Huh? It’s not a surprise birthday party. I’m not sure why a key goal would be that each fired person is taken completely by surprise.
If a company told me they were going to fire me in two weeks, the worst risk the company would be taking is that I might just decide that they can't fire me in two weeks because I quit. I wouldn't do any other deliberate harm on the way out. Perhaps that's most people.
It certainly isn't all people, though.
Maybe it would be nice if we could all get along well enough to see being fired in some period of time as just business and not worth lashing out. Then again, maybe your sympathies lie with the employees lashing out. But in that case, the company has no choice but to get you out the door with as little warning as possible, to defend both itself as an abstract entity and all the rest of the employees.
In Germany (and I believe most of Europe) several months notice is usual (three months minimum), and typically people keep working until the end of that time (aside from taking unused vacation). Sure, motivation suffers in that time, but don't think the cases of employees taking revenge on their employers is any higher here than in the US (in fact, I suspect it's less).
Not to mention that temporary jobs are also extremely common, so this explanation that the only thing ever preventing employees from sabotaging their employer is the hope that they will be employed there indefinitely is pretty clearly insufficient.
You can’t explain this as “managers/executives have no choice.” They have the choice, and they sometimes choose the option that they determine is easier for them. Not surprising, of course, but also not worth defending.
Most people wouldn't cause any problems, but a small fraction will cause trouble if they're put in a position where they feel harmed and can retaliate with no consequences to themselves.
Maybe that's just a German thing, but here you'd (usually) be loosing the severance pay and some social benefits if you quit instead of being fired w/o direct cause.
These stories always float around, but this is quite rare and depending on what “wrecking” means, could end in jail time for the ex-employee. Most are capable of making that connection therefore most don’t. Yet the fear and treatment from upper management for this mostly fictitious hypothetical still runs rampant. There’s even a high profile case of an ex-Ubiquiti employee having a real good time because they wanted to extort their employer.
After all, if you know layoffs are happening, and your boss schedules a confidential one-on-one meeting with you tomorrow, how well are you going to sleep tonight?
And what of the people who aren't getting fired - you can't really reassure them their jobs are safe before you've told the people whose jobs aren't safe. So you'll be keeping them in limbo too.
Of course, no amount of careful management is going to make people enjoy getting fired (except perhaps a generous voluntary early retirement package)
I was at a company that did ~400 people layoff during pandemic. The place didn't even have a great culture but everyone, even people remaining (> half the company) got a one-on-one chat with their manager.
There was, of course, a company all hands later.
Sure people know what's up, but it's dramatically more human to have your manager call you and tell you a.) you are going to be okay or b.) we're very sorry this has happened, it's been a pleasure working with you, please use me as a reference anytime you need. We even personally called each candidate we were supposed to hire.
Company wide zoom as notice of layoffs is grotesque.
“I did this before and I cried”