Hallmark cares enough to send the very best ... jobs to China

The year Don Hall Jr. took over, Hallmark closed the printing plant at its headquarters on Grand. The move marked the first time since 1914 that the company wasn't printing cards in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. (The only cards now printed at the headquarters are from a closet-sized machine displayed in the Hallmark Visitors Center.) Steve Doyal, Hallmark's senior vice president of public affairs, told The Kansas City Business Journal at the time that all 340 employees who worked at the closed printing plant had been given the option of transferring to facilities in Kansas, but it's unclear how many took that offer. "It wasn't an easy decision," Doyal told the Business Journal. "It was a smart decision."

Hall rarely makes public appearances, but a speech he gave at the 2007 Governor's Summit in Kansas City is still online. In it, he speaks about the need for Missouri and Kansas to work together. But it sounds like he could be championing outsourcing as a way to compete globally.

"We are in a race without a finish line," Hall said. "The competition is the rest of the country and, indeed, the rest of the world. We must build muscle not only to stay in the race but to be at the head of the race."

When Winson Shuen moved to Hong Kong to work for Hallmark in 2005, it was obvious that the office didn't run like other Chinese workplaces. For one thing, most of his fellow employees worked a standard 40-hour week, unlike many workers in China, who are required to stay for unpaid overtime. And then there were the parties.

Every month, Hallmark threw a party in its lobby for anybody whose birthday or anniversary fell during that month. Everyone broke for the day around 4 p.m. to snack on fried chicken wings, samosas, candy, salad and soda. "I hadn't seen anything like it in China," Shuen tells The Pitch. "They were quite nice to their employees."

Shuen's title was graphic art engineer, but his duties were mainly quality control. He paid regular visits to the Chinese factories that Hallmark hired to print its greeting cards, wrapping paper and the gift items sold at Hallmark stores. With Hallmark outsourcing more and more of its work, it was a busy job.

When Shuen left in 2006 to move back to the Bay Area, Hallmark had 300 employees in Hong Kong and was preparing to move into a bigger space in the 70-floor Harbourfront Landmark building to accommodate more. "We were just growing so fast," recalls Shuen, who spoke to The Pitch by phone from San Francisco. "We were adding new people all the time."

According to online job listings, Hallmark continues to hire employees in China, even as it lays off or fires employees in Kansas City. One online ad boasts that Hallmark needs employees "in support of our rapidly growing global procurement activities" in China.

It's unclear how many jobs Hallmark has outsourced. Shuen estimates that Hallmark was contracting with at least three Chinese factories and was looking to expand in China when he left. Hallmark has responded to press inquiries about outsourcing deals — when they've been made public. In June 2007, the company transferred some ribbon-making work overseas from its 50-year-old plant in Lawrence. The plant still makes ribbons for Hallmark, but a portion of the work that used to be done there is now handled by a Chinese factory. When that outsourcing announcement was made, the company also said it would close one of its two factories in Leavenworth and put the other up for sale.

Not all of Hallmark's work has gone overseas. In 2004, the company signed a $230 million, seven-year deal with Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc. to handle IT work. The switch required 135 employees to move from Hallmark to Affiliated. Hallmark said it would save $50 million by switching the positions to the Dallas firm.

Among the jobs lost this year were five in the "writing studio." Those cuts occurred when the company redefined job titles and created "required specific skill sets" that some of the writers didn't have, O'Dell says. Two of those writers retired, one left the company with severance pay and two took part-time positions, O'Dell says.

Meanwhile, in its Kansas City headquarters, many employees who spoke to The Pitch complained that complicated jobs once handled by longtime employees are now handled by temps who lack training.