Gannett Reviews

Pros

A lot of hardworking talented workers. You can form some great business relationships.

Cons

Massive layoffs and furloughs and 2+year pay freezes. Very somber environment, the world looks gray. This is the type of company you don't decorate the cubicle because you just don't know when your time will come.

The people who are still left are doing the work of 3-4 people. Absolutely no work life balance. If you feel like having a quarter or midlife crisis, then work here for a while.

Management will give you "your lucky to have a job" attitude if you voice any disapproval for working 3-4 peoples job.

Advice to Senior Management

You really shouldn't have the authority to cut jobs unless you know what every job does. Gaping holes were left in departments to be filled by unqualified personal already doing 3 jobs. The quality of the product suffers and people will eventually be fed up with the mistreatment and leave the company.

Read a book once in a while.

Stop enforcing the Peter Principle

If the company is in bad shape then you were not doing your job. Your salary should be slashed

Pros

-Newsroom full of great coworkers

Cons

-No work/life balance for editorial staff

Advice to Senior Management

-Offer yearly pay increases to staff

Pros

As the industry took a downturn, Gannett radically reinvented itself to meet the changing media landscape. Many of the changes were effective, and those that weren't were, surprisingly, corrected with a rapid response.

Cons

Gannett's focus is mostly on the metro papers. If you are at a small paper many of the large scale ideas don't apply, but you are forced to implement them regardless.

Advice to Senior Management

Create strategic plans focused on paper size and do not be overly greedy when collecting profits. Double digit growth does not happen in a down market.

Pros

Strong company been around for a while and growing the digital aspect in considerable gains consistently and impressively. Lots of opportunitites if you are willing to move.

Cons

The several rounds of down sizing last year were trying to say the least but the company seems to be stable if not growing again now.

Advice to Senior Management

Strong company that has been around for a very long time and hopefully for a long time to come. Stock prices are up lately.

Pros

Pretty good media company that is focused on making a difference in the communities they are in. From what I understand pay is less than other media companies though.

Cons

Seems to let people go and not hire replacements, just hand work off to other people without compensation to those people.

Advice to Senior Management

Dont be so cheap. Reward employees with $$$ Praise is great but cash is even better. More work and responsibilities should equal more money

Pros

Good money while I was there but not so much anymore. Job itself was enjoyable.

Cons

Hideous treatment of employees. Constant browbeating over ridiculously petty procedures. Management hopelessly mired in meeting after meeting accomplishing nothing.

Advice to Senior Management

Hold management to uniform professional standards and stop playing favorites.

Pros

Pay was fair for doing an honest days work. Face it, no one's giving away money, so you'll have to do the activity, make the calls, make the most of your face-to-face appointments to reach your goals. If you do, you're compensated fairly. They also had good on-going sales training.

Cons

There weren't alot of management spots (which I suppose is a good thing) and those that held those jobs had for a while and didn't seem to be going anywhere. That's fine if you're happy staying in sales, but if management is your aim, it could take you a while or you may have to job-hop a bit.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue with the ongoing training and with the monthly sales reports. Keeping an honest and open dialogue is appreciated and helps the frontline employees see where you're coming from.

Pros

Visionary leadership moved Gannett into digital realms faster than other newspaper companies
Slow to hire, but also slow to lay off (usually)
Not bankrupt

Cons

Dysfunctional corporate culture often pits manager against manager
Innovation from the ground up is discouraged
Large, overly bureaucratic organization
Poor communication at all levels

Advice to Senior Management

Empower employees to innovate. Give them the time, resources and training to develop their own ideas, especially in digital. Encourage bottom-up solutions.

Pros

The newspaper was a great place to work. Many people worked there for years and everyone was very helpful overall

Cons

What a sad thing to see an industry literally dying before your eyes. This is old school technology and unfortuantely they did not jump on the electronic world soon enough

Advice to Senior Management

Too little too late--what a shame that management did not jump on the internet world as soon as it became apparent what the future was

Pros

Clear agenda and priorities set by corporate offices, access to greater resources via corporate structure, good 401K, sufficient health care.

Cons

Employees feel "locked in" via initiatives and strategies from corporate, and when coupled with poor execution of initiatives at various levels, projects can be difficult to execute successfully.

Advice to Senior Management

Get to know the people who are working for you. Corporate does not appear to reach out to copy editors, photographers and ad reps during onsite visits.