ConAgra announced Oct. 1 that it would eliminate 1,000 jobs in Omaha and move 300 others, along with the company’s headquarters, to Chicago. A group of about 40 information-technology workers were told Oct. 16 that they would lose their jobs; Wednesday’s memos appeared to discuss the next wave of the 1,000 cuts, targeting many more workers. http://www.omaha.com/money/conagra-tells-some-employees-of-layoffs-today-thursday/article_3e991186-8303-11e5-8e3f-5b50a68767a3.html
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Thank you for this posting. As an ex-conagran, I appreciate the information you are able to share with us.
I have been mourning the lose of the ConAgra I once loved since Gary Rodkins retired. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay in Omaha and find employment doing what I love. I take the operating principles Gary taught us with me - simplicity, accountability, collaboration, and imagination.
Has Con Agra thought about Why..they're not selling as much??? Could it be their prices have risen so much that people stopped buying their products?" Now they're WASTING almost 400 million dollars to "Overhaul"? That makes no Sense what so ever !!!
One memo, addressed to the finance, information technology and enterprise business systems teams, said the company has been working to cut costs.
“Today, we are communicating with individuals on our team about the impact to them as a result of this work, which includes job eliminations,” said the memo, sent by Chief Financial Officer John Gehring and obtained by The World-Herald. “Most of these employees will hear from their managers today; some will hear tomorrow.”
The memo said the company wasn’t finished with its review of positions, especially those to be outsourced, and more cuts could come in the next 30 to 90 days.
Employees in the company’s supply chain division got a similar memo, signed by Mike Tracy, senior vice president for supply chain operations, and Craig Weiss, vice president of supply chain planning. Marketing employees also received a similar memo from Darren Serrao, chief growth officer. Both of those memos were seen by The World-Herald.
Chris Kircher, ConAgra’s vice president for corporate affairs, said Wednesday in an email to The World-Herald that the company wouldn’t share details on the layoffs outside of the company “out of respect for our employees who are being informed through tomorrow.”
“As part of our process to enhance productivity, we have made the carefully considered but difficult decision to eliminate positions across the company,” Kircher said. “We have been discussing the transformation with employees throughout the process and are now communicating more specific changes.”
ConAgra has said the job cuts — a total of 1,500 companywide, or about 30 percent of ConAgra’s office-based workers — will help the company shave $200 million off its annual expenses, along with outsourcing and cuts to discretionary spending like travel and catering. An additional $100 million in savings will come from cuts to costs tied to placing products with retailers.
The cuts are part of a broad restructuring plan, which will cost about $345 million to execute, that ConAgra said is needed to help it compete.
“We’ve been talking for the last several months about building an organization that can drive growth with a lower-cost operating model so that we can remain competitive with top-tier companies,” Serrao said in his memo. “We need to become a more lean, efficient, productive and agile company to succeed.”
ConAgra has seen slower sales of some of its consumer food brands in recent years. A new chief executive officer, Sean Connolly, took over in April, and in June, activist investor Jana Partners said it would push for changes. The company on Monday announced a deal to sell its troubled private-label division.
Serrao’s and Gehring’s memos told employees, “Losing a job is never easy, but we are committed to treating everyone fairly and respectfully, and to helping people transition to new opportunities.”
The Nebraska Department of Labor said Wednesday that ConAgra has not shared details about the layoffs and that the department is ready to respond with assistance should the company request it.
Greater Omaha Chamber Senior Vice President Randy Thelen said the chamber continues to see more ConAgra employees, nearly 400 as of Wednesday, sign up for job search assistance that is part of a broad employee retention program that the group launched to keep ConAgra workers in Omaha. He said there are more than 4,000 professional job openings in the Omaha area.
“The key is, we’ve prepared, we’re now ready and as folks at ConAgra start to understand what their future may hold, we have no doubt they’re going to find a future here in Omaha,” Thelen said.