09 Dec CLIMATE RISK: AUSTRALIAN DIRECTORS CONCERNED BUT NOT READY; ANCHORS AWAY: COMPANIES CONTEMPLATE ANCHOR DAYS
Welcome to this week’s business and media intelligence update.
CLIMATE RISK: AUSTRALIAN DIRECTORS CONCERNED BUT NOT READY
Australian boards see climate change as a key strategic and risk issue but many face capacity and resource constraints in responding to the challenge, according to new research by the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD).
The AICD’s Climate Governance Study, released this week, found that 77 per cent of directors are concerned about climate risk to their organisation, with almost a quarter saying they were “extremely concerned”.
However, almost 46 per cent of directors are unsure of where to start in responding to the risk with many directors citing policy uncertainty and a short-term focus by investors as key barriers to successful climate risk governance.
Read the full report here.
ANCHORS AWAY: COMPANIES CONTEMPLATE ANCHOR DAYS TO BUILD MORALE
The great return to the office appears to be underway in major Australian cities, with increasing numbers of office workers returning to the CBD. But only, as it turns out, on anchor days.
For the unenlightened among us, anchor days are “mandatory” office days, when everyone in the company commits to working together in the office for the sake of company morale.
Here, at Cannings, our anchor days are Wednesdays.
As companies do their best to adjust to growing employee requests for more flexibility, executives are hoping that anchor days can help to boost company culture – and fill up those otherwise mostly empty office floors.
You can read more about anchor days here.
… OR MAKE OFFICES LESS AWFUL
Meanwhile, companies in both the US and across Europe are working hard to lure workers back post pandemic by making offices, well, less awful, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Some companies are renovating spaces, using software so staff can coordinate visits more easily, and providing free or upgraded food. Tech giant Salesforce, for instance, has turned some of its executive offices at its San Francisco headquarters into small group conference rooms, while tripling the size of some dining areas, moving out desks and adding more couches and TV sets.
As one HR official at Unilever put it, the goal is to make offices “more like a destination”.
Read more here.
HO, HO, BLOW: SANTA CLAUS AIN’T COMING TO TOWN
First Delta, then Omicron, and now … a shortage of Santas.
News from the US this week reveals that as retailing recovers, shopping centres are facing a serious shortage of entertainers willing to don the gaudy red suits and white beards to amuse the young and old.
There are more than 3,000 shopping centres across the country looking for Santas to draw crowds and entertain shoppers, but the available supply has dropped by 10 per cent this year.
The reasons for the shortage are varied: falling unemployment rates means entertainers have better paid and more secure options, while some older Santas remain wary of COVID-19 and its new and evolving variants.
Read all about the Santa shortage here.
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