[mter]

Having it happen once isn't toxic. The part that creates the terrible culture is that it happens every year.

Imagine trying to build a team and good culture when someone on your team is put into a performance plan/fired every year.

Now add in unreasonable demands from management on delivery dates, churn from people trying to work at a company that doesn't fire one of their coworkers every year, and a lack of new hire support because if you don't bring your new hires up to speed very fast, they're more likely to get fired than you/your friends are. Also, those new hires get paid more than you do if they were brought in at the same level because they're "bar raising" and you aren't.