Club Metro is an amalgamation of the Wanganui Returned & Services Association (RSA) and the former Cosmopolitan Club. Photo / File
Club Metro is an amalgamation of the Wanganui Returned & Services Association (RSA) and the former Cosmopolitan Club. Photo / File
Jobs are expected to be lost at Club Metro as the club battles to get its finances under control.
The club has announced a restructure in what interim manager Rod Hart says will "put the club on a better financial footing" but "some staff will lose their positions with Club Metro as a result of this process".
Hart said there would be fewer staff but more would be full-time, better trained and on higher wages.
"It's not so much about saving money as it is aligning people with the right jobs and paying our full-time staff a living wage."
The club's 19 staff were told about the proposed change last week.
Club Metro is an amalgamation of the Wanganui Returned & Services Association (RSA) and the former Cosmopolitan Club. The two joined together in July 2018.
Both had debt, and last year then board chairman Robert Allen told members in a letter that a loan of $671,000 was due for repayment on February 10.
Hart did not comment on whether that would be repaid and said the club did not want to "tell the world" about the its financial situation but said the restructure is one of the strategies to fix it.
By the end of a six-week review period, their number could drop to about eight full-time staff and four part-timers, Hart said.
All front-of-house staff would be trained to work across both the bar and dining room, and qualified to step in as duty managers.
Staff were "naturally" feeling unsure and upset, and the club was doing everything it could to help them, Hart said.
The wages of full-time staff will rise from $17.70 an hour to $21 to $22 an hour. The club wants to become "an employer of choice".
Full-time staff would be more professional, and more aligned with the club ethos. Hart is the former chairman of the club's board, and has temporarily taken over as manager after Shar Atkins left.
The club has 450 members, and 25 have joined in the last month. It was definitely trending upwards, he said.
"There are people who didn't like the way the RSA was handled when it first amalgamated, and they are sniping from a distance. The truth is that the RSA is functioning very well. Some of the people need to come and have a look."
