It depends on where you work. But I've definitely been at a place where the first email was "we've decided to reduce staff in key functions, please read the attached offering and submit directly to your manager". This was a reasonably generous package, in one case health benefits would be maintained for nearly a year even if you had only worked there 3 years.

The next round was a security guy waiting in your office with a box and a packet of information about how to apply for unemployment.

True but there are exceptions. At a previous job of mine, layoffs were happening and my manager was tasked with laying off one member of my team. He sat us in a room and told us about it and the severance package and basically asked for a volunteer. A more senior engineer volunteered and went on his way with a good chunk of cash.

Oh how I wish I had volunteered cuz a year later basically everyone including me had quit anyway.

The advice isn't so much "take the first layoff", it's "next time will be worse."

The last job I had they offered very generous buy out packages to a few thousand employees to lower the head count. We got to decide if we took it or not. id you accepted they would then figure out your exit date which could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 12 months out depending on company needs.

I don't know if it's an industry specific thing but my parents worked for big defense contractors and they would often talk about layoffs in conjunction with offers that people could take to leave voluntarily. Always signed crazy to me. My mom took one in 99, worked private industry for a couple years then came back to defense after the dot com crash for way more money.

If you say that you aren’t plussed, then they will probably lay you off to.