One method I remember hearing about to get rid of poor performers (in a one-off way) when I was an intern was that the company identified poor performers from d

One method I remember hearing about to get rid of poor performers (in a one-off way) when I was an intern was that the company identified poor performers from different teams, moved them together into their own team, and then laid off the entire team, probably claiming that it was some external business necessity (like the team's product was uncompetitive in the market), instead of alleging poor performance. I guess this made it easier to get rid of a large number of poor performers without worrying too much about lawsuits over unfair terminations. Of course, this move took some time to make, probably many months to over a year.