The Hartford closing some offices in central Connecticut
I’d like to use this news story as teachable moment. The Hartford Financial Services Group is planning to consolidate offices in a cost-saving measure that will move upwards of 900 employees out of its Southington, Conn. office. Is The Hartford outsourcing jobs to other cities and towns?
From the Hartford Courant.
The Hartford has been downsizing its presence in Southington since 2009 when it confirmed plans to close two offices on Executive Boulevard. In October, 2009, when The Hartford announced the closing of the second office, the company said it would have 900 employees remaining in Southington, mostly in sales and customer service.
Prior to the consolidation, about 2,000 of the insurer’s employees were located in Southington.
These are business decisions and thankfully there are no layoffs associated with the move. So all should be good right?
Well, my guess is businesses in Southington, who just two years ago provided 2,000 Hartford employees everything from dry-cleaning services to lunches might have something to be concerned about. Hopefully, these 2,000 vacated cubes will be filled by employees from other companies, but how much will the local economy suffer because of this move?
Should The Hartford be targeted by government bureaucrats for efforts to consolidate and/or move operations. Think about the Obama administration’s National Relations Labor Board (NRLB) and their recent attack on Boeing. Boeing hired more people in Seattle, expanded operations to South Carolina and hired even more people, and they get attacked by the government for doing so.
No, this story is not about outsourcing, but just like when a company elects to move offices or manufacturing plants to other states or other countries, this story is about business decisions that will help to keep costs as low as possible while still providing the expected level of service.
12 Comments
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I visualize Corrupticut as a “Mad Max” type wasteland….
I worked at the Southington place and now I’m in Farmington. It’s all about they don’t own the buildings and were leasing, and when the lease came up they moved to other offices to save money on the rent. Now we’re moving to Hartford, commute is gonna be awful.
Too bad Blumenthal isn’t here to sue them into keeping that office open.
Call him winnie, maybe he’ll listen to you and come back to pressure them. Or? not because they arn’t unionized—-damn
It’s just so silly. No one in any govt. understands business or listens to businesspeople.? They think they can coerce business to stay somewhere and lose money. I don’t know maybe they are right.? When all businesses are owned by the govt. , what will our country become?
I worked for the Hartford Insurance company briefly in 1985 at this office. ?Both buildings filled with employees…..just this past year I drove by, there is a whole new shopping complex over there from Target, to Lowes…and there standing empty was one of the buildings that the Hartford occupied, and the other one looked half empty.
I don’t think the question is should the government target them for cutting back…but the?question?should be ? Why? ?My feeling is that the Hartford in order to cut expenditures opted to close the location(s)… But on the Other hand Malloy did say the state of CT is open for business…
Tom your right, CT is open for business and Malloy is making sure there are plenty of empty buildings for business to move into or should I say avoid moving into.?
hah, how’s about one of the executives going to work for the Obama admin, too!
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yet another company where the HR department has completely taken the place over and makes themselves the center of focus!
?
how’s about an old longtime shareholder getting up at a meeting and telling Ayer thanks for trashing the company and stock!? $52 to $4 says it all.
It was just a few short weeks ago when Liam McGee, chairman, president and CEO of The Hartford Financial Services Group, along with for other large company CEOs wrote a letter endorsing the Malloy/Democrat budget.
The letter said “As business leaders with long-standing commitments to Connecticut, we understand, appreciate and accept this in the context of a credible budget.”
I should have gotten out before the conveyance tax went up.
OK – Some commenting have seemed to miss the point of this post, but that’s OK. This is not about The Hartford, but HIG sure seems to be a hot-button issue…
Steve, the htfd wouldnt have to be leaving southington if the incompetent executive team hadnt done such a poor job – and then exit with guaranteed 20 million dollar bonuses.? Sure its partially the business climate and downstream effects of local, state, and federal governments that have no more control over their purses than a crackhead has over opening his wallet for the next rock – but the root cause of this lies with the company.
OK – Closing the topic to comments. I guess the point of my article – which has absolutely nothing to do with The Hartford other than the fact I used their move as an example to highlight a bigger picture – was missed. My fault I guess.