Having seen layoffs in my own company, and having survived them myself, what I found in our case was that as important as they were, the impact was significantl

Having seen layoffs in my own company, and having survived them myself, what I found in our case was that as important as they were, the impact was significantly more negative than if things had continued the way they were. To put more perspective, the company was very profitable but had bad margins. The only thing the lay-off managed was a short term increase in margins, followed by years of stalled growth because immediately after the layoffs the best people quit as soon as they found another opportunity, and being the best people, they found opportunities extremely easily. I suspect the margin improvement was less than the lost profits at the older lower margins due to the stalled growth (the company had been growing rapidly before. Arguably, that’s why it became bloated). I am curious if there is a better way to right size a company after it has become more bloated than it needs to be than a blunt instrument like layoffs.