Realignment Charges

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2020

In 2017, we began a realignment program with the objective of improving our client focus, our cost structure and the efficiency and effectiveness of our delivery while continuing to drive revenue growth. In 2019, we announced our 2020 Fit for Growth Plan which involves certain measures to simplify our organizational model and optimize our cost structure in order to partially fund the investments required to execute on our strategy and advance our growth agenda as well as our decision to exit certain content-related services that are not in line with our strategic vision for the Company.

The total costs related to our realignment program and our 2020 Fit for Growth Plan are reported in "Restructuring charges" in our unaudited consolidated statements of operations. We do not allocate these charges to individual segments in internal management reports used by the chief operating decision maker. Accordingly, such expenses are included in our segment reporting as “unallocated costs”. See Note 13.

Charges related to our realignment program and our 2020 Fit for Growth Plan were as follows:


	Three Months Ended March 31,
	2020		2019
	(in millions)
Realignment Program:
Executive Transition Costs	$	—	$	2

Employee retention costs	6		—
Professional fees	14		—
2020 Fit for Growth Plan:
Employee separation costs	26		—
Employee retention costs	4		—
Facility exit costs ⁽¹⁾	5		—
Total realignment costs	$	55	$	2

(1)Includes $3 million of accelerated depreciation.

The 2020 Fit for Growth Plan charges include $11 million of costs incurred in 2020 related to our exit from certain content-related services.

Changes in our accrued employee separation costs included in "Accrued expenses and other current liabilities" in our consolidated statements of financial position, are presented in the table below.


	(in millions)
Balance - December 31, 2019	$	47
Employee separation costs accrued	26
Payments made	(35)
Balance - March 31, 2020	$	38

There were no material employee separation costs accrued or severance payments made for the period ended March 31, 2019.