There is no evidence layoffs are a good idea from a fiscal perspective either, except in the short term. They're basically random so you loose good talent and you demoralize the best that stay. It should be reserved for dire circumstance.
It has always been my theory/belief that long periods of demoralization actually get rid of a disproportionately higher amount of good talent. When the company starts to smell, those that can move on, because they’re in demand elsewhere as well, will do so. You’re then left with those that hope you don’t let them go, but are less confident or capable in their abilities to find employment elsewhere.
I think there are two ways. The first is basically what good sports teams do (or Netflix at least was doing) where you continuously fire people who don't perform wanted at levels but also do very rigorous hiring and pay very well. Then there is cut fast and deep and shuffle organization at the same time which also works if you do that when needed and very rarely like once in 10-15 years Facebook might have pulled this and the company looks like it is in much better shape than Google or Amazon.
>And if you must, cut deep and cut only once. Trickling out monthly layoffs is far more demoralizing and instills a culture of fear and uncertainty.
It's a huge red flag. Layoffs typically lead to more people leaving the company after the fact because of the instability. I was one of the "last man standing," after a company did this over a period of a few quarters and I ended up leaving shortly after. They no longer had anyone to maintain their software. Oops.
They taught this in business school back in the 1990s. I don't know why a company the caliber of Google wouldn't understand this. It could be the execs think that Google is such a stellar place to work that none of the remaining people would dare leave. It could be the execs are so self concerned, they don't care about anything other than their bonuses and just make sure to get cuts in before each quarter ends to pad their bonus. It could be business schools just don't teach this anymore.
I suppose every layoff is different, but they are not completely random. There are many factors involved, performance can be one of them. My assumption is that leaders craft some query on the employees list and tweak parameters until they get the right number of people to lay off.
