OP here.
Now that you mention it, one of the engineers said to me a while ago that the whole team was afraid of that happening during the whole year.
In fact, that might have a lot to do with the lack of morale (despite that never being in the plans of upper-management - quite the opposite, there were a load of promotions).
But it is a solution, indeed.
What the engineers believe management thinks is relevant. Your last sentence seems to prove a point here.
Yep, you have a point.
And you're absolutely right: I shouldn't have even considered that suggestion, even though I'm not their manager, or even though I'm anonymous.
So they are difficult to convince that this time it’s different.
And I forgot to thank you for the insight you gave me with your previous post:
> What management thinks is irrelevant to morale. > What the engineers believe management thinks is relevant.
Maybe we should focus on listening more to the engineers, instead of focusing on sending the right messages.
Might seem obvious to anyone outside, but sometimes we need to be reminded of those things. Thanks.