I've been at a company where the 1-1 firings occurred over a morning. I was fortunate to keep my job, but I can tell you it was a pretty awful day for those staying (obviously not as bad as for those leaving :(). There's no good way to do this, layoffs of this sort are awful. I actually am not sure this is better or worse. You have a horrible Friday night, with untold stress, but at least you're not sweating at your desk with people being walked in to the back to be canned, afraid of the mere mention of your name or a tap on the shoulder.

There is a right way to do this. You announce it to the staff and at the same time you let those affected know. It's best to do this at the end of the day.

Telling people "you may or may not still have a job, you'll get an email within the next 72 hours" is ridiculous. So what happens if it's Monday morning and I didn't get an email? Am I still employed? What if there was a glitch? What if I show up and I'm escorted out?

This screams of mismanagement.

Can't you email those not listed for termination, at the same time, and tell them they still have their job.

> You announce it to the staff and at the same time you let those affected know.

To do this you would have to already have finalized this list of people to let go. Specifying that list beyond rough department targets to actual individuals probably requires involvement of many managers and might be what happened in those 72 hours, but I'd love to hear from someone with actual experience. Could larger organizations actually prepare that without leaking the layoff anyway?

>So what happens if it's Monday morning and I didn't get an email?

You still have a job.

>Am I still employed?

Yes.

>What if there was a glitch?

This seems rare, and it seems like people would double check to ensure this doesn't happen (and if it did, to re-send an email).

>What if I show up and I'm escorted out?

Sounds awkward at worst, but now you know.

As if the slow trod all day long to go through one-by-one doesn’t have its own consequences.

You are correct about the false dichotomy, but the correct way of doing it would have been to let everyone know who was being let go before they made the announcement. No reason to leave people wondering for any period of time.

> No reason to leave people wondering for any period of time.

Play that out a bit. Is the notification a scheduled slack message or email for those terminated? Or do you want each employee being let go to be notified in a face-to-face conversation with their manager and where the details of financial arrangements, healthcare continuity, and other aspects are prepared and with a chance for the employee to ask questions, and for HR and leadership to assess if they appear in a condition to commute home and offer other transport or acute support arrangements if needed?

I think the latter is more appropriate, but a series of those things takes time to execute [longer if managers or layers of managers are being eliminated], and the time between when the first such meeting ends and the last such meeting begins, people are left wondering.