Conversation starter: Performance (review) anxiety

As hiring remains sluggish and workers are concerned about job security, performance review season has become an increasing source of anxiety for workers. As executives talk about raising the bar on performance to get more efficient, more pressure is on workers. A poor performance review can put a target on your back for the next round of layoffs, result in being put on a performance improvement plan (PIP), or, in the worst case, being fired immediately. 

Workers already find the performance review process stressful. So far in 2026, 88% of mentions of performance reviews in Glassdoor reviews were negative. Workers often raise concerns about the lack of a structured and fair performance review process, lack of transparency on performance criteria or feedback, or the disconnect between performance reviews and compensation or recognition. While the share of mentions of performance reviews has grown more negative since 2021 (83%), the difference is relatively small, indicating workers still have similar concerns as they did several years ago when worker power was much higher.

PIPs are also entering the common lexicon. The share of reviews that mention PIPs have surged, rising almost eight-fold (7.9x) from 2021 through 2026 year-to-date. Employees often raise concerns that companies are applying PIPs as a way to keep attrition high, that managers don’t actually intend for workers to succeed on a PIP, or that PIPs can be used as a retaliatory tool.

While stack ranking or forced distributions are less commonly discussed topics, they are also appearing more in Glassdoor reviews, with mentions rising a little more than four-fold (4.2x) from 2021 through 2026 year-to-date. Stack ranking is the practice of requiring every employee to be ranked during performance calibration and similarly, a forced distribution requires some employees be given low performance ratings regardless of their objective performance. Employees often raise concerns about the inflexible practice pushing out skilled workers, capping growth opportunities for high performers and disincentivizing collaboration.

The balance of power has shifted away from workers back to employers, which makes the performance review process a particularly fraught moment. For workers, it’s important to plan ahead for the next performance review cycle. Collecting information on how the process works (e.g., “is it a forced distribution?”, “who has input into deciding my performance rating?”, “what criteria am I being evaluated on?”) can help workers position themselves better ahead of time.

Excerpts from Glassdoor reviews

Some excerpts from Glassdoor reviews on performance review, PIP and stack ranking are included below to illustrate how workers are talking about these topics. These examples are all from Glassdoor reviews submitted by U.S. full-time or part-time employees in 2025 or 2026.

Product Manager | Santa Barbara, CA

Employee development is not prioritized. Performance reviews have historically been skipped during merit increase cycles, which undermines trust and makes compensation decisions feel arbitrary and opaque.

The result of all of this is a frustrated, disengaged workforce and high levels of dissatisfaction.

Technical Product Specialist | Miramar, FL

• There are no real opportunities for growth, as development and advancement are not supported or encouraged.

• Employees are frequently placed on PIPs with little to no guidance, often used as a fast track to push people out rather than help them improve.

Senior Software Engineer | McLean, VA

- Horrible performance management culture forces you to constantly think about performance reviews for 5-6 months out of the year

- One strike policy for a negative performance review combined with twice-annual reviews and competitive stack ranking process ensures you're never secure in your role

Internal Auditor | Kent, WA

Due to the company's forced distribution mandatory processes, most of your colleagues will be team players to your face, and then stab you in the back. The forced distribution process is not used as designed, but instead breeds favoritism and not truly performance based; is used by leadership to cover their butts.

Methodology

This analysis is based on Glassdoor reviews from U.S. full-time and part-time employees. Reviews from current and former employees are both included, but grouped based on when the review was submitted. Terms related to performance reviews include but are not limited to “performance review”, “year-end review”, “360 feedback”, “performance evaluation”. Terms related to PIPs include but are not limited to “PIP”, “performance improvement plan”, “PIP’d”.  Terms related to stack ranking include but are not limited to “stack rank”, “forced rank”, “forced distribution”. Data for 2026 is year-to-date through Feb 16, 2026. While we are less than 2 months into 2026, partial data is included as it is broadly in line with trends from previous years and is based on over 100,000 reviews already submitted in 2026.