Personally I think the “fire 5% a year” policy is pretty stupid in the long term; the unlucky 5% won’t be the ones that perform poorly at their job, but the ones that are bad at playing corporate politics. I’ve worked with the sort of people that thrive in such an environment; two-faced backstabbers who’s are very good at setting up other people as fall-guys for their own failures.

I remember reading that Cisco sacked the bottom 5% each year, but not that it was staff recomendations that they used when determining who that 5% is. I thought it was on a more evidence based measure, so maybe there are multiple companies with a fire & hire policy.

I think it is a general assumption that a publically quoted company as an employer does not, and cannot. have the interests of the employee in hand. The directors of a plc must act in the interests of the shareholders and the only way a conventional plc makes real money is by paying the employees less than they earn for the company.

The employee must be aware of this, yet being an employee is usually better than being unemployed. The employee therefore needs to select the employer carefully and keep the terms and conditions of employment under review.

An employer who refuses to offer long term employment should not expect long term loyalty. And I’m not sure there is such a think as short term loyalty.

I would not consider working for an employer who had a “fire 5%/year” policy, just as I rejected the idea of working for a company which wanted to forbid me to have the beard I didn’t have at the time, or to dictate the colour of my shirt. Neither of these factors have any bearing on the quality of my work and are therefore no business of the employer.