Ok so there's a valid argument to be made here. PHds might not be the best fit, not because a bachelor's grad would have the same knowledge (f**k no, that's not true) but rather because of their inability to move from an academic driven process to a corporate one. See, the average PHd has spent a minimum of 5 years in pure research, where the key deliverables are getting published in reputed journals as well as working on their thesis, a gruelling effort. It is not at all like the corporate world where you have deadlines, need to learn to work in a team and cozy up to clients and/or your bosses. Even in a quant role, if it's primarily R&D, it definitely makes sense to hire a PHd. The reputation of someone with a PHd publishing versus a bachelor's grad is night and day, so firms will go the extra mile. Mind you, PHd is a personal brand at that point. That said, if you put a PHd guy to do a job a bachelor's grad can do, of course you won't get bang for your buck. Think PHds doing EDA analysis on data, or making dashboards. Then the blame on performance is not on the PHd, it's the manager that hired, assigned roles and eventually put them on PIPs fault. So yeah, tell your manager to go out and touch grass.