Second glance

Magazines and organisations

Assuming that one runs an organisation and wishes to offer its employees access to subscription magazines, what does one do? Well the simplest way would be to get a print subscription, put the copy in a library, hope the employees come across it and be done with it. This approach begs a few questions. Why would the organisation want to offer said magazines to its employees? Do the employees even know that they are being offered the magazine to read? And would they really care?

The organisation might want to offer these magazines to introduce its employees to the latest ideas and technologies, like trade magazines, or maybe to have a well informed staff. Having ones employees well versed in the goings on in the industry and trade would be beneficial to the organisation. Maybe the organisation wants to offer its employees the perk of a subscription.  If one copy was left lying in the library, would the employees even notice that. Even if they do, would they pick it up. Two things might happen. The first being that the magazine in question is popular. The first person to lay eyes on it would pick it up. Eventually it would pass from hand to hand ending up at someones desk, without anyone have a clue about its whereabouts. It certainly would not last long in the library and many new employees would not be aware of the magazine. The second being that the employees couldn't care less about the magazines. In which case, it would continue to remain in the same spot till the next issue came along.

If the magazine turned out to be popular, or if it was intended as a perk, one copy i the library would not be very helpful. The number of copies would have to increase along with the expense. Even then, there is a limit to the number or copies. For an organisation of a few thousand employees, the number of copies required to that everyone gets to read it would be huge. This is true especially if the time between new issues is small, say a week. Maybe the subscription could be digital, as with one digital subscription, the reader can have access to the magazine online. The point of lost copies would be moot. And the cost of a digital subscription is usually lesser. The organisation could take out a digital subscription, provide the employees the user name and password. Since very few , maybe none at all, publication restrict the number of simultaneous logins from the same account, the organisation could well get away with it. This would be very convenient, but for when the company wants the subscription to be seen as a perk.

If employees left the company, they would still have access to the magazine online. The only way to prevent this would be to periodically change the password and notify all its current employees of the change. That would be very inconvenient and more often than not forgotten.

So why not a new plan for corporate subscriptions? The employees would register independently with the magazine's website without subscribing to it and tell the company the user name or e-mail used for the registration. The employer would then notify the magazine to give new employee's account access to subscription privileges. And if the employee chooses to leave, the subscription privileges would then be terminated. But the account would continue to remain. The company would pay the magazine for a number of subscriptions based on it employee strength. But, what should that number be?

One could say that the company should pay for as many subscriptions as the number of employees. But this could turn out to be too simplistic an analysis. If the number of employees and into the hundreds even, the company would balk at paying for a hundred subscriptions. And such an exorbitant demand would put off other organisations looking for such a subscription. Also, the company, by providing a subscription to its employees is providing publicity to the magazine. Many of the employees would never have heard of the magazine before joining the company. Some of them may like magazine enough to independently subscribe should they choose to leave the company. And the magazine is being provided with a large number of readers who may give the advertisements a second glance. The number of subscriptions would definitely be a fraction of the number of employees, but the exact number may come later.