This does seem to be a lot more common in the US, I actually had this happen to me while working for a US company and the author's experience was very relatable – I was immediately locked out of my accounts and couldn't even say goodbye to the people I had been working with for the last several years (I was working remotely at the time).
But I've seen it in the UK too... Specifically one corporate I worked for sent a mass email to everyone on a Thursday afternoon saying something along the lines of "please ensure you're in the office tomorrow morning". Then on the Friday morning people were called into a room one by one, told they had been made redundant and were immediately escorted off site by security. This was just a fairly regular retail business too. Nothing that you would think required such an extreme approach.
I suppose I understand it in some ways though... If you've just told someone you've lost your job you're probably not going to be very motivated to continue to work. And suppose there is some risk people might try to disrupt business activities in protest... I think it probably is better to give employees their redundancy pay and let them move on rather than waste their time for several weeks. That said, I'm not sure why the security escort was needed in this case. The layoffs came from McKinsey's infinite wisdom though, so it wouldn't surprise me if the security escort was their recommendation to reduce risk.
A reason I’ve heard for not keeping those laid off around is that you want those who stay to look to the future, not to what was, and that’s what those who got fired will do, because they don’t have a future at the company.
But I've seen it in the UK too... Specifically one corporate I worked for sent a mass email to everyone on a Thursday afternoon saying something along the lines of "please ensure you're in the office tomorrow morning". Then on the Friday morning people were called into a room one by one, told they had been made redundant and were immediately escorted off site by security. This was just a fairly regular retail business too. Nothing that you would think required such an extreme approach.
I suppose I understand it in some ways though... If you've just told someone you've lost your job you're probably not going to be very motivated to continue to work. And suppose there is some risk people might try to disrupt business activities in protest... I think it probably is better to give employees their redundancy pay and let them move on rather than waste their time for several weeks. That said, I'm not sure why the security escort was needed in this case. The layoffs came from McKinsey's infinite wisdom though, so it wouldn't surprise me if the security escort was their recommendation to reduce risk.