They’re giving up control over exactly who leaves. When you do a layoff you can choose to cut your lowest performers or most overpaid employees or everyone in a small office which you can then close.

These hypothesized “soft layoffs” where they supposedly encourage people to leave give them no real control over how many people leave, which ones leave, etc. And it’s the top employees generally who have the best options elsewhere. So you’re really inviting a brain drain by putting broad pressure on everyone to quit.

It’s just not a smart move. I think we have a lot of armchair CEOs here who think a company would just suck up all these downside to save on a little severance and that doesn’t add up for me.