A Letter from 417 Magazine's President & Associate Publisher

Hello 417-land,

The team here is saying good-bye for a week. Two weeks actually. One now, one later this year. It’s an all-team furlough; from the owners and me all the way through the organization,  we are doing it—together.  It’s coming up June 29—July 3 and then again December 28, 2020—January 1, 2021. 

What does this mean for you? Hopefully no disruption at all! We have been planning for this as a team since mid-May. So if you subscribe, you will still get your magazine on time. If you advertise (THANK YOU), your ad will be there like always! 

Why are we doing this? As local businesses and the advertising that supports those businesses slowly returns to normal, our company's leadership team recommended we take this step to match that pause in business.

As Great Game of Business practitioners we are very transparent with our financial position and our whole team is keenly aware of the impact on our business due to COVID-19. We know we can all help improve the outcome through saving on labor costs. We wanted to do something, together, that could temporarily reduce that expense. So we chose to all take the same furlough week during our three-payroll months: July and December. 

With the CARES Act, our team members can receive the additional $600 per week provided by the federal government on top of Missouri unemployment benefits for the furloughed week in July. I communicated with each team member to show them how the furloughs would affect them financially so they could manage their budgets and optimize their personal time off. We are  working closely with our team to limit any hardships they may encounter due to the furloughs and doing a mass unemployment filing on their behalf to help make the process as easy for them as possible.

Response from our team has been overwhelmingly positive and for that we are grateful. Thank you for your understanding and support if you try to reach us during this week. We will be anxious to get back and keep cheering for 417-land!

 We remain #417strong, together.

Logan Aguirre