listings and journalism firm majority owned by Nine Entertainment Holdings, which also owns newspapers including The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Domain, and the real estate industry in general, has been hard hit by plummeting listings and plateauing home prices. Project Zipline Because it is part owned by the public and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, it has had to explain its approach to shareholders. Its April 26 announcement notes that about 45 per cent of its cost base relates to staff and employee-related expenses. “We had the option of taking the standard path of reducing hours, stand downs and redundancies, chief executive Jason Pellegrino explained on the Domain website. He chose another option: Project Zipline employees were offered the opportunity to participate in a share rights program whereby they could receive a percentage of their salary package over the next six months in share rights, or alternatively elect to reduce working hours The target is a 20 per cent reduction in staff costs, while retaining employee talent and “momentum for the long term”. It’ll also help align the employees and the organisational interests. Domain’s group director for employee experience, Rosalind Tregurtha says there has been a 90 per cent take up of the options offered. Sacrifices at the top The executive leadership and board are role modelling by taking greater proportions of their own remuneration in share rights: 30 per cent and 50 per cent. It has had to work quickly so the savings can start from May. The work has included preparing information packs for managers and employees, briefing managers, asking employees to chose options, working with Link Market Services to get offers out and processing the changes for the more than 600 employees on the payroll. Zipline is a case study of an organisation working quickly with its workers to find a solution that works. It mightn’t work elsewhere. Other options for businesses include offering greater work flexibility including shortened weeks and job sharingfreezing or limiting recruitmentrestricting or banning overtime increasing the scope of jobsallowing employees to take accrued leavedirecting employees to take unpaid leave under the government’s stand down provisions seeking voluntary redundancies Whatever option works the best, for many employers doing nothing is not an option. It is important to consider, as Domain did, that while demand for their services might have slowed for a time, there is every likelihood that in the not too distant future things will pick up. The firms that have done all they can to retain their industry knowledge and company experience will be the best placed for revival. Robyn Johns, Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations, University of Technology Sydney This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.