It's not "don't trust out performance evaluations". The point of perf evals is rarely to fire people, it's primary use is to manage expectations of promotion.
> This is assuming that layoffs affect the correct group of people
Layoffs often don't target the right group of people when it comes to perf. There's error in human judgement abound. But it's 100% accurate when it comes to which business units are bringing in revenue, or costing a lot.
> why couldn't those people be informed earlier and been given a choice to find a different position or to improve their performance
Human attention is a scarce resource. Executives will tolerate inefficiency during up markets because it's more valuable to try to capture growth vs become efficient. When there's no growth to be had, then they turn their attention towards cutting costs.
> it seems more likely that layoffs in these cases are less about cutting low performers and more about getting rid of people the company is mismanaging, or people that the company is overpaying
The larger a company gets, the more these are effectively the same thing. Money in, value out. Too much money, too little value, you're just changing two sides of a ratio.
> This is assuming that layoffs affect the correct group of people
Layoffs often don't target the right group of people when it comes to perf. There's error in human judgement abound. But it's 100% accurate when it comes to which business units are bringing in revenue, or costing a lot.
> why couldn't those people be informed earlier and been given a choice to find a different position or to improve their performance
Human attention is a scarce resource. Executives will tolerate inefficiency during up markets because it's more valuable to try to capture growth vs become efficient. When there's no growth to be had, then they turn their attention towards cutting costs.
> it seems more likely that layoffs in these cases are less about cutting low performers and more about getting rid of people the company is mismanaging, or people that the company is overpaying
The larger a company gets, the more these are effectively the same thing. Money in, value out. Too much money, too little value, you're just changing two sides of a ratio.