Friday, June 28, 2013

Gannett Government Media orders Q3 furloughs

Employees at Gannett Government Media, which publishes Army Times and other titles, have been told to take unpaid furloughs. This follows unpaid weeks during the second quarter and the fourth quarter. Here's the memo, which a reader forwarded to me yesterday:

My fellow employees,

Last fall, your executive team wrote to you about the challenges we faced as a result of the ongoing federal budget conditions, and the need to reduce expenses to keep them in line with current revenue.

Today, we have to do so again. Government inaction has created enormous uncertainty, reducing demand for advertising. In the first quarter, we missed our budget significantly, and the second quarter has continued this trend. Although we have made every effort to reduce our operating expenses this year -- including furloughs for your senior leadership team and sales VPs -- we must take further steps to keep our expenses in line with our revenue. Therefore, we must implement a companywide furlough in the third quarter. Every employee, full time or part time, will be required to take the furlough. The only exceptions will be those who took their furloughs in the second quarter of 2013.

These responses to changing business conditions have been thought about for a long time and certainly have not been taken lightly. To adapt to the government’s expense reductions, we have taken our own reductions in distribution, production, travel, marketing, and trade shows. But more still must be done. As we go forward, we will continue to review all our operations to maximize efficiency and effectiveness.

We know and appreciate how hard you are working, and we remain optimistic about our long-term future.

Sincerely,

The Executive Team

6 comments:

  1. Government inaction?

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  2. Unfortunately, you need to feed the Shark. Say "thanks", Gracia! Bonuses - all around. Well, just on Jones Branch Drive...

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  3. ummm, how much was sepnd on Belo? This is the kind of thing that is most frustrating. Gannett makes a good buy but then does furloughs.

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  4. My heart goes out to my former Defense News colleagues, and to everyone else at GGM, formerly known as ArmyTimes Publishing Co. Here's hoping for an improved business situation -- and soon!

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  5. ROTFLMAO - Screw 'em... they can take the furloughs just like we government employees; Army Times/GGM has always treated employees as if they are fungible anyway. Not like folks like Tobias will feel the pinch.

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  6. Fungible -- good word in this case! The senior editors there used to treat the rest of us like family. But the good ones have either been driven away, or have let the bad times change them into being bad people. Marcus Aurelius said, "He who does wrong, does wrong against himself. He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself bad."

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