• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Staff Redundancies

One thing that is really annoying me about this whole topic, and on this forum in general, is the way certain members keep using the whole "Merlin are a multi million pound company" argument and see that as a reason why they shouldn't be making redundancies. This attitude just shows a total lack of understanding of how business works. They are a company not a charity and no company will have become successful if they waste money on resources which they don't need. Like I keep saying, after a very quiet season where too many staff were employed for the number of guests, Merlin can't take that risk again if there's the potential of another quiet season ahead, by making redundancies they are preparing themselves and keeping to what will be a lower budget for next year. Budgets are always based on performance and quite rightly so, if they perform well they get a bigger budget to cope with the high number of guests, if they get a low number of guests their budget will be lower. This makes perfect sense and I really don't see why people see this as so "evil". No company has ever made a million by not keeping to its budgets. You maintain your position as a successful company by always keeping on top of your spending and not wasting on what you don't need.
 
Unfortunately that isn't true, as budgets have been cut year on year regardless of how well the park has performed in the previous year. If it was a one-off people might have been more understanding, but there's already staggered openings and numerous closed F&B outlets as the resources are not there to offer the full product, and haven't been for years (just look at Spinball Noodles - how long has that been closed now..?).

The season ended with 4 rides/attractions closed and at this point I'm wondering how many of them will reopen in March as it looks highly unlikely it'll be all of them, no doubt with other front line cuts too. I'm just glad my MAP doesn't expire until the end of March, as at least I'll know exactly how bad things are before I have to make a decision on renewal.
 
A few thoughts on this.

The private equity model isn't by nature harmful to a park: it seems to create the right incentives for capital expenditure and quick growth to raise the potential value in a shorter period of time. As has already been mentioned, theme parks are capex-intensive businesses. Compared to family-owned parks, there's likely to be more "larger" investments over a given timeframe - but this is just one way of framing the comparison and there can be plenty of other factors at play. (And more investment doesn't necessarily mean quality, as we've seen with Merlin.)

On the subject of job losses, it will be interesting to see which permanent roles are cut. I never thought there were that many permanent positions across the resort - hotels aside - but over the last few years quite a few seasonal staff were given annualised hours.

Will this be a fundamental restructure, or a salami-slicing exercise? I do hope the former. There's too many layers of middle management and a insular culture ("if I don't like you, you won't progress" mentality) that needs to be addressed. It may not be a popular (nor publicly-evidenced) opinion but I do think the accident earlier this year was a failing of the organisation structure and culture.
 
It may be that the news isn't as bad as it sounds, and a lot of staff will be kept on with slight changes to their contracts, or with a tweak here and there to their job title. But it’s not like Merlin to make things sound worse than they are (although I accept that Merlin don’t write the headlines, and can’t control the media). Merlin are normally good at putting a positive spin on things. We will learn more in due course (I can’t imagine we’d ever see a list of all the positions being cut), but for the time being I’m going to take this at face value.
 
I don't think it will be a hatchet job. I can see it being more scalpel cuts. jobs that are duplicated. jobs that can be done by short contract staff (seasonal). jobs that can be merged between Merlin resources.
 
On the subject of ticket prices, that was discussed on this thread a few pages back, I had a thought.
My very first Alton Towers trip (when rollercoasters still scared me) was in 1994, with my whole family. We saved vouchers up from Safeway supermarket as we couldn't otherwise afford the admission price.
But over those early 90s years we went to Drayton Manor a lot I remember Pirates and Splash Canyon both being new. It was also free (well you paid £2 car parking) to enter Drayton and then you bought a ride wristband or tickets, so that may have made it a cheaper trip as my Mum didn't need a wristband.

But overall what I remember was the fact that Alton Towers (even back then) was not affordable without vouchers, but Drayton Manor for some reason was.
 
Hmmm, interesting, because I first went in 1993, think I still have the ticket somewhere, think it was £7.50 to get in (maybe a little more), but dont recall using vouchers until a few years after that, certainally not until Tussards took it over anyway, then I switched by buying an Alton Annual Pass. I think things really changed in terms of affordability once Broom had sold it on.
 
^ Although what you say isn't untrue @GaryH, the offering very much changed at that time too. If you think about the money spent at the park in the 1990s - the return had to come from somewhere.
 
GaryH said:
Hmmm, interesting, because I first went in 1993, think I still have the ticket somewhere, think it was £7.50 to get in (maybe a little more), but dont recall using vouchers until a few years after that, certainally not until Tussards took it over anyway, then I switched by buying an Alton Annual Pass. I think things really changed in terms of affordability once Broom had sold it on.
Click to expand...

Tussauds owned AT since 1990, Runaway Mine Train was the first major ride Tussauds added to the park. I'm thinking that an AT family ticket was £50+ but the Drayton Wristbands were under £7ish each. But this was 21 years ago!
 
Really...... hmm I stand corrected then. I thought when the Thunder Looper was there the park was owned by Broom.
 
It has been a while but a slight update on this. Towers have confirmed that 98 salaried roles were lost in total as a result of the review rather than the 190 originally feared.

:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top