The champagne was flowing as attendees of the Business Chicks Movers + Breakers conference gathered for dinner at twilight on Wednesday.
Hours later, she posted to Instagram. “I had to make the difficult decision to reduce the number of staff and change the way we do things,” she wrote.There’s never a good time to make a redundancy announcement, but the optics were particularly bad. Employees were blindsided when they had been sent termination letters one day after Business Chicks’ Sydney headquarters unveiled its newly renovated office. The Movers + Breakers Gold Coast event was days away.
Former staff who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Business Chicks was a high-pressure environment in which often junior staff were expected to work long hours for salaries that were below what they would be offered elsewhere in the Australian market. “Nothing was done about her behaviour ... Emma’s role in that was turning a blind eye to this dreadful behaviour, to not address what was going on with this woman,” said a former staffer, who said she had vomited on some occasions from stress.
Australian model Elle Macpherson with host Emma Vosti on stage at a Business Chicks event in Melbourne in 2019. In an email to members on Monday, Isaacs explained the group was searching for new roles for out-going staff and the remaining team would be “working hard to find solutions to our business model so we can rebuild gently and sustainably”.At this stage, it’s unclear what this more sustainable business model would look like, and whether the group can deliver the scale of events it has in the past with a much smaller team.
MsEmmaK hijessicayun marywardy Excellent piece about businesschicks - pity ex staffers won’t go on the record with their concerns, but completely understandable.
MsEmmaK hijessicayun marywardy How do they think networks are formed?