As top Gannett executives at Corporate's offices tell everyone else to do more work with fewer people, I wondered if they, too, were doing more with less. After all, public documents show, employment across Gannett fell nearly 6% -- to 49,675 workers -- in the past year.But those documents only disclosed Corporate's headcount as of 2005 -- 600 employees. Mysteriously, the company didn't give figures for 2006 or for this year. Surely, I thought, Corporate's staffing has fallen dramatically in the past two years, reflecting all the economizing CEO Craig Dubow has ordered.
And, of course, I was wrong. A tipster wrote yesterday: "There are currently 594 names in the corporate headquarters employee directory." Ouch! That's some serious belt-tightening!
So, wage slaves, back to work. The nuclear power plant -- err, Information Center -- hasn't had anything fresh on its website in four whole minutes!
[Image of evil Simpsons boss C. Montgomery Burns, Fox Broadcasting]
Is it possible that some of the jobs in the field have been moved to corporate payroll based on centralization of operations? This may mean that some corporate jobs have been eliminated but won't show up in total counts...
ReplyDeleteThat's certainly possible. But historically, I think, Gannett has achieved savings through efficiencies under which jobs are eliminated in the field -- for good. They aren't moved to Corporate.
ReplyDeleteI know at my property payroll was centralized to corporate. Many other sites as well. From what I was told there are a lot less payroll and accounting people (probably supporting IT people too) as jobs moved to a centralized corporate location. I sincerly doubt they added as many people at corporate than were reduced in the field.
ReplyDeleteActually, this is a move which makes sense, as it doesn't make sense to have 200 payroll clerks scattered around Gannettland when a couple dozen can do the job in a centralized location.
Point is, things aren't always what they seem. If my assumptions are correct, having a few more at corporate doing payroll and incrementally less in the field makes a lot of business sense.