These high performers will leave anyway if they see their environment drastically changing or feel the tide turning, except they'll do so months after you ripped the band-aid.

It's not that different from making it part of the process in the first place.

I don't think people doing layoffs are thinking far ahead. In my unqualified opinion, it's either to stop burn or to generate short term profit.

Neither of these groups are valuing long term expertise

Unless they're going to offer offer an insane buyout, like 1+ years of pay + benefits + some accelerated vesting, nobody who doesn't already have something lined up is going to take this offer. It's much better to stay with one foot out the door and just keep cashing that paycheck and collecting your monthly vest. Especially when you know layoffs are coming, nobody expects you to do anything until they actually pull the trigger, then there's a month or two afterwards where you can slack off because morale is in the toilet, people are still trying to figure out who's left, how the company is organized, which priorities are dead, stuff like that. Ask me how I know.

the order here is backwards. publish the package first and let people apply without committing. right now GitLab gets the signal before employees even get the terms.