The Home Office has gone to a burn and churn aka forced rankings method for their evaluations.
Breaking it down, a certain % of associates are mandatorily ranked in the 5 groups of needs improvement, below expectations, meets expectations, exceed expectations and role model regardless of actual performance. Performance no longer matters much.
Now, these are hypothetical percentages and I have no way to really know what they are but 15% are designated as needs improvement and will be termed; 10% will be below expectations and given a slim chance to improve; and 64% will be ranked as meets expectations. These bottom 3 ranks will get no pay increase. 10% will be ranked above expectations and get some semblance of a pay raise while the remaining 1% get the promotions and higher pay raises.
This is how it works. I was witness to this at the Home Office. I saw associates of 20+ years with exceeds expectations or higher on every evaluation suddenly get a below expectations. How does an associate manage that after 20 years in the Home Office? It's to get rid or people making too much money.
This method has filtered down to the stores including changing the rules such as no incentive or pay raise if you have too many points.