As it should be, but emotional people make emotional choices. The trusted and valued employee yesterday can turn on a dime and become malicious when they feel they have been wronged regardless of whether that is independently true. Their resulting actions can include anything from theft of IP to hand over to a competitor, to destruction of records or property. Worse, it is impossible to tell when someone will choose to feel they have been wronged, even when the employee could have had chronic absenteeism or underperformance that they justify with personal excuses. (I’m not suggesting there shouldn’t be compassion, rather that most people will almost always make mental excuses to justify their behavior regardless of whether that reasoning is sound.)
Companies generally don’t become militant about a subject unless they have experienced the other side of the equation. It’s not just with layoffs, it can happen with protecting source code, licensing, network security, etc. I concede that a company could replace destroyed property and should be able to recover deleted data, then prosecute/sue to recover damages which could cost tens or hundreds of thousands(or millions depending on the level of access), but the disruption to business can be significant in some cases. Moreover, it is impossible to put an IP cat back in the bag.
For me, it seems easy to understand both sides on this one; compassion vs risk.
> As it should be, but emotional people make emotional choices. The trusted and valued employee yesterday can turn on a dime and become malicious when they feel they have been wronged regardless of whether that is independently true.
That's pretty cold, un-empathetic logic. If you're rigorously practice that kind of thing, you'll get the same reflected back at you.
My company has layoffs (not massive, but some). In my experience, the affected employees keep their access to everything, and typically finish up their work and participate in transition activities (knowledge transfer, etc) over a couple weeks. Yeah, they're typically also slacking a lot and socializing more, but no one around here wants to be an ass to their coworkers. I think the only people who get their access cut off are those fired for cause.
> Companies generally don’t become militant about a subject unless they have experienced the other side of the equation.
There are obvious problems with designing your processes around the literal worst case (e.g. treating everyone like they're a criminal has consequences).
> The trusted and valued employee yesterday can turn on a dime and become malicious when they feel they have been wronged regardless of whether that is independently true.
On the flip side, treating them like a crook seems more likely to inspire that kind of revenge instinct. Most people would understand removing privileged access immediately but giving them a dignified exit seems more likely to prevent problems.
It does, but if you've removed the damage they can do, then to the company it's preferable to have more people angry who can't do damage, than less people angry but some of them will do damage.
It's a sad reality. For some people a "dignified exit" won't do a single thing to lessen the rage they feel that they were wronged. It's a sad situation all around.
This kind of arrangement doesn't affect only the employees that were laid off, but also the ones remaining in the company. It's how you get people who will cynically exploit every ability to do as little as they can get away with while climbing as high as possible on the career ladder.
> It does, but if you've removed the damage they can do, then to the company it's preferable to have more people angry who can't do damage, than less people angry but some of them will do damage.
Eh. That's a bad way of thinking, but one that I think is tempting to software engineers. It's basically taking software security thinking (appropriate for things) and applying it to people in a context where the consequences are almost certainly not that bad. It's also probably downstream of some other bad ways of thinking, that probably make it appear more reasonable than it is.
> It's a sad reality. For some people a "dignified exit" won't do a single thing to lessen the rage they feel that they were wronged. It's a sad situation all around.
You know, you're not required hire those kinds of people in the first place. Hire people who get along with others.
> Eh. That's a bad way of thinking, but one that I think is tempting to software engineers.
This has nothing to do with software engineering. It's about business risk management. I'm not justifying it, just explaining the sad reality of it.
> You know, you're not required hire those kinds of people in the first place. Hire people who get along with others.
I'm glad you have a crystal ball to perfectly predict how everybody will act in future situations. But sometimes it's the people who seem the most pleasant and helpful who take layoffs the worst, because they feel the most betrayed after everything they gave emotionally in good faith. Humans are complex and they can act unpredictably.
> This has nothing to do with software engineering.
You should note I said that way of thinking "is tempting to software engineers," not that is exclusive to them or has anything specifically to do with software engineering.
> It's about business risk management. I'm not justifying it, just explaining the sad reality of it.
The actual sad reality that some people chose to treat others unkindly pre-emptively.
> I'm glad you have a crystal ball to perfectly predict how everybody will act in future situations.
I don't, but I think you can minimize your risk, if that's what you need to avoid being an asshole. Then you have to practice trusting others.
> But sometimes it's the people who seem the most pleasant and helpful who take layoffs the worst, because they feel the most betrayed after everything they gave emotionally in good faith.
Honestly, that seems like an argument for making sure employees have good work-life balance, so they're not giving an unhealthy to the point where they feel betrayed.
But I suspect the people who think "I'll make them angry, but that's OK because I'll make sure they can't any damage," are probably also the kind of people who would knowingly exploit an over-committed employee.