Many companies have difficulty assessing performance, so whenever they get the opportunity to safely fire people who have transgressed in some fashion they do s

Many companies have difficulty assessing performance, so whenever they get the opportunity to safely fire people who have transgressed in some fashion they do so. My company had famously never performed layoffs. We've been in business since the 19th Century. But eventually all good things must end, and during the 2008 crisis, some newer mgmt found an opportunity to fire people who didn't play their game. We only laid off 30 people, but it was a huge shock to the company culture, and made people re-evaluate what they thought the social contract was about.