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July 6, 2009
Two weeks ago, when British Airways asked its employees to work "for free" in an effort to save the company money, few batted an eye.
British Airways chief Willie Walsh said he himself would not draw any pay during the month of July, and urged his employees to work for blocks of time without pay.
Call it a sign of the times.
Many companies in Brevard County and nationally are asking employees to cut them a little slack, mainly by instituting furloughs, salary cuts and freezes, and temporary layoffs, in order to avoid more strenuous, permanent layoffs.
Eric Nakamura, director of business services of the Brevard Workforce Board, said local trends reflect the national study.
"We're seeing all of the above," he said.
In a recent nationwide survey of human resource executives by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, more than half -- 52.4 percent -- said their companies instituted salary cuts and freezes in an effort to cut costs in May. This jumped from 27.2 percent in the same survey last year.
At the same time, the percentage of employers making permanent cuts and layoffs fell from 56 percent in January to 43 percent in May, according to the survey.
Rockwell Collins has made changes in its Melbourne office in order to reduce company costs.
The jet manufacturing company modified the workweek, implemented additional days off during holiday weeks and utilized temporary layoffs.
"There's been a downturn in the industry as far as demand goes," Rockwell Collins spokesman Dave Gosch said.
Nakamura said that locally, he sees companies doing different things to avoid layoffs. One local company actually asked its employees for suggestions, implemented them, and was able to avoid layoffs by doing so.
Some companies institute furloughs, then decide to do layoffs even still at a later date. Overall, however, companies said they do their best to avoid layoffs.
At SeaRay on Merritt Island, hundreds of people have been laid off within the past year.
Today, the company has a temporary layoff and furlough program in place for its remaining employees. It decided on this program in lieu of further layoffs in order to reduce the number of units manufactured because of lackluster boat sales, and the remaining employees prefer it that way, according to Nora Ellis, human resources manager at one of the manufacturing sites.
"It allows the employees to keep their benefits, they can file for unemployment compensation," she said. "What we're trying to do is retain as much of our core talent as possible so that we can successfully rebound when the economy turns around."
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