> If you cut 10%, expect 10% from the top to flee within a couple of years.
If the company was laying off the deadwood and the quiet quitters, the top performers know who they are, and are not concerned about being laid off themselves.
Top performers don't particularly care to work with deadwood and quiet quitters, either.
> If the company was laying off the deadwood and the quiet quitters
That's a big if, though.
Executives doing layoffs also tend to do them quickly and plan them in secret in order to reduce the chance leaks. That means they are deciding who to cut with very limited time and information. They make lots of mistakes.
Both times I've been through large layoffs, I saw skilled respected peers get the axe while deadwood didn't. It causes the loss of valuable employees and completely destroys respect for executives who are apparently so clueless that they don't even know which of their employees are worth keeping around.
As someone sometimes in that position, if I can get 85-90% accuracy (in both directions), I think that’s about the best I can possibly do in a 500-ish person organization.
I hate the false positive (including a good performer incorrectly beyond that required by the depth of layoff) more than anything else for its deep unfairness to the individual, the team, and the company.
It's rare that "deadwood" and "quiet quitters" do literally zero work. Even if you feel that your job is secure, you might not appreciate having their work dumped into your lap, especially since there's a good chance that it's not critical-path work. And you might not want to be in an environment where morale is low and trust in leadership just took a major hit.
They're deadwood if they cost more than the value they produce. Nobody missed them. And the livewood didn't have to go redo all the stuff they messed up.
If the company was laying off the deadwood and the quiet quitters, the top performers know who they are, and are not concerned about being laid off themselves.
Top performers don't particularly care to work with deadwood and quiet quitters, either.