https://www.economist.com/news/business/21589866-firms-keep-grading-their-staff-ruthlessly-may-not-get-best-them-ranked-and-yanked
This sounds familiar: "Ranking and yanking is more logical in investment banks, law and accountancy firms and big consultancies: their business model is, in a sense, built on recruiting large numbers of junior staff and motivating them with the prospect of becoming a partner, even though in practice only a few of them can ever make it."
And even more familiar: "If a large proportion of the workforce doubt the fairness of the grading system, and fear being among an arbitrarily imposed quota of underperformers, many may try to jump before they are pushed: staff turnover may thus be higher than is desirable. Worse, employees may look for ways to game the system, as happened at Enron, where workers conspired to inflate their results to secure their bonuses or escape the axe."