A staff member at Education Perfect told the Otago Daily Times they felt betrayed after members of the about 40-strong team faced losing their jobs.
They said staff learnt of the proposal to make a quarter of the team redundant a day after chief executive Alex Burke reiterated comments made in public that it was business as usual after global investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) announced it was taking a majority stake.
The deal valued the company at $455 million.
About 150 of the company’s 200 staff work from its Dunedin office.
Staff who work outside the content team were not included in the restructuring.
The staff member in the content team, whom the ODT has agreed not to name, said under the proposal all members of the team would have to reapply for their jobs.
Lesson content would be outsourced on a gig economy basis from across the globe, rather than being created in-house.
The staff who remained would be restructured into proof-reading roles.
When the KKR deal was announced, Mr Burke said that "nothing will change".
"It will still be a Dunedin and Otago home. We see that Kiwi heritage as really important to us.
"I will be staying in with my leadership team, so it will be business as usual," he said last month.
The staff member said Mr Burke briefed staff on Thursday, when he reiterated that message.
However, the day after, several meetings were held by Mr Burke and head of operations Emma McAllister with members of the content team to brief them on the redundancy proposal.
The staff members affected have until Friday this week to respond to the proposal. An announcement is due on Wednesday next week.
The staff member described it as "a kick in the guts for the team".
"After seeing Alex’s comment about nothing will change, it feels like he flat out lied to us."
"It is a massive blow to people’s careers. It makes me feel hurt, I feel livid. The whole thing just makes us feel undervalued and not wanted," they said.
The staff member said the issue had worried the whole team over the weekend.
Despite what had happened, they described Education Perfect as a "fun" place to work.
They did not believe they could get another job like it in Dunedin.
"It is Dunedin, it’s small, Dunedin is my home, I have a house ... I can’t just move anywhere and what I have done is so niche for so long that my chances of getting another job are pretty slim.
"Now, the thing is, we are all going to be possibly looking for the same jobs," they said.
A spokeswoman for Education Perfect did not answer specific questions about the restructuring but said it had carried out restructuring in the past as the company evolved and grew.
Building a high-growth company meant adopting structures, engaging talent and placing the right people in the right roles, which was a critical component to securing a strong foundation that allowed for growth.
The spokeswoman also pointed out they had employed 100 new staff in the past year.
"The firm will continue to create a significant number of new jobs and opportunities in New Zealand and Australia as it continues to grow."
Education Perfect provides education tools to pupils all over the world and is now used by 85% of all New Zealand secondary schools, its largest market now being in Australia.
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Comments
Should be unionised.
Common story of NZ workplaces - we do not value our own and off to the wide world we go for what already exists as a loyal, capable workforce that help build the company, New Zealanders already producing the New Zealand way.
A proposal by Friday and announcement by Wednesday -seems to say the consideration of it all.
One thing investment firms know how to do and that's run any business. You see much like the Cadburys model what you do is as soon as you take the reins you take the successful recipe what ever made that business a success and immediately change it to save a few dollars cause hey what does it matter they will never know the difference. Business school 101
While I am gutted for these people impacted, some I know personally, I hope as well as having a crack at the new owners they also consider thanking our government and their best intentions that simply result in lumping ever increasing costs on running a businesses in NZ. Its no consolation to them at all but the reality is it is becoming more and more commercially sensible to outsource work, and unfortunately, despite this government popping its head in the sand and wishing it wasn't so, the real world doesn't run on kindness.
Well good luck with getting your education content from "gig economy" workers. That just means buying your content from countries where english is a second or third language and where other subject matter experts are simply someone who can bash together a half hearted bit of prose. The remaining in house content workers will just spend their time rewriting the mess that comes in.
When the owners sell out to asset strippers such as KKR it never ends well for employees and rarely for the business. They are all about slashing costs and reselling the shell of what they bought.
This is what KKR and other Venture Capital Companies - The will take what they can from the business and then sell it....in other words they are property Flippers on steroids.