The arrival of Covid was a period of great stress and change in people's lives. Maybe they were dealing with some things and not really coasting? Just maybe needed some more support? This way of thinking about people, coworkers, without understanding the situation in their lives and what they've been talking to with their managers about, is just alien to me and I don't understand it. I don't think it's a good way to manage people.
If you have a problem with someone being a burden on your team that you and others have to deal with, that's understandable and you should bring it up with your team, but managers talking in these sorts of ways in public conversation about the people working at their company, it's just awful.
Every company - especially every company over a certain size, knows there are a certain percentage of people that just 'phone it in' and aren't pulling their weight relative to others - pretending that isn't true, really doesn't help anyone.
More importantly, it is demoralizing to the people you want to keep - to make it seem to them that putting in the extra effort doesn't do anything for you, so they start looking for the exits to find a position where there effort and talents are better appreciated; retaining the best people, at the end of the day is more important than a low-performer's hurt feelings.
the problem is that it is really hard to identify. to some manager even a good employee might be a low performer. some managers only see like 1% of you through your days. now imagine you are having a bad day or a bad meeting and on the day your manager is looking at your performance it appears to be subpar because that day you had other worries?
sometimes it only takes one conversation or someone else saying something about you to your manager.
if you think companies work fairly at identifying people « coasting » you are deadwrong. everything is politics.
if its 10% phoners, this isn't a problem. because there is a natural turnover with everyone else, and the phoners tend to stick they generally represent an increasing faction over time.
as they start to dominate the organization, they actually cast shade on people that are trying to get something done. nothing is getting done so the giant company starts sucking in as many people as possible to try to replace the outflow and to try to start getting something done.
does anyone know of a company that survived this process?
i was at google when the pandemic started. it was certainly a difficult change for a lot of people, but IMO those aren't the people that should be targeted. it's the ones who were worthless/coasting well before the pandemic and/or have no real excuses for their lack of performance since. at least for the first 6 months of the pandemic (when I left google), Google was VERY considerate of employees and their difficult situations.
If you have a problem with someone being a burden on your team that you and others have to deal with, that's understandable and you should bring it up with your team, but managers talking in these sorts of ways in public conversation about the people working at their company, it's just awful.