My L4 explained the drawn out timing of the current layoff notices this way:
The company needed to see how many people refused to relocate as part of operation Pack Your Bags or GTFO. Once they had an idea of that number, they figured out how many more they needed to cut to get the to the level of ‘efficiency’ the business needed to achieve (I guess Stankey’s 15,000 number from his initial press comments).
To be clearer, from the start, the goals of this were to get as many people out as possible by having them ‘volunteer’ to not move and then use that as cover to make the next round of layoffs look smaller. Secondary goal was to offload some real estate and put butts in seats for what remains.
Additional unstated goals were making Stankey look like a big shot with his CEO friends in Sun Valley and maybe just maybe have a little more collaboration or efficiency or who knows.
But remember kids, this is a cost cutting exercise and nothing more, no matter what they say. And it probably isn’t over.