Bank’s employees ordered to apply for leave if they’re not showing up at their desks enough

Commonwealth Bank chief Matt Comyn may end up rueing the way CBA uses data to assess staff productivity.

Is this Matt Comyn’s Robodebt moment?

The Commonwealth Bank is harvesting tracking data on its staff and ordering workers to apply for leave if their online activity, or physical activity, suggests they aren’t spending enough time being productive.

Such surveillance measures are not exclusive to CBA, but Margin Call understands the bank has taken the additional step of using the data to hound employees about putting in leave if they don’t seem to be clicking their mouse enough.

A by-product of hybrid work arrangements, team leaders are being presented with physical attendance data, along with computer data, and encouraged to interrogate suspected cases of absenteeism, half-dayism and long lunchism, especially if trends appear to form.

CBA confirmed to Margin Call that it collects data on employees using Navigate, a mobile app ostensibly deployed so staff can “access the building where they work, book meeting rooms and find their colleagues”. It’s said to be used by a large cohort of the workforce but not the entirety of CBA’s global staff of 48,000 people.

If anything it’s actually a rather scurvy way of treating one’s overworked wage-earners during a period of what the Finance Sector Union called “rampant understaffing” – especially when the bank reported a record first-half profit of $5.15bn.

“The information we collect has been useful in ensuring our people stay in touch in the various ways of work we support at CBA or, for example, to record the appropriate type of leave taken when our employees take leave or are off work,” a spokesman said.

“This has been especially helpful throughout and post-Covid as people have returned to the office, allowing us to better manage space in our corporate offices.”

So wholesome when the bank puts it that way, although it does bring to mind pangs of the Robodebt scheme, the shame of which is currently playing out in the form of a royal commission.

In that case, the federal government incorrectly calculated overpayments to scores of thousands of welfare recipients and went on to pursue them for debt recovery, pushing some into grave psychological turmoil, and even further.

Refunds and class actions followed. A useful lesson for some, perhaps.

Cat spat

Things certainly seem to be going off-piste with Tim Gurner’s Saint Moritz development in St Kilda.

Investment billionaire Alex Waislitz and his business partner Antony “The Cat” Catalano paid in the ballpark of $30m for penthouse apartments, as did Afterpay investor John McBain, whose pad adjoins Waislitz’s.

Still, rumours persist that Gurner hasn’t made any money on the project – yet.

Leaving aside the standard fare of cost overruns and delays, we’re hearing relations have also started to deteriorate between vendor and buyer – namely Gurner and Cat.

Property developer Tim Gurner in his St Kilda development. Picture: Aaron Francis

The sticking point appears to be the quality of some of the penthouse finishes, or so an industry source explained, and it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility if the brouhaha affected settlement.

Things are getting tense between them. We hear it all started over the artist renderings taking a bit too much licence.

So is it the temperature-controlled wine cellar causing the drama? The spiral staircase? The Marquina bathtub?

Catalano wasn’t available to clarify. He was supposed to move in with his family next month but that timeline looks to be on ice, for the moment.

Hagger’s new gig

Former banker Andrew Hagger is on a “career break”, according to his LinkedIn bio, his “first ever” after stepping down as the dual-CEO of Andrew Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation and the family’s private investment vehicle, Tattarang.

The circumstances of his departure were extremely polite, of course. Hagger, who didn’t make it to four years, praised Forrest on the way out the door and Forrest duly reciprocated.

“I have enjoyed such a close, trusting relationship with Andrew for the past four years, and that will continue,” the billionaire said.

We’ll see about that.

Margin Call has now learned that Hagger is turning his mind to opening a boutique corporate advisory firm that should take shape in the coming months. We assume that will involve advising on deals, among other specialities.

Can the man cut a deal? Since leaving the Forrest empire he’s certainly trumpeted his role in a number of them, and his LinkedIn profile, updated with sedulous care, certainly attests to a skill for self-promotion. We’ll find out soon enough.

Formerly a NAB executive, Hagger was hired by Forrest in 2019 after becoming a casualty of the Hayne royal commission, where he received a great amount of scowling in the witness box for allegedly withholding information from the corporate regulator. That was over the bank’s dastardly fees-for-no-service scandal. He was cleared by ASIC in 2019.

We can only regard his departure from Forrest’s family investment office as a bit sudden. Time to seek new challenges and all that jazz, or so he said at the time.

It remains to be seen whether Forrest will, indeed, do business with Hagger in this latest venture; our pulse-checking tells us that Hagger shouldn’t take it for granted.

Right at home

Former Australian ambassador to America and ex-Liberal treasurer Joe Hockey was in demand on Tuesday, helping to unpack the details of the $368bn AUKUS security deal.

Meanwhile, on the ground in downtown Hunters Hill, Hockey’s investment banker wife Melissa Babbage is no doubt focused on matters closer to home.

The power couple own historic local mansion Wybelena House, which they bought for about $8m in 2018, long before the family’s stint in Washington came to an end.

Joe Hockey and wife Melissa Babbage. Picture: Nick Klein

Now that Babbage is back living in Hunters Hill, it would seem that she and Hockey – both directors at boutique advisory Bondi Partners – have been turning their attention to planning approvals for additions to the family home.

Babbage has been manoeuvring plans through the local council to spend more than $100,000 on the 1874-built sandstone pile, including a new in-ground swimming pool.

Looks like that’s going to include the removal of a rather large tree, a decision that requires the green light from local authorities. The home is in Babbage’s name, while Hockey lists an apartment in Washington as his base.

words