Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief
Intersection employees were told this week that for the majority of them, from April through to June at least, that their base salaries would be reduced by 20%. That pay cut applies to all employees except their warehouse employees, warehouse supervisors and warehouse managers (who will continue to receive full pay).
Intersection CEO Ari Buchalter laid out his plan for managing the downturn due to #COVID19 in an email to his staff, where he said “This decision was not arrived at lightly. We do not know how long this crisis will last and as responsible managers we must assume the worst. If we are going to maximize our chances of successfully emerging on the other side of this, these are unfortunately measures we must take”.
Even before this ‘downturn’ it was easy to see that Intersection would be one of the first media owners to struggle. Whilst they seem to have fixed some of the reliability issues they had with LinkNYC over the past few years, it’s still rare to see more than a handful of paying adverts. They have won some nice RFPs in North America recently, Chicago Transit Authority and Hudson Yards for example but it does takes time for revenue to come through from these. As a business, they also have, hanging over them, the threat that New York City officials are considering terminating the entire LinkNYC contract.
We understand that Intersection’s headcount expense for this year alone is a whopping USD 85 million, so it is no surprise that they are also very likely to extend the hiring freeze they already have in place past May 1, 2020.
During the summer, Intersection will be closing their office every Friday from May 29, 2020 to September 4, 2020 and will be establishing a four day working week.
Bonuses were also hit and will apply to employees dedicated to CityBridge as well as to other employees whose 2020 bonuses are funded partially by CityBridge performance and to employees dedicated to Place Exchange as well as to other employees whose 2020 bonuses are funded partially by Place Exchange performance.
March 27th, 2020 at 07:48 @366
Adrian, tough message but someone has to deliver it. It appears the writing is indeed on the wall for Intersection. Many reasons why. Lack of 10,000 hours leadership I believe is huge factor. When tough times like the Coronavirus Economy hits the weak are culled from the herd.