> 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).