Hallmark Hopes to Cut 300+ Jobs In Voluntary Layoff Program

When you think about a Hallmark moment what do you picture? You probably picture a birthday party where you give a funny (or sentimental, as you tastes may be) card to your appreciative grandmother. Or something along those lines at least. The odds are that when you picture a slip of paper from Hallmark you don’t see a pink slip, but that is what their workers are seeing right now.

The company just started a voluntary layoff program. For those of you who are not familiar with a voluntary layoff program the idea is that a company (or municipality as the case may be) asks workers to choose to put themselves out of a job. Now, you may be wondering who exactly in their right mind would choose to be out of a job. To be honest voluntary layoff programs work when employees believe that they will be cut loose anyway and that they will get a better deal from choosing to go then from being given the boot by their employer.

The company is hoping that between 300 and 400 workers will be willing to put themselves out of a job. Of course they are not being offered to every worker. For now the company is only offering the buy out to buyouts to workers who are 50 years old or older, and who have also been with the company for15 years of vested service. Given those two requirements one has to wonder how likely the company is to have 300 takers. After all 50 is too young for many workers to early retire, from a finical point of view, and some current research is showing that it can be hard to find work at that age in the current economy.

The company, which is blaming the job cuts on the current economic downturn, reported net revenue of $4.1 billion in 2011, the same as 2010.

Of course, voluntary layoffs often have mixed results, for those of you who missed out on our earlier coverage on the failed attempt at a voluntary layoff programs in the city of Toronto that led to more problems than solutions:

“Ah, the voluntary layoff program, it is an employers last ditch chance to make needed cuts to their staff without having to look like the bad guy. As the economic downturn continues to go on with little to no signs of improvement  more companies and governments are giving them a shot, with mixed results. In some cases older employees may take the buyout to extend retirement, but when you have a younger workforce you will often find them less willing to go quietly into the night.

The City of Toronto tried a voluntary layoff plan this year, which recently ended. The city was hoping that this program would help them to shed 700 positions. If that sounds more than a little pie in the sky to you then you are not alone. The harsh light of reality has come shining in on that number. As the program came to a close the city found that it had not the desired 700 workers lining up to be laid off but instead only 230 employees who were willing to give up their civil service jobs and take part in voluntary layoff program.

City Manager Joe Pennachetti, the brains behind the 2012 budget for the city, had hoped to find that the voluntary layoff plan gave the city some substantial savings, but apparently he failed to take a few things into consideration. One of those things was the fact that a fair number of positions could not be eliminated because of legal obligations to provide certain services to the citizens of the city.”