Especially dangerous because he's asking people to directly email HR and only copy in their managers. You would think he'd ask interested employees to talk to their managers first (so that they can try to convince high performers to stay) instead of making it a de facto irreversible step by involving HR immediately.
People may not have the courage to go to their boss. I certainly didn't when I was at a company that had a similar policy. (I didn't want to take advantage of it, but it was "at the manager's discretion" which meant they could block it and then you'd really be stuck)
