"Leadership should make a decision to lower the cap on severance to 3 months."
Please! Let's make the workplace more toxic and unmotivating! That would be a true Stankey move.
Really, if you even think your going to get laid off, why put in the extra effort? Why not phone it in? It seems in their current surplus decisions, they aren't looking at an individual's contributions or experience. If you are in group they are cutting, you're gone. And they seem to be cutting all over the place, so why should anyone, anywhere, "go the extra mile"?
On top of the layoffs, the promised hiring and backfilling aren't happening, at least in my group. There are key roles for my group (project in IT) that they've just decided not to fill. I sure as he-l am not going to volunteer to fill in for any of them, because management has decided that they aren't important. Why should they be important to me? On top of that, if I did volunteer, then management would pat themselves on the back for "finding a solution" to the problem, and then they wouldn't think of it again. I'd be stuck. No way. Again, why would I want to go the extra mile for management that can't manage, but would take the credit for my work?
And before the trolls say "just leave", I'm close enough to my Ro75 that I've got incentive to stay and ride this out for a while. I'm one of only 2 developers on a project that is guaranteed not to go away any time soon, and I do enough to be the "go to" person. I don't fill in for the missing roles, but I do get myself noticed for good work (like doing double to work of the other developer, and helping troubleshoot issues that aren't my responsibility). I've got enough security to gamble a bit to stick around until my R075 date. Now after that date, the resumes go out and I get serious about an exit plan and do my best to make sure my management feels the pain of losing a knowledgeable employee.