How to Spot a Low Performer

It's a lot harder than it should be, despite decades of corporate effort.

- Pilita Clark

There is no pleasant way to be fired. But imagine how much worse it must be to get the sack as your employer declares it is axing poor performers. For thousands of workers in 2025, no imagination has been needed.

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told his staff in January he had "decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low performers faster", a move expected to eliminate about 3,600 jobs. A short while later, workers caught up in the Trump administration's sweeping purge of federal employees received termination notices saying "based on your performance... you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the agency would be in the public interest".

Last week in Britain, ministers said they were going to make it easier to force out underachieving civil servants on the grounds that Whitehall is currently "not match fit".

These moves are not strictly comparable. The US federal mass firings were so rushed and chaotic that some departments have been ordered to temporarily reinstate people amid claims that rules were ignored.

The British government plans a more measured approach of tightening up performance monitoring and giving senior staff deemed to be mediocre six months to improve before facing dismissal. Meta's clear-out is also likely to be more calculated.