Rogers offers four day week? Does this
mean 20% less work?
Rogers Publishing, Canada's largest magazine publisher, is asking employees to cut their work week to four days and their pay by 20%. According to a story in the Toronto Star, the plan -- for which employees must apply by January 26 -- is voluntary and those who take it up must commit to it for the rest of 2009.
Recently Rogers Publishing was among the divisions that laid off more than 100 employees, including a reported 40 in magazine publishing of the company's workforce."The four-day work week offered to publishing employees is purely voluntary and time limited," for 11 months, said Louise Leger, spokesperson for the company.
"Its purpose is to save money."
The company, which owns some of Canada's most read magazines, including Maclean's, Chatelaine, Today's Parent and MoneySense, would not disclose how much money it intended to save with the package, but Leger did indicate that the package was not being offered to other divisions of the Rogers media empire.
posted by D. B. Scott at
1:02 pm
6 Comments:
Someone I know approached their boss at a major title regarding this "offer" and was told to forget about it. This is reasonable, IMHO, as those mags are so inefficient they couldn't get out the door with 20% less effort.
Beats no job and no income
At first this looks like a great idea, however I have done this before (taken a pay cut and worked 4 days a week). In the end they expect the same amount of work out of you in 4 days time at less pay as they did in 5 days with more pay. Seems a little shady to me.
See what happens when accountants run magazines and not magazine people.
Who's doing the math here and/or writing with such ambiguity? "Recently Rogers Publishing was among the divisions that laid off a total of 10% of the company's workforce." Only 100 people were laid off across all of Rogers Media, which employs nearly 6,000 people. Only 40 people were laid off at Rogers Publishing, which employs more than 1,000 people. I can't find a 10% anywhere in those numbers.
I accept that the 10% figure may be incorrect, although Rogers has not commented officially on the layoffs and original reporting certainly indicated that up to 10% of jobs may be in play. I have deleted the paragraph.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home