The chief content officer & EVP, ViacomCBS Australia & New Zealand, Beverley McGarvey, has written to all staff today regarding measures the business is taking to sustain it through what she called unchartered waters. She has told staff she wants the business to emerge from the industry downturn “a stronger, more innovative and more agile organisation”.
McGarvey’s email said in part:
Despite more viewers turning to television for the latest news, information and entertainment that we provide, our business has been directly impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. It has clearly affected our day-to-day operations, at least temporarily.
During this time, we must continue to work together to maintain our news functions and broadcast operations, not only for us as a business but for the greater community.
Today we are announcing a suite of measures to support the needs of our employees while we adapt to changing workloads and operational needs. Our aim is to minimise both the temporary and permanent workforce impacts we are seeing at other companies in Australia and internationally. We are focused on positioning the business for resilience and growth as the social and economic impacts of the COVID 19 pandemic start to ease.
Please note the below measures do not relate to 10 Daily, 10 News, Studio 10, The Project, Broadcast Operations and Engineering.
The measures Network 10 will be implementing include:
Easter Shutdown (14 to 17 April 2020)
Enlisting the support of managers to implement an Easter Shutdown period following Easter Monday (i.e., 14 – 17 April 2020) for all employees and maintaining only a skeleton staff guided by the following:
Only employees with sufficient balances will be asked to take leave during the four days (e.g., an employee with two days may be asked to work half days for the four days of the shutdown).
Employees with high leave balances and/or whose workloads have been impacted will be asked to continue to take a longer period of leave after the Easter shutdown.
Nine day fortnight April to June
Commencing 20 April, 2020 employees will be encouraged to work a 9 day fortnight for April, May and June. If an employee has appropriate leave balances they may supplement the 10th day with annual leave or potentially long service leave.
Temporary requests for part time and increased flexibility
Enhanced opportunities are available for employees to request a temporary change to part-time work during the months of April, May and June 2020.
Change of work hours: Managers and employees can also consider split shifts wherever viable. This measure is for those who are working from home and require assistance in managing their workload with school-aged children (e.g., two hours before 8:00am, four hours during the period of 9:00am – 5:00pm and 1.6 hours after 8:00pm).