Market Data 
- Chris Williams is a former VP of HR at Microsoft with more than 40 years of experience.
- Williams says simply doing a good job isn’t enough to avoid being called an “underperformer.”
- He suggests employees work on becoming well-known in one of four ways.
Several companies are laying off people they call “underperformers.” Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Intuit have all recently done this.
The lesson from these layoffs is that simply doing your job well isn’t enough. You can toil away for decades doing a fine job and still get caught up in these layoffs.
To avoid what seems like a random label, it helps to understand how it happens.
What is underperformance?
On its face, it seems obvious: If a company wants to reduce costs, it makes sense to discard the poorest-performing people.
The issue is the haphazard way these evaluations are often done. Dozens of long-term employees from Meta, Microsoft, and others have taken to social media to share their shock. They tell of 10, 20, or even 30-year careers with unbroken strings of excellent reviews, only to get one surprise terrible review followed promptly by a layoff.
No one would challenge that poor performers — people who can’t meet basic metrics and who repeatedly fall short despite warnings — are candidates for dismissal. That’s exactly why companies use this label.
Companies know that layoffs are distasteful, but getting rid of poor performers looks great
Widespread news of a layoff brands the company as in distress. Companies know that potential candidates for their thousands of open positions would avoid joining a company that just did a layoff.
On the other hand, branding a layoff as culling the poor performers looks great.
The company is removing dead wood, holding higher standards, and striving to be the best. Rather than looking in distress, it looks aggressive and healthy. High-performance people will seek out companies like this.
In addition, terminating people for performance helps avoid a range of potential legal issues. Many notification rules don’t apply when performance is the justification. A company can avoid or minimize severance obligations when firing for performance, and many of the discrimination laws could be sidestepped as well.
If the performance-based layoff hits older or other protected-class workers disproportionately, the excuse could be, “But their performance.”
The way companies execute these layoffs is a problem
These companies already have built-in mechanisms to identify and remove chronic poor performers. Several of them have quota systems that require a certain percentage of their employees to be labeled in the bottom performance tier. Those employees are routinely removed in what is called “unregretted attrition.”
But then come these layoffs. Managers at all levels are told to identify poor performers and lay them off. They’ve already done that for years.
Now they may have to find more, and that’s often done in a cynical and random fashion. “They’ve been here forever, how about them?” “Nobody likes them, they can go.” or “What have they done for me lately?”
That’s the haphazard way even good people could get branded as underperforming.
How to avoid the underperformer label
Managers don’t simply stack rank their team and pull the bottom people — that well is dry. What they do is get together with their peers to try to find the layoff candidates among their ranks. They’ll discuss individuals and their accomplishments.
The worst possible thing that can happen in that meeting is for the group to promptly agree on you. That might be because of very visible mistakes you’ve made, disagreements you’ve fomented, or chaos you’ve caused.
Avoiding the label at that point is difficult or impossible. No one around the table will rush to your defense.
But it’s just as bad if the group says, “Who?” — for them to be unaware of what you’ve done and the impact you’ve had. Your manager might defend you, but without support, you’re in trouble. Even decades of hitting KPIs cannot insulate you if you’re doing it in isolation.
The way to avoid this is to make sure you’re well known. Fortunately, there are several ways to do that.
1. Get noticed beyond your team.
Volunteer for visible projects. Offer to be the face of the work outside your team. Make that presentation to the VP. Find ways to highlight your work well outside your immediate team.
2. Work with other teams in the company.
Volunteer to be the liaison between your team and the groups it’s dependent on. Raise your hand to participate in those random companywide initiatives that always come up.
3. Move around to various teams in the company.
Stretch your impact by working for different people, in different groups, in very different parts of the organization — even if they’re unusual or off your perceived career track.
4. Network well beyond your team.
If you can’t actually move to other teams, make connections there. Look for ways to connect with your boss’s peers and the people who work for them. Find other people well outside your discipline and reach out. Have a coffee or a Zoom and make a connection — any connection.
The best defense is a good offense
If you do this well, the managers will move on to someone else, and you’ll survive this round of layoffs.
Unfortunately, once you’ve received this label, it’s often too late. Even if it seems you’ve been randomly assigned the label, it’s hard to shake it off.
Work proactively on becoming well known. Find and make connections with people who are likely to be around that table. At all costs, avoid being the “who?”
Chris Williams is a former VP of HR at Microsoft. He’s an executive-level advisor and consultant with over 40 years of experience leading and building teams.
