People are not beans

How many CEOs have you heard comparing their employees to a large, happy family? How many families do you know that turn their children out of the door when times are bad? I know the step-mother of Hansel and Gretel did precisely that but I suspect she is not the rolemodel for most contemporary CEOs. Yet sacking (let’s not use doublespeak like 'rightsizing' for it) large numbers of employees is considered a major qualification for CEOs.
Some CEOs think the family analogy is misleading (see "Your Company Is Not a Family" by Hoffman, Casnocha and Yeh in the June 17, 2014, issue of HBR) yet rare is the CEO or CHRO who doesn’t proclaim, through glossy brochures and glossier web-sites, that employees are the firm’s most precious assets. Isn’t it a bit wrong-headed – if not an outright betrayal of these claims – to be lopping off and discarding huge chunks of the corporation’s most valuable asset, even if it is to the applause of the stock markets? 
The knee-jerk approbation of