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Going to market: Cricket Australia makes jobs plea to Woolworths for stood-down staff
By Andrew Wu
Staff stood down by Cricket Australia could find new jobs stacking supermarket shelves under a plan by the governing body to find alternative work for its employees.
CA chief executive Kevin Roberts has written to his counterpart at Woolworths, Brad Banducci, to ask if the supermarket giant can help make up for the loss of hours by cricket staff after drastic cuts at head office.
Up to 80 per cent of full-time staff at the organisation, which has a workforce of about 330, have been stood down on 20 per cent pay for the final two months of the financial year. National coaches Justin Langer and Matthew Mott are among those who have had their hours reduced.
Stood-down staff have not been given guarantees they will return on July 1.
Of the $20 million CA says it has saved, $3 million is coming from the standing down of staff, a move some states believe is an overreaction.
Cricket Australia boss Kevin Roberts has written to Woolworths enquiring if there is work for his stood-down staff.Credit: Getty Images
Staff are not eligible for the government's $1500 JobKeeper subsidy as CA's revenue has not fallen enough.
"Our people and culture team is also working with other organisations who are in the habit of placing people in organisations and industries that have a temporary need for more people," Roberts said on SEN radio station on Wednesday.
"We're doing things proactively, absolutely. People are at the centre of everything we do and as much as we hate making those sorts of decisions we had to make last week, the other side of the coin is certainly we're supporting our people and looking for even temporary opportunities to be involved and earning income elsewhere when their income is reduced from cricket."
There is disquiet among staff who have been blindsided by the sudden changes after believing Roberts had given a sense of confidence the game was well placed to deal with the pandemic.
Roberts, however, defended his messaging at his tri-weekly online meeting, saying he had received words of support in "appreciation of our transparency and frequency of our communication".
"We walked to last week's stand-downs," Roberts said. "There's no doubt my tone changed maybe halfway through those 15 live streams when we started to feel the impact of it and understood the impact on a number of our stakeholders around the game.
"Certainly there was a change in tone from the start to where we are now but that was gradual. I'm comfortable we've been open with our people all along. I have to say our people have been fantastic."
While stood-down staff have had their pay cut by 80 per cent, Roberts and his executive team, many of whom are working much longer days, are taking 20 per cent less pay.
Roberts said he was mindful of potential damages to working relationships between rank and file staff and the executive team.
"It's something we need to continue to manage sensitively, no doubt, and we are doing that which is why we're communicating with our people every second day," Roberts said.
"And our people can ask me any question on a live stream every second day. Great tool these days for people to be able to log questions through keyboards rather than front up to the CEO and ask those questions verbally."