It was the owner's idea, and yeah as a sibling comment pointed out, it was something he copied from Microsoft.
In the owner's words, it was his way of basically taking people who were "doing fine" in that there wasn't an active reason to fire them, but who had plateau'd or something and "re-roll" to potentially get someone with a higher ceiling. This is, obviously, a completely sociopathic view of employees and people in general.
In between the lines, it was just a fear tactic to keep people "working harder".
In the owner's words, it was his way of basically taking people who were "doing fine" in that there wasn't an active reason to fire them, but who had plateau'd or something and "re-roll" to potentially get someone with a higher ceiling. This is, obviously, a completely sociopathic view of employees and people in general.
In between the lines, it was just a fear tactic to keep people "working harder".