Striving to cut low performers and sometimes getting it wrong is orders of magnitude better than randomly cutting people, gutting high performers, and ruining confidence to other high performers that working hard will be appreciated.

So yes, it doesn't matter which metric you want to use, but use something that is directionally correct with being a low performer, and get rid of those people. You might get some wrong but for the most part, people will be happier that the coasters and stragglers are gone.