I agree it's a process (not very clear everywhere though), but the reasoning is 100% being afraid of what the employees can do.
If the company could keep reliably profiting off of the employee during its notice period, why wouldn't they? It's all about mitigating the risk.
Personally when I left, I've always spent weeks finishing off what I was doing, adding/updating documentation and generally passing on any knowledge that could potentially leave with me. They allow that because they're not afraid I'm gonna delete their source code, since I'm choosing to leave. If the company didn't see risk after layoffs, that's how they would react.
And let's be real here: this is mostly a threat when layoffs are not justified. So to keep it simple and streamline the process, they treat every layoff the same.
If the company could keep reliably profiting off of the employee during its notice period, why wouldn't they? It's all about mitigating the risk.
Personally when I left, I've always spent weeks finishing off what I was doing, adding/updating documentation and generally passing on any knowledge that could potentially leave with me. They allow that because they're not afraid I'm gonna delete their source code, since I'm choosing to leave. If the company didn't see risk after layoffs, that's how they would react.
And let's be real here: this is mostly a threat when layoffs are not justified. So to keep it simple and streamline the process, they treat every layoff the same.