Despite beating profit forecasts in the second quarter, Goldman Sachs said Monday that, in a bid to curb expenses, it would slow hiring and possibly reinstate its annual performance review process (and, with it, year-end layoffs of those deemed to be underperformers).
Goldman’s review process is likely a bit tougher than the average company’s, where you mostly just chat with your manager about how good The Bear was. Typically, the bank ditches about 5% of “underperforming” staff annually. Goldman halted the review process during the pandemic, opting instead to give out record bonuses and undertake a hiring spree in which it grew its workforce by 15% in the past year to 47,000.
It’s not just Wall Street—framing potential workforce reductions as a matter of performance has been a bit of a trend lately. During an internal Q&A last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees that there were “probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” adding that if more aggressive goals made employees quit, that would be okay with him.
Similarly, during a call with Twitter employees when he still wanted to buy the company a month ago (remember?), Elon Musk addressed potential layoffs with the ominous statement, “Anyone who is obviously, like, a significant contributor, should have nothing to worry about.”
Source: Morning Brew
