it’s the kind thing to do! I’d rather reach a mutual understanding that this isn’t going to work in the long term than drag it out and use a tool that is exhausting for everyone involved and doesn't work. This is why I love the "Ideal Team Player" model, particularly when everyone is held to the same standards—managers and employees alike. Here’s an objective way to evaluate yourself and your employees against this model: https://ttg-wp.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/02083953/Ideal-Team-Player-Manager-Assessment.pdf. Combining this with a 9-box system gives you a solid, objective approach to help your people reach their full potential.

Performance management isn’t something that should only happen once a year during an annual review or when delivering a PIP. It must be an ongoing process, starting from the very beginning of the employee-employer relationship and maintained throughout. This means providing kind and constructive feedback, acknowledging when an employee excels, and clearly communicating when performance falls short. However, this process must be a two-way street—both the employer and the employee must uphold their responsibilities. 

To imply that an employee pushed out for poor performance is solely at fault overlooks the responsibility that employers have to hire right people for their organization and that managers have to help their employees reach their full potential.

Managers aren’t trained to genuinely care for their employees. They don’t know how to provide the best support to help their employees reach their potential. It’s not that they don’t want to do a good job; they simply aren’t taught how, and most companies use legacy management tactics that need to be tossed out and rethought.

I firmly believe that leaders must genuinely care for their employees. They need to know what their employees are good at, what drives them, and where they might need help. They must understand the work their team team does to give real feedback and know how to when to provide it. Caring for their team should be their first priority. Sometimes, an employee may not be performing well in one area of the organization but could thrive and add value in a different role or situation. I discuss this further here: https://world.hey.com/mtruty/finding-the-right-spot-helping-employees-find-fulfillment-in-their-work-2521d7ef.

Raising the bar on performance management should not mean issuing a series of PIPs. There are certainly situations where frank conversations need to take place and a company and employee have to go their separate ways. But hopefully, performance management should mean investing in training leaders to genuinely care for their employees and holding everyone accountable—managers and employees alike—for doing great work and upholding the organization’s values. Instead of using words that are more politically correct and sound nice, let's rethink the entire world of performance management from the ground up.