I am a manager in a large tech company and we care about our employees. We will not fire/lay them off/relieve them of their duty for any reason or not reason. We treat them as we expect to be treated. We will support them if they have some unusual circumstances. We do this because it is the right thing to do, and because it makes business sense. These are not mutually exclusive.
Is that the same as saying there's no situation where people will be laid off or let go? No. But it would happen for a good reason.
In a previous large company a decision was made collectively to take a wage cut and not lay people off. Employees got stock options to make up for the cut. In the end that all worked out.
Being ruthless to your employees doesn't make business sense. Who wants to work at a place like that? Does everyone do that? Absolutely not.
It's true a company isn't a person, but a company is made of people, and decisions are made by people, and you want to work somewhere that has good people that give a damn. At least I do.
All that said ;) if you are leaving, I agree there's no reason to stretch it out. That doesn't help anyone. In any properly managed project any employee leaving isn't the end of the world. There should always be more than one person that know what's going on. Having someone sit around, like a Schrodinger's Cat, that is both there and not there, doesn't really help anyone. It just feels weird. The rules of the game are set (in your contract), you need to give a notice, you give this notice, you're done. We'll take you out for lunch. No hard feelings. People move on for all sorts of reasons.
