PIP quotas or genuine performance management?

I’ve noticed a weird uptick in PIP discussions in my group recently. It feels like managers are being tasked with identifying 'bottom performers' much more aggressively than in previous years. In the past, it felt like people were given a lot of runway to fix things, but now it feels like a one-and-done documentation process. Is this happening across the board, or is my director just being a jerk? I’m seeing people with decent tenure and solid track records suddenly getting put on performance plans for metrics that seem totally arbitrary. It’s making everyone on the team nervous, and honestly, the anxiety is killing productivity. We’re all spending more time documenting our CYA emails than actually shipping code. It’s starting to feel like a soft layoff strategy to trim headcount without having to do a formal RIF announcement. If you’re seeing this in your team, are you sticking it out or is it time to start refreshing the resume?