Any company always has top 5-10% performers at each grade, folks in the middle 80% and bottom 10%. I likely fall in the middle 80% bucket for last year. Just got promo the year before and so despite the good effort last year was not expecting to be in top tier this year. Now, the blanket cut of rewards, one can argue might have been the easiest and fastest to implement, given the cash situation Intel was in. Could be argued and justified.
But in my view, this hurts the top 10% the most. Top 10% put the most effort last couple of years some might have been due for promos and their promo is now indefinitely suspended. These were the folks who were performing at a high level and likely the most committed and capable to keep driving and help Intel.
Unfortunately these 10% may be the most hurting right now. They were looking for next level and working towards it for many years. Kicked bu-t in performance in last 3-4-5 years and are now feeling all that was for nothing. They likely would be thinking why should they continue to work any harder. Not only they haven't yet got the raise they had been working towards now they are being required to meet their over and beyond performance of past years at much less the cost. The reward to performance ratio for these employees is suffering the most. Likely they are at 70% of the market given their performance.
Technically speaking, if the company wants to increase the velocity and retain, these highly driven folks are the ones that should get rewarded. They have the ability to drive a huge chunk of folks that they interact with on daily basis.
But then on the other side you can just say that these folks are not that great, because they are working for Intel eventually. No high performer sticks around at Intel