Even if the employer wasn’t a total piece of shit, metrics should be able to cover the gamut of performance outcomes.

It’s pretty easy to weaponize that though. The whole industry is already more than capable of producing tight deadlines for no particular reason.

Personally I prefer just a binary acceptable or unacceptable. Instead of handling merit-based increases, You do merit-based promotions. I always hated the here’s the unreachable goal to get your full raise crap.