Home Depot has offered nearly 600 Olympians the opportunity to work part-time and train full-time with full-time benefits since 1992. However, they apparently haven’t received their money’s worth for the investment, so the not-quite-free ride’s over as the program will end soon.
(Olympian Ronda Rousey and Paralympian Jeff Skiba participated in the program in 2008)
Olympians currently employed by Home Depot will have the option to work part-time and get paid for it, apply for full-time jobs and work full-time, or walk away by March 2.
The Atlanta-based company has been thinking about not renewing its Olympic connections since last May, when people still lived in homes in the United States. The number of Olympians currently enrolled in the program has been reported from 86 to 98, down from 137 before the Beijing Olympics.
Home Depot emphasizes the program’s end has nothing to do with the economy, which might hold some comfort for their stakeholders. However, the Olympians who will now either look for other work or move back in with their parents might suggest that the economy’s affecting them a little harder now.
6:55 pm on January 10th, 2009
so let's round to 100 athletes @ $6,000 yr in benefits, this is costing them approx $600K/yr. Do they really think the good PR they received wasn't worth it; or, that the bad PR they are now receiving is worth it? This, from the company that paid their FIRED CEO almost $300 MILLION!
7:01 pm on January 10th, 2009
There's also the finance dept. that has to track this and the HR person that has to administer this and the legal person that has to draw up the paperwork each year and the dozen or so meetings at minimum to check on it and then there's paperwork to process and…… but let's not kid ourselves. "It's not about the economy" isn't the same as "it's not about the money". It's definitely about the money.
10:55 pm on January 10th, 2009
I wonder how many of them are going to call us saying that they were being discriminated against *eye roll*