This is a layoff, but it’s at least one that makes sense. Consolidating offices feels more reasonable to me than just slicing headcount randomly. I hope the severance package is good.
This seems like a bad way to do a layoff (if that's your intent) because you can't target and cull the low performers. In fact, you're likely to disproportionately lose the employees that are most able to find new jobs, i.e. your best employees.
Greatest potential and best employees aren’t the same at BigCo. Institutional knowledge is worth more the larger an organization is, and those willing to move may be more devoted to the company and willing to stay around long term.
In fact, if Walmart pays exponentially more for tenure as some bigcos do, the most willing to quit would be the most junior employees. There are many ways to skin the cat, but either way reducing office space to save costs makes sense, remote work policies aside.
And they did offer both relocation benefits and severance, which is about as ideal as this kind of thing can be.
Does it make sense? You're selecting workers based on where they already live or where they're willing to relocate to, not based on performance or strategic company need.
