http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/03/11/ap6156175.html
Summary: The recent recession has hurt many businesses, and sacrifices are having to be made in order to keep these businesses operational. My article is on a Television company called "Belo", this company was one of the many hit by the powerful storm of the recession. Belo had to cut 150 jobs and decrease salaries. The cutting back of salaries started in Dallas where it only affected employees working there. Unfortunately, the news that the salaries of all employees will soon be chopped down was announced March 11th. Belo, which owns over 20 Television Stations, also reported that the cutbacks in wages will take place in mid April.
Connections: This article is connected with Chapter 16 in the way that it deals with "Salaries". Chapter 16 states that a salary is a fixed sum of money paid to an employee on a regular basis over a period of time. My article deals with a company called Belo, which had to decrease that salary by 5%. This can be a big deal as it could make thousands of dollars of loss in the salaries of their employees. In chapter 16 it is said that salaries can be decreased if the employee isn't up to standards for what they are getting paid. Unfortunately in this case, even if the employee was excellent they still have to take a salary cut.
Reflection: I think that this sacrifice for the company had to be done, but it could have been done in a way so that salaries of good employees were unharmed. Like many other businesses have done recently, Belo could have cut jobs of their more inexperienced and less than decent workers in order to save money, while keeping their excellent employees happy by maintaining their salaries. I believe that because they dropped salaries, many of Belo's employee's will quit (even the very good ones) and Belo will end up having the same effect as they could have had if they had just cut more jobs in the beginning, except they will have lost many of their high performance employees.
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3 comments:
I agree to Shayne’s idea of not harming the salaries of good employees. However, what is the definition of being a good employee? Even though the company can set up a “good employee standard”, it has to be hard in order to make this action meaningful. In reducing salary expenses, and cutting jobs, this company must be in a situation that it has to take this action in order to survive. So if most employees are good employees, then what the business can do to solve its problem? Therefore, I think that the company should avoid reducing the salaries, and think to cut off other expenses such as Miscellaneous expenses, car expenses, or telephone expenses.
I agree that many the idea of laying off inexperienced employees and keeping experienced employees is a good idea. Unfortunately, if all companies think along these lines, then there will be a lot of downfalls in the future. Inexperienced workers won't be able to earn experience. Eventually they will have a hard time getting jobs. Once most of the experienced employees retire or leave the company for some reason, then the company will have a hard time finding competent, new workers. Again, if other companies think this way, and companies start laying off workers that are trying to get experience, and later on, start to see a need for more workers, it'll have to resort to hiring more inexperienced workers, and this will cause the company's performance to drop dramatically.
I agree that the company, Belo, is a considerate company who is only cutting their workers’ salaries instead of firing them. The employees need to understand why the company is deducting their wages. Every party should understand each other’s motive when we have to face hardships. Belo decreasing 5% of the employee’s salary sound more reasonable than the article that I did about Alcoa having to decrease 15% of their employee’s salary to conserve money for their company. The large difference between the two companies’s decreasing percentage salaries is because they are from two different industries.
-joanna wong
bl B
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