Layoffs at Thomson Reuters largely designated, staff told

An in-house video presentation to employees by chief executive James Smith generated a lively and sometimes sceptical discussion among staff on the company’s closed electronic internal communications system, the Hub.

Among such messages as “Great news all around! 2013 looks to be very promising”, “We understand the strong foundation laid, hope to see all this bearing fruits in 2013,” and “Very positive message. I will watch it at least once more to write down in post-its what I see as the 2 or 3 key messages. Thanks for the information” were others more questioning of the corporate message from the top. Following is a selection of some of the exchanges:

• I’m a simple caveman, can someone explain this to me,

“…(2013 growth will be) offset by the flow through of F&R net sales last year”.

• Every time I listen to these Senior Execs talking about our Financial results, they always talk as though we’ve won the World Cup. All this talk of how Sales are encouraging and how we are going to “Invest for Growth” is a load of nonsense. Frankly if things are so great, why have another 150 people in the UK had their jobs put at risk? Do they just look at increased sales as another contribution to the Redundancy Fund?
• Apologies in advance for being blunt and a professional skeptic. I will believe the optimism of this message when I receive my bonus at 100+%. We have heard nothing positive throughout most of the year, including the sharp decline in the price of our stock at the end of 2011…

If what Jim says is reflected in our bonus funding, since we went into 2013 in much better shape than we went into 2012, then our bonus will be much better funded in 2013 than 2012.

Shall we see?

• A couple of things I saw announced today that made me wonder:

1. TR will cut 2500 jobs in 2013. [http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2013/02/13/thomson-reuters-to-slash-2500-jobs-4-workforce/] Are these the ones that already happened, or are there more?

2. When we give the number of EIKONs rolled out, does that include the ones we have internally?

Great to hear we’ve bottomed out! But I will really believe it when the shares go up rather than down when we report our results.

• I guess I can play Devil’s Advocate. The article also mentions:

About 1,000 job cuts will come from the sale of the Corporate Services division to Nasdaq, expected to be completed in the second quarter, Thomson Reuters said. Many of the others will come from the retiring of so-called “legacy” products as the division rolls its customers onto its new Eikon desktop product.

Why would any company, regardless of how profitable it is, continue to pay for jobs that are no longer necessary as the products that these jobs support, no longer exist? I would not pay for cable TV service if I did not own a TV, regardless of how rich I was. But, I can also say that does not place an importance on the human element, as it is friends and colleagues who could lose their jobs, and I would probably change my tone if it turns out I am one of cuts. Fingers crossed... 

• During today’s quarterly webcast with investors Stephane Bello, Chief Financial Officer of Thomson Reuters, made clear that the vast majority of these jobs have already been announced. The total figure also includes around 1,000 positions which currently reside within the Corporate Services function, which as you may be aware is in the process of being sold to NASDAQ.

There are many hundreds of articles from media and analysts that feature Thomson Reuters across the world every week. Most provide a very balanced, informed view of Thomson Reuters and our prospects in the marketplace – and many people across the business work very hard to ensure our message is clear and understood. Realistically though we can neither respond to, nor control, every imperfect article in the marketplace.

As a result we urge all of our colleagues to take the time to read about our results every quarter through The Hub, and if possible listen to the investor webcast which is available on ThomsonReuters.com.

• Thanks for clarifying the job numbers, I'm sure lots of people will be glad to know that the vast majority of cuts are already booked in.

On your point about getting the message across, I don’t envy you having to try to do so! And don’t worry, I would hope that most of our colleagues would not expect, nor even want, you to try to “control every imperfect article” – many of us know how futile that would be because we’re normally on the other side of the equation. However, if there is one aspect of communications that I think many people object to, it is having internal announcements written in the kind of corporate mumbojumbo normally reserved for death-by-powerpoint and press releases, rather than spelled out in plain English. If you can manage to make that shift, there will be much happiness and rejoicing!

• ... Rest assured that the numbers we report for installed Eikon desktops and active users relate to external users only. As of this week we have over 48,000 Eikon desktops installed at client sites and we are seeing strong momentum in the pace of new installations. Better still – nearly 14,000 of these users have already upgraded to the latest Eikon Desktop 3.0 release which was launched less that three weeks ago on 28th Januar
• On the headcount and press statements i am disappointed – I now may have worried staff when i can't give then clarity. Given the lack of transparency on recent job cut numbers it’s hard to see if these numbers are new, or have happen. If they are new, staff should be the first to hear from management, not the papers, and if they have happened we need to be better at managing the press (which we should be great at).
• During the quarterly webcast with investors and analysts on February 13, our CEO Jim Smith and CFO Stephane Bello mentioned the company’s intention to end the year with approximately 2,500 less employees in our Financial & Risk division than we had at year-end 2012.

To be clear, this figure does not represent 2,500 additional job cuts still to come within F&R, but rather is comprehensive of:

– Job actions impacting approximately 1,000 employees, the vast majority of whom were notified in December 2012/January 2013 that their roles have either been eliminated or were at risk of redundancy;

– The divestiture of our Corporate Services business, which is in the process of being sold to NASDAQ will account for the transfer of over 1,000 employees; and

– Natural attrition as employees leave the company, could account for 500 less roles by the end of the year. 

And while we’re not currently expecting further reductions of any magnitude in 2013, in F&R we continue to simplify our organization and operations. This includes the shut-down of legacy platforms and products such as the Bridge Data Network, EMT, hosted terminal access, which will account for some job losses.

As Jim noted in addressing the analysts, decisions that affect the lives of our employees are never easy, but we must continue to manage our resources in a way that best allows us to serve our customers’ needs in a highly competitive environment. ■