Egghead On Target With Move Key Managers, Core Group Of Employees Will Follow Software Giant To Spokane

About 40 of Egghead Software’s 250 Issaquah employees will follow the company to Spokane as it transfers its corporate headquarters here.

The transfers include seven of nine of the company’s top management team, whom Egghead officials say are key to its operations.

Egghead officials said the number of employees who are coming is right in line with its original “10-to-20 percent” estimate made when Egghead formally announced its corporate headquarters move in July.

“We have two vice presidents who aren’t coming,” Kurt Conklin, vice president of human resources, said Thursday. “All the rest are.”

Peter Janssen, Egghead’s vice president of merchandising and advertising, and Judy Meleliat, vice president of marketing support, left the company rather than make the move, Conklin said. Carolyn Tobias, the company’s chief financial officer, left the company several months ago because of the move, Conklin added.

“We’ve had a very few people who initially said yes to the move change their minds and say no,” Conklin said, “but we’ve had quite a few more who first said no decide to come.”

Egghead is well into the process of hiring Spokane-area workers to replace the Seattle employees who do not make the move.

A big factor in the reluctance of rank-and-file employees to move across the mountains, Conklin said, is that most are in two-job families. Rather than face the unknowns of moving here, they chose to stay where they are established and where the other spouse has a job.

Another factor, Conklin said, is that the Egghead employees have not had difficulty finding new jobs in the Seattle area. The company has made “an all-out effort” to assist them in finding other jobs there if they want to stay.

“We’re not leaving here because our employees aren’t good employees,” Conklin said. “The Egghead people here are good people. They’ve been able to find jobs here without having to relocate.”

A significant factor in who has decided to make the move, Conklin said, “is the dynamics of who in the management team has decided to go and who has decided to stay.

“People have certain alliances and loyalties, and that plays a big part,” he said.

Regardless of who is coming and who isn’t, Conklin said Egghead continues to be pleased with the caliber of people available to it in the Spokane job force.

The company has already reached 99 percent staffing in its accounting division, which formally moves here this weekend.

It has hired about 45 local people for that department.

Conklin said the company has already filled 12 of the 15 positions it has available in advertising, and has hired 15 of the 30 people it will ultimately need in its information systems division.

“We are very satisfied with both the quality and the availability of the skill sets we have been looking for,” Conklin said.

The company will hire about 200 people locally in positions with salaries ranging from $30,000 to $60,000 to staff the corporate headquarters.

Egghead’s move began in January when it consolidated 10 regional sales and service centers in Spokane.

Along with the headquarters transfer, the move is expected to cost about $3 million and be completed in January.

Egghead expects to save money in the long run on labor and occupancy costs.

, DataTimes