Crikey publisher Private Media has given staff until Monday to decide if they want a redundancy

Private media’s strategic reset has not worked, with editorial staff at Crikey and other publications given until Monday afternoon to put their hands up for a redundancy.

Editorial staff at Crikey publisher Private Media have until 4pm on Monday to put their hand up for a payout, an internal document sourced by The Australian reveals.

Private Media chief executive Will Hayward called a snap meeting at 3pm on Thursday, where eight redundancies — three in editorial and five non-editorial roles — were announced.

The document, which staff were asked to keep private, does not rule out forced redundancies at the company which also publishes SmartCompany, The Mandarin and Inc.Australia.

Those being laid off will be informed on Wednesday, and there will be a broader restructure of the organisation, with “all staff to receive refreshed position descriptions’’ by December 15 at the latest.

The document, titled Notification of a Major Change at Private Media says the business plan, newly forged at the start of the year, had not gone as hoped.

“This plan involved a number of revenue and audience growth initiatives, as well as measures to improve our operating leverage through standardisation, simplification, deprioritising activities that weren’t adding value, and finding opportunities for cost savings,” it says.

“Whilst we have seen some promising signs from the revenue and audience initiatives in progress, this has not been enough to counterbalance the overall reduction in revenue experienced.’’

It cites a “tough economic climate” with the company posting declining revenues over the past 12 months.

“As a result, we have come to the unfortunate decision that redundancies are necessary and that we are required to restructure a number of roles and teams across Private Media.”

The organisation also appears to be undergoing a “spill” of all positions, which allows new roles to be created and new objectives set.

“We expect that as a result of these headcount reductions and restructures across the business, that a number of roles will require a change in scope. It is hard to comment on this until we have completed the consultation process and finalised which roles will be made redundant,’’ the document says. “However, a mitigation of this impact is that all staff in Private Media will receive refreshed position descriptions which will outline the impact/s which these restructures and redundancies will have on the other roles.’’

Private Media will also ask staff who are made redundant to work until December 8, “however you’ll be paid longer than that, depending on your length of service’’.

A source present at the meetings said staff were shocked, and felt management had not adequately kept them apprised of how the business was performing.

Talking points for the Thursday afternoon meeting supplied to The Australian indicate Mr Hayward told staff: “Ultimately, it mostly comes down to advertising revenue.”

“We’ve gone from a situation where we have almost three years of record revenue to shortfalls across every major revenue line every quarter last year.

“The unfortunate conclusion is that we’ve run out of time to hope for the market to improve or for the revenue and events revenue to make up for the shortfall.

“Unfortunately, what I’m really saying is we now need to start to think about redundancies.”

These quotes were supplied to Mr Hayward and not refuted. Private Media said in a statement to The Australian: “Like much of the market, Private Media has had a very challenging year for advertising revenue’’.

“We have now made the decision to reduce our commercial headcount. We are working with the union on any changes to our editorial team.’’

Crikey executed a sharp u-turns in its strategy as recently as last month, when it informed subscribers that its round up of other publishers’ breaking news items, the Worm, would go from being a free offering to a paid product.