Seeking to cut costs again, Gannett is offering buyouts to hundreds of U.S. community newspaper employees. Some key numbers:
20
minimum years service to qualify
56
minimum age to qualify
665
maximum number buyouts available
785
number employees who qualify meet criteria
13,300
at minimum, total years' experience leaving Gannett if all 665 buyouts are were granted next month
Get out while the getting is good and don't get stuck in the mud. Jonas--this one is right at ya.
ReplyDeleteInaccurate. 785 meet the criteria (have 20 years of service and are at least 56 years old), but only 665 are being offered the buyouts. I don't think we know how many will actually be granted company wide, do we?
ReplyDelete7:03 What, then, are the two numbers given out at each site?
ReplyDeleteAlso, won't the final buyout number depend on how many apply?
Jim, You are correct about the numbers given out at each site including both the number offered and the number that will be accepted. The EROP letters given to each person includes (at least for our site) the number of people, by department, that will be acccepted. The offer also included "Appendix A" that lists, by position title and age, each person received the offer. Comparing the lists, you can figure out, by department, how many will be accepted and how many will not. For example, Accounting/ Finance - 4 offered and 2 will be accepted. In some departments, the number offered and the number to be accepted are the same. Years of service were not included on any of the lists (would love to know that!).
ReplyDeleteThe sooner folks provide info to update the spreadsheet, the sooner we'll know have the answer on the maximum that will be might accepted.
Des Moines, where are you?
Folks still have to accept but from the responses to your survey, looks like we can expect the maximum number. What do you think?
Don't do it until less you are at least in your early 60s.
ReplyDeleteDont.
Do.
It.
Did you leave in the last round and now think it is a bad idea?
ReplyDeleteWhat is the real crock is that instead of offering this plan to everyone qualified they only offered it to a select few. My wife is 61, has 33 years with the local paper and she was not offered the plan at all. Why? It is not because she is too valuable to let go. Since Gannett bought the paper she has been demoted, pay cut, forced to do a 90 probation period with a new position and no raise since as ZZ Top put Christ left Chicago. Yet, she is too valuable not to be let go. Something is just not right with all of this.
ReplyDeleteYeah I agree they only offered it 655or so people. Yeah that qualifies as a "few"
ReplyDeleteTo clarify what I wrote earlier, my impression is that Corporate says 785 people meet the criteria -- 56 years old/20 years minimum -- but it will only grant 665.
ReplyDeleteThis was how it worked at USA Today in 2007, when I got mine.
Approximately 170 qualified, but the paper was only looking to give 45 buyouts. Any of the 170 could have applied, however.
No, Jim. They're not granting 665.
ReplyDeleteThey're OFFERING the buyouts to 665. They're actually granting far fewer, if the numbers coming in on the spreadsheet are any indication to the total. (Some sites, they're offering the buyouts to twice as many as they're actually willing to grant in the end.)
785 actually qualified under the statistics (20 years, age 56), but they didn't even offer the buyouts to 120 of those people because they were considered "essential" or whatever.
I hope all the essential people leave with the ones who take the buyouts. It's time this company gets a taste of its own medicine.
ReplyDeleteThose of us who were left out should start a movement, "I am the 120."
ReplyDeleteThe difference between the 665 and 785 is that 120 specific people meet the criteria but will not be offered the buyout nor eligible to take one. The offer is to 665 people. But not all of those will be allowed to leave. Gannett gets to decide who to let go after it hears from all the 665 whether they want to accept the buyout. So Jim is incorrect on his interpretation.
ReplyDelete9:09, I did not apply fornthe last buyout because of my circumstances. Slightly older than Jim, but with kids. I didn't see comparable paying jobs in the field. After roughly a year of buyout pay, I would have been forced to tap savings. Had I been closer to actual retirement age I may have taken it. Now I work at the nation's newspaper, where it isn't being offered. At least for now. Even so, it is not a good deal if you have a few years before you can tap social security. I work hard, try to keep my mouth shut and do a balance of what I am needed to do and ideas I can run with on my own. I am not part of the chosen few, so the axe can come at anyone's whim. But that's Gannett, where decisions are made in a great void and often make no sense. I'll ride it out as best I can and hopefully leave on my terms, not their's.
ReplyDeleteStick it out until you have another job. Save as much as you can in the meantime. Downsize, cut expenses and figure out what your sources of income will be for 20 to 30 years of retirement before you throw in the towel on a VERY poor buyout offer. Unless you are a consistently poor performer or on someone's shortlist, they will not lay you off.
Good advice. But if ey want to get rid of you, they find a way.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing to keep in mind: After USA Today offered the buyout, it then laid people off. While getting laid off sucks in a bigger way, if you think they're gunning for you, consider unemployment. My understanding is that those who leave voluntarily don't get unemployment (Jim, is this correct?) Unemployment, of course, is pretty paltry, but it might actually turn out to be a better deal. This offer sounds pretty lousy to me. On the other hand, it might be a good opportunity to leave and try something else. There IS life after newspapers, and generally, it's better. Sorry but that's the truth.
ReplyDeleteThose who leave voulntarily are not eligible for unemployment. I will reiterate what others have said earlier: layoffs will be spread more evenly across age groups to avoid age discrimination litigation. But not by much, and it will still skew toward older workers.
ReplyDelete11:41 -- Where I work the quality of work didn't matter. It was a strange mix of seniority job position (they wanted to trim the editor list) that entered into it all. Many GOOD people were laid off. And many of them were over 50. I'm just sayin'...
ReplyDeleteGee, Jim. You still don't get it... 665 buyouts WILL NOT be granted. That's the number of people who are eligible for buyouts (were actually offered the paperwork). Corp will grant far fewer in the end.
ReplyDeleteLook at the spreadsheet you're compiling. Louisville: Offering to 46, only granting to 20. Rochester: Offering to 28, granting to 14. Wilmington, Offering 22, granting 8. Sure, some sites will grant as many as they offer. But 665 BUYOUTS WILL NOT BE GRANTED.
785 meet criteria,665 will be accepted.That's it.
ReplyDeleteBut how many will be layed off,if the buyouts don't get that 665.
Those offered buyouts are the highest paid of the worker bees,so many with lesser pay and benefits will it take to effect the same cost saving? 1,000 or more?
You're wrong. 785 met the criteria, but 120 of them weren't even offered the buyout. They were "essential."
ReplyDelete665 were offered the buyout, but 665 buyouts will not be granted. There's a difference. Why is this so difficult?
I have 40 candy bars for sale, but I offer them to 65 people, hoping that 40 of those 65 people will like them.
Better?
The spreadsheet shows only 4 people qualified for buyouts in Asheville but that is not correct. Only 4 specific people were offered a buyout, many more qualified.
ReplyDelete8:53, get some new material. It's the same thing with you -- every day, every post a carbon copy of the previous one.
ReplyDelete8:26 I've tweaked the language so it now reads: "if all 665 buyouts WERE granted."
ReplyDelete9:37 I've fixed that.
ReplyDeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteYour tweaking of the language in this post really bothers me. Because it says "I just used the wrong words" instead of "I completely misunderstood the concept." And you're confusing people -- changing "qualify" to "meet," and "are" to "were" doesn't do a darn thing to change the mess you posted. (You've still left incorrect information, by the way, by leaving 665 maximum number buyouts available.) Blow this post up and fix it the right way.
20
minimum years service to qualify
56
minimum age to qualify
665
number of employees offered buyouts
???
number of buyouts that corporate will actually grant
You're talking about scrubbing a post, which I don't do because it's unethical.
ReplyDeleteWhen I change text -- other than to correct typos and other minor errors -- I use the strike-out font, which you see here, because that clearly shows the before and after to returning readers.
So when news organizations mistakenly reported that Gabby Giffords was dead, it was unethical to scrub those posts????
ReplyDeleteIt's not like the suggestion was to take the post completely down. (Which isn't a bad idea.) It was to fix it.