Images courtesy WynActive
Resilience is the key to bouncing back Brad Kingsbury explains Melbourne’s WynActive resilience in light of the COVID-19 pandemic
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ynActive, a leisure management organisation in the west of Melbourne, has become an industry leader in resilience, as the aquatic and recreation sector battles to recover ground in the post pandemic-shutdown environment. In 2014, Wyndham City Council established a whollyowned, local government business enterprise, Western Leisure Services (WLS), to manage its three major aquatic and recreation facilities, AquaPulse, Eagle Stadium and the Werribee Outdoor Pool. WLS operates as WynActive, and that name is set to become well known as an example of how to maintain the loyalty and commitment of staff and community while navigating through multiple forced shutdowns. Greater Melbourne has the ignominious label as having had the world-record longest pandemic lockdown (263 days*), resulting in a massive hit to the leisure and recreation industry. Indoor gyms were forced to close for a total of 368* days since the start of the pandemic in February 2020. Aquatics and Recreation Victoria (ARV) Chief Executive, Kathy Parton, sees that the many impacts of the pandemic have been devastating for a lot of organisations, presenting unique challenges for organisations, community and the industry as a whole, with all combining to create significant barriers to recovery. Noting that there had also been a major effect on staff numbers and skill levels, Parton stated “many qualified and skilled staff have exited the industry since the commencement of the pandemic. ARV has been advised that this is due to perceived concerns regarding the instability of the industry as an employer, salary rates and length of time and commitment to enter the industry as a qualified employee. “I believe there are many current industry issues that will require long term response strategies.” So why has WynActive had success when so many, often bigger organisations, have not? Resilience and ability to adapt well in the face of adversity is the key. WynActive’s swift implementation of measures to
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mitigate the impact of sudden facility closures on staff and the community was critical to creating positive momentum. WynActive facilities service a population of 283,294 with an annual growth rate of 4.7% (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2020), and most of its staff team live in the community they serve. At its peak, WynActive employed 370 staff across its three facilities and was forced to stand down 95% of employees during the initial lockdown. WLS Chief Executive, Alison Dixon said the reality of that was devastating, commenting “after holding out for the first seven weeks, we were forced to make the call to stand down and there were a lot of tears on all sides. “Initially there was a sense of confusion and disbelief that we were, essentially, out of business, but the senior leadership team immediately acted to keep our staff involved as much as we could. “As a local government body, we were not entitled to JobKeeper so we were behind other organisations that were, but we couldn’t dwell on that because it wasn’t going to change. “We made it clear to each staff member that they were important, and we wanted them to stay connected so we could move quickly to re-employ and re-engage with our community at the earliest possible time.” The effort to create team unity was hugely successful, with WynActive staff teams continuing to engage with each other online through scheduled exercise groups, coffee and drinks chats, trivia nights and even cooking sessions. Dixon added “not everyone involved themselves in this of course, but we encouraged all our leaders to regularly call their staff members just to check in. It was a simple idea but hugely important to each person as well as our organisation.” When WynActive centres were able to reopen, the benefits of these efforts were evident, with the majority of staff quickly on board and committed to welcoming community members back. With its staff engaged, the next challenge for the organisation
