The point I am making is it does not matter if you are cutting 3%. Sure you might end up taking out a third of the bottom 0-10% instead of 0-3% but what difference does it make? It won't be a material political concern for your 50+ percentile employee base.
It does, however, make a difference on the promotion side.
> Sure you might end up taking out a third of the bottom 0-10% instead of 0-3% but what difference does it make?
That's not how it works! You'd have entire projects or department being sacked, with many otherwise very competent people being laid off, and projects deemed strategic being completely immune from layoff.
And even inside departments or projects, the people best seen by management will be safe, and the people more focused on actual work will be more at risk.
The harsh truth is that an organization simply has no way to even know who the “bottom 10% performance-wise” are. (And management assessment tend to correlate negatively with actual performance)
It does, however, make a difference on the promotion side.