TL;DR Sorry for the long comment. This should have been a blog post somewhere (but I don’t have a blog). Companies and people have a mutual agreement that either can walk away from. There may be a slight power disbalance in the company’s favour. How individuals are fired and laid off should be regulated to provide basic decency/courtesy (give them basic rights such as being informed by/having the chance to talk to their manager 1:1). I don’t know the labor laws, this may already be the case. But not knowing my/our rights is also a failing of the system.

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Why do companies exist? What should be the role of a good corporate citizen? These are questions that have puzzled me for the last decade or so.

I think, depending on the context - the answer can change. Depending on role of the individual at the company, the answer can change too.

From an entrepreneur’s perspective, a company limits their (otherwise unlimited) liability. That’s another way of saying, a company limits the personal liability of its leadership in all matters concerning the company (eg. so they don’t end up losing their homes and bank accounts in the case of a bankruptcy).

For those of you well versed in this topic, I am referring to a company being an incorporated entity (an S corporation in the US, or a federal/provincial corporation in Canada).

From an investors perspective, it’s a way to multiply their large investment while having some say in the company’s running.

From a board of directors perspective, it’s a way to share your learned experience of running a company with other executives without being directly involved in operations. And acting as the first line of representatives (of the shareholders) to hold the company leadership accountable. They get modestly compensated for their troubles (compared to executives).

Now the best part - from an employees’ perspective, a company is provides them/their family security and shelter (Maslov’s bottom hierarchy). Some of us luck out and work at companies where we believe in their mission (upper half of the hierarchy of needs).

I’ve always known the above, but writing it down at once gave me a profound realization - a company is a mutual agreement. Doing work that is valued by the company in exchange for personal security (money, benefits, perks, etc). Either side can choose to walk away any time and they have control over how they do it. This is the part that sucks the most and is least consistent. Like getting laid off over zoom, all access being immediately revoked, etc vs more humane layoffs such as Gitlabs - where each affected individuals manager reached out to them. This should be non-negotiable in my opinion.

Dehumanizing the act of laying off someone is the most selfish and disrespectful thing an organization can ever do.

To think about it - this isn’t all that different from a breakup.

In any case, I think the law can work on the last thing above and maybe - just maybe - there is also an opportunity to revisit the notice period (esp. in the case of a layoff/firing an employee). Mandatory 2 weeks or pay in lieu seems little/too short, especially for an employee who may have worked somewhere for years. I don’t know if there are labor laws surrounding severance, but I am clear now that we need them to fix the disbalance of power between a company (say 100 people or more) and an employee.