27 Nov FEARS OVER GENDER FATIGUE; PANDEMIC A REAL-TIME EXPERIMENT ON ESG INVESTING
Posted at 04:47h
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Welcome to this week’s business and media intelligence update, with insights collected over the past seven days by the Cannings team.
FEARS OVER GENDER FATIGUE
- Fears are rising that business leaders will pay less attention to gender pay equality as their focus remains on recovering from the pandemic. Analysis by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) found a 6.1 percentage point decline in the number of companies taking action to close the gender pay gap, while the gap itself narrowed by just 0.7 percentage points. Read the findings here.
PANDEMIC A REAL-TIME EXPERIMENT ON ESG INVESTING
- This year provided a real-time laboratory to test the effectiveness of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, and for many investors the results confirmed their original beliefs. Investment managers who put their funds into companies which follow ESG principles have outperformed non-ESG funds as sharemarkets were hit by the impact of the global pandemic. Read why in The AFR.
STAY-AT-HOME ECONOMY WON’T BE GOING ANYWHERE
- Even after a COVID-19 vaccine, things are not going back to “normal”. The Wall Street Journal highlights four reasons why this new stay-at-home economy will be an important part of the new normal, including the huge investment companies have made in the infrastructure needed to deliver goods and services to our homes quickly and efficiently and the subsequent new jobs it has introduced people to. Read them all here.
INCOME INVESTOR? THE WORST IS OVER
- Australian dividends plunged close to 50 per cent in the September quarter, the lowest total for a September quarter in at least 11 years, largely due to the banks slashing their payouts. But according to Jane Shoemake, investment director for Janus Henderson, the worst may soon be over. Read more in The Australian.
DISAGREEMENT? IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE DIVISIVE
- A well-functioning organisation requires employees and leaders to have productive conversations, even in the face of differences. Harvard Business Review shares an effective approach to having these conversations: conversational receptiveness in our language. This involves using language that signals a person is truly interested in another’s perspective. Read their research here.
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