My ex works HR in a major bank, and they have scheduled redundancies every 3 months, whether or not things are going well or not. A large part of her job is to reign in managers that create too great legal risks by coming up with total bullshit made up justifications. E.g. they'll come and insist someone isn't "performing" a month after having given said person a glowing annual review and without having tried anything to get them to improve, and it turns out there's been some conflict or other, even though they insist that has nothing to do with it. People can even convince themselves that someone is suddenly totally useless even when the paper trail they themselves has created to demonstrate that the person in fact performs very well is sufficient to get them crushed at tribunal...