And when HR departments start pulling crap like this, your best X% of people jump ship and the rest of them stop giving whatever amount of craps they already no

And when HR departments start pulling crap like this, your best X% of people jump ship and the rest of them stop giving whatever amount of craps they already nominally gave. I honestly don't know which is more damaging but it's the ole 1-2 of company death. Luckily when managers then backfill the holes left by the top-N and things "keep working" they pat themselves on the back and say "see they weren't so important after all!" And then get perplexed when things are going slower at a macro level because everyone is sad and either literally or mentally out the door.