Nine’s skeletons won’t stay in the closet forever

Nine chair Catherine West

The consequences of Nine’s botched handling of its workplace review will be far-reaching.

Clearly, the first point of order for the company’s board, and its executive team, is to pacify the concerns of staff, and that’s not an overnight fix.

Employees are traumatised; what they understood, and hoped, would be a healing process has instead become a source of anger and betrayal.

There’s no escaping the fact that most staff who had the bravery to engage in such a process were of the belief that their concerns would be heard and acted upon. But with the board admitting that it’s in the dark as to the identities of alleged repeat workplace offenders, the unwanted onus has swung back to victimised staff to resubmit any grievances they might have through the in-house process.

For many, that’s a prospect that is too emotionally draining.

Nine chair Catherine West is said to be desperately working on ways to overcome the shortcomings of the review’s findings, but will need a fair dose of goodwill from staff to establish a genuine reset.

And the bad news for West? If what The Australian has been told is true, the company’s most confronting skeletons are still yet to tumble out of the closet.