Over the past year, the working environment has changed considerably. Upper management is willing to compromise their morals and integrity to meet business needs. The unfortunate part is that these objectives could be met quicker and with better quality without the negative environment.
HR has become a puppet organization blindly following direction from the CEO. They were proud last year that they prematurely rolled out a consistent performance review process that was a disaster. The joke here is that each business still changed the process to meet their own objectives. After the review was complete, they changed the performance definitions of the lowest ratings to justify firing people.
The performance review process itself is based on one-on-one competition -- the only way to get a higher rating is to throw someone above that spot under the bus. This is actually quite easy to achieve given that any manager can make up any issue for the performance correlation without any previous discussion with the employee or the employee's manager.
Many organizations, especially the functional organizations, have built a rule by fear approach. People can be fired at any time - and are - without any reason. Legal - yes. Ethical -- no. Some groups have resorted to firing people to avoid the separation costs associated with a lay off.
If you are considering a job here, keep your resume handy
