Same here. Severance is very cheap in the grand scheme of things. If someone is a poor performer, they're essentially a negative value add. Your default is continuing to pay them a salary, so you may as well agree to continue to do that for a number of weeks and just have them not work. I've seen 2 weeks for every year at the firm as standard

It's not necessarily about severance; could be keeping unemployment insurance premiums low, too.

Yes, most people dont realize companies can be financially impacted through the unemployment system when they lay someone off even if there are no direct severance payments.

An employee who quits isnt eligible for unemployment.

(these rules obviously vary by country/state/etc)

Agree, I mostly saw: Take this generous amount of money and hand in your resignation or you won't have to come back tomorrow and you get nothing.

Take this generous amount of money (1 month pay) and SIGN THIS WAIVER RELEASING US OF ALL FUTURE LIABILITIES is the important part.

also usually anti-badmouthing clauses in both directions. “you may never blog about this experience”