This was done at my previous company near the beginning of the pandemic, where half of the company (about 1200 people) were laid off, entirely with one-on-one calls. It worked well and I appreciated it personally.

But the anxiety of waiting all day, as you watch your coworkers slowly drop, and send their farewell emails... wondering if you'll be next... I'd rather find out all at once.

> After the first 10 minutes everyone will know what their meeting is about and it makes the problem worse.

Huh? It’s not a surprise birthday party. I’m not sure why a key goal would be that each fired person is taken completely by surprise.

The reasons why may not be obvious if you're not a manager or haven't run a large organization before, but the simple truth is, "employees" are not a magically ethical bunch of people simply by virtue of being the underdog and poor and downtrodden and being all fired and stuff. You do not want a significant number of employees running around who are either uncertain they are going to be fired for a significant period of time, and even worse, you don't want a whole bunch of employees running around who have a pretty good idea they're going to be fired in a couple of days, because some fraction of them are going to take advantage of their access to wreck things up for the company. Wrecking things with technical access, wrecking relationships with companies... there's hardly anyone in a position in a company who couldn't do quite a bit of damage if they know they're out the door anyhow. All you have to do is be sure to keep it under the threshold where it's worth getting the legal system involved. (e.g., more "wreck relationships with customers" and keep the damage difficult to quantify and less "set the place on fire during peak business hours").

If a company told me they were going to fire me in two weeks, the worst risk the company would be taking is that I might just decide that they can't fire me in two weeks because I quit. I wouldn't do any other deliberate harm on the way out. Perhaps that's most people.

It certainly isn't all people, though.

Maybe it would be nice if we could all get along well enough to see being fired in some period of time as just business and not worth lashing out. Then again, maybe your sympathies lie with the employees lashing out. But in that case, the company has no choice but to get you out the door with as little warning as possible, to defend both itself as an abstract entity and all the rest of the employees.

This is one of those things that seems to be an institutional part of Americans quitting or being fired from jobs, but it's far from universal.

In Germany (and I believe most of Europe) several months notice is usual (three months minimum), and typically people keep working until the end of that time (aside from taking unused vacation). Sure, motivation suffers in that time, but don't think the cases of employees taking revenge on their employers is any higher here than in the US (in fact, I suspect it's less).

In some cases, you will be escorted off the premises immediately, then paid to stay at home until the end of your notice period. This is mostly for people with somewhat sensitive jobs, though (research, sales, some management positions) and probably more common in finance than elsewhere. And usually imposed no matter what side initiates the departure.

This is how it should be in the US

It’s literally extremely common for companies to inform people that they will be laid off weeks in the future. Companies often have entire facilities that get shut down with months of advance notice.

Not to mention that temporary jobs are also extremely common, so this explanation that the only thing ever preventing employees from sabotaging their employer is the hope that they will be employed there indefinitely is pretty clearly insufficient.

You can’t explain this as “managers/executives have no choice.” They have the choice, and they sometimes choose the option that they determine is easier for them. Not surprising, of course, but also not worth defending.

My understanding is that in those cases, the employees are generally offerred a significant severance package that is conditional on them not causing any problems until the day they are laid off. This way, the employee still has something to lose.

Most people wouldn't cause any problems, but a small fraction will cause trouble if they're put in a position where they feel harmed and can retaliate with no consequences to themselves.

In my previous work, people wanted to remain on good terms because they were good jobs they were hoping to return to once economic conditions were better. It also helped that they were unionized so they got a reasonable package to make ends meet in the interim.

> If a company told me they were going to fire me in two weeks, the worst risk the company would be taking is that I might just decide that they can't fire me in two weeks because I quit.

Maybe that's just a German thing, but here you'd (usually) be loosing the severance pay and some social benefits if you quit instead of being fired w/o direct cause.

In Canada/Quebec too.

The company could let employees in on key decision making and thus not create the environment of distrust and paranoia. Why is it ever a surprise how the company is doing? Solely, solely to keep employees ignorant of matters concerning their livelihoods. A company has the choices it cultivates for itself.

> because some fraction of them are going to take advantage of their access to wreck things up for the company.

These stories always float around, but this is quite rare and depending on what “wrecking” means, could end in jail time for the ex-employee. Most are capable of making that connection therefore most don’t. Yet the fear and treatment from upper management for this mostly fictitious hypothetical still runs rampant. There’s even a high profile case of an ex-Ubiquiti employee having a real good time because they wanted to extort their employer.

Right, some people will be jerks, so treat all employees like criminals. That's why I left my last job. Got tired of seeing people escorted out by security. Talk about a toxic work culture.

That is very American company thing. Non American companies dont do "escort you away the very same day" thing.

The goal there is to minimise the time spent waiting for the other shoe to drop.

After all, if you know layoffs are happening, and your boss schedules a confidential one-on-one meeting with you tomorrow, how well are you going to sleep tonight?

And what of the people who aren't getting fired - you can't really reassure them their jobs are safe before you've told the people whose jobs aren't safe. So you'll be keeping them in limbo too.

Of course, no amount of careful management is going to make people enjoy getting fired (except perhaps a generous voluntary early retirement package)

That's actually the goal in most firings so employees can't use their access to sabotage things on their way out. You have IT revoke their all their access once the meeting starts.

Obviously to spare the poor manager the hassle of being asked if they will have a job in two days or not

Have you never been at a company that has had layoffs?

I was at a company that did ~400 people layoff during pandemic. The place didn't even have a great culture but everyone, even people remaining (> half the company) got a one-on-one chat with their manager.

There was, of course, a company all hands later.

Sure people know what's up, but it's dramatically more human to have your manager call you and tell you a.) you are going to be okay or b.) we're very sorry this has happened, it's been a pleasure working with you, please use me as a reference anytime you need. We even personally called each candidate we were supposed to hire.

Company wide zoom as notice of layoffs is grotesque.

Not only is the all-hands layoff grotesque, but the guy spent a few minutes talking about how hard it is to fire people.

“I did this before and I cried”

Those logistics are no worse than the equivalent in person.

If the element of surprise is important, then you set up one-on-ones with all employees regardless of whether they will be laid off. Probably going to want to talk to the ones staying, anyway.