[SamAdams76]

My company is merit-based. We want all employees to perform at a high level because it translates into revenues and profits as well as customer retention and market share.

To place productive employees at the bottom of a bell curve - because somebody needs to be at the bottom - is wrong. An analogy to this is a baseball team that has every player batting .400 or above. You will not want to penalize a player for batting .404 because other players are batting .445.

However, this rarely happens. Most companies have deadweight and low performers that fall below the standards.

[Magic Fingers]

It’s ok as a year 1 or 2 strategy, but before long the deadwood is gone and you end up forcing out solid contributors and killing morale in the process.