I wrote:
> So the Hall family is basically taking a $90 million hit > so that employees won't lose any money this year in their > profit sharing accounts. (And this comes as Hallmark is > trying to reduce headcount by attrition and lots of employees > are hitting retirement age.) I'm hugely proud to be part > of a company that cares enough about it's employees to do > something like this. (On the other hand, it makes me > wonder, if they can afford that kind of hit, just how much > money does the Hall family have, anyway? :-) But at any rate, > we hear so much bad news about the behavior of big companies, > I thought I'd pass along this bit of good news.
Julia replied:
Much of the following info is from http://pressroom.hallmark.com/hmk_fact_sheet.htmlI have questions about the employees.What percentage of them actually work on making the cards? Distribution? Clerks in stores? I imagine that last category sees a *lot* of turnover. And I know of one Hallmark store that closed a couple of years ago; are stores closing faster than new ones are being opened this year, is it a wash, or will there be more stores at the end of the year than at the beginning? If you don't know the answers, that's fine, I'm just curious.
and from links that can be followed from there, if you want more info.
Here at the home office, we have about 5500 people, none of whom actually work on manufacturing the cards.
Of that number, about 800 are in the Creative division. These are the artists, photographers, writers, editors, designers, etc.
I work in the Customer Solutions Center (CSC). The CSC has three main parts. The first part is the sales team, who actually sell product to stores that carry Hallmark merchandise. CSC Core Services is a call center that takes incoming calls from stores and retail merchandizers (RMs, more on them later), answering questions about ordering, shipment data, info on promotions and special programs, and Hallmarks Rapid Replentishment system. I work in CSC Technology, which provides technical support for about 46,000 corporate and privately owned stores that use Hallmark's cash registers (about 400 of the stores are owned by Hallmark, the rest are independently owned and operated). The register systems we have in stores are small Windows-based networks, and CSC Tech troubleshoots hardware and software problems, and helps retailers understand how to use the various reports available on their systems. Between CSC Core and CSC Tech, and related support staff, we have probably 150 people here. I'm not sure about the numbers for CSC Sales.
The other 4600 or so employees at home office are split between Finance, Legal, HR, IT, Marketing, Operations, International, and Public Affairs.
I said before there are about 5500 home office employees. There are a total of about 22,000 Hallmark employees around the world. About 3500 of them are creative, business, and distrubution staff working in the various other countries where Hallmark product is sold. The other 13,000 or so Hallmark employees are split between employees of corporate-owned Hallmark stores (I'd guess 3000 to 4000, many or most part-time), retail merchandisers (RMs, Hallmark employees that go into grocery stores, drug stores, and other mass channel accounts that carry Hallmark product, and take care of ordering, inventory, and general cleanup of the Hallmark displays), and the rest would be in distribution and manufacturing.
Here's where it gets a little strange. According to all the info I can find, the numbers above are correct. However, one site says there are about 14,000 RMs. If you take the 13,000 above, subtract out 3 or 4 thousand for employees at Hallmark owned stores, and then subtract the 14,000 RMs, you end up with a negative number. Now, it's possible that the employees of Hallmark stores are not counted in the original 22,000 figure, since their paychecks actually come from a company with Hallmark called Specialty Retail Group. But more likely, the article that listed 22,000 employees is just woefully out of date.
Hallmark also has several subsidiaries, including Binney and Smith (the company that makes Crayola crayons and Silly Putty), Litho-Krome (known for high-quality color separations and lithography), The Picture People (mall-based photo studios), Tapper (maker of party favors and accessories), Crown Media Holdings (Hallmark Channel on cable, etc.), Hallmark Entertainment (Hallmark Hall of Fame), and others. I couldn't find any employee numbers for any of those.
I hope that's at least some of the info you were looking for. Is there anything else you'd like to know? :-)
Reggie Bautista
I Live To Serve Maru
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