The job market has not been good for the last 12-15 months, but organisations around are offering good severance to their employees and aiding them for their next steps. But UC conducts "performance reviews" twice a year, which is basically a platform for managers to wage a personal vendetta against the "low performers"(read: people who don't suck up to them). And hence, they strategically 'ask people to leave', in return of making sure that terms like 'fired', 'laid off' would not be associated with them. So, people put in their papers, and serve the one month notice without working, and get that salary as their 'severance'.
Leadership team goes on to boast the fact that there hasn't been any layoffs in the company. Well, fair, because one needs to own the fact that they've laid people off, and funnily enough one of the UC values is 'ownership', and managers do OWN the indifference to the sudden absence of a certain team member from meetings.
Apparently, people perform fine till the time these half yearly reviews are conducted, because there isn't any concern about their performances in the regular one-on-ones with the managers, but cometh the review, cometh the concerns with performance. Managers nit pick over employees not responding within 15 minutes to their messages. Also, there isn't a 360° view of performance, so your peers, who work much closer to you don't have a say in your performance.
UC brags a 'meritocratic' culture, and rightly so, where ones merit is their ability to show their work as 10x of what it actually is, appearing to be busy with a completely packed calendar, and always saying yes to whatever manager says, even if it means bending over backwards for them.
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