I'm still confused by this part “in order to meet the bell curve”. Sounds like they are forcefully ranking people poorly regardless of their performance. That doesn't make sense to me.
That is exactly what is done, and is why stack ranking is both abhorrent and dysfunctional (it incentivises in-team politics and sniping, each team member tries to ensure he's not the one in the bottom slot).
It also incentivises top employees to not work together and to not be put in the same team, as it decreases their chance of being in the "superior" rung and increases their chance of being in the bottom one, something more or less impossible if they're clearly the top of their own rank-and-file team.
- a very competitive attitude among employees (for better or worse).
- managers to remove "rotten apples" from the company, even if it means occasionally some good people have to leave.
Still, to me the benefits don't seem to outweigh the costs. The first point could result in back-stabbing politics; the 2nd point in removing extremely valuable employees which might demoralise teams.