Any leader caught telling this to their groups will probably be in the next round of layoffs which are probably happening before merit increases. That's why I'm anonymous.
My group has 30+ people. 3 direct reports to me and their direct reports. We're allowed 1 exceeds even though we have 3-4 that should be far exceeds. To make matters worse we're not supposed to tell the employees that our hands are tied regarding exceeds.
We had to make our case to the leader of our organization (who's name rhymes with "bariatric flaw") for the 1 exceeds before getting it approved.
All this happened in 4th quarter of 2022. Whatever the employees wrote in their self-evaluation had zero impact because the decision was made before self-evals were turned in.
As a result, managers are having difficult conversations with employees, lowering their evaluations to meets expectations even if they don't reflect their actual performance.
If you are given a meets expectations evaluation, it may not be due to the manager's assessment but rather a decision made by higher-ups.
As far as merit increases go - They haven't given us a # yet, but they just keep saying not to expect much (unless your FB of course). Sadly it will probably only be 2%.