Clear head, resilient argument

Corporate leaders around the world are getting over the hangovers they self inflicted during their stay in Davos last week. Some, though, have been busy drawing some insights from the Swiss shindig for the corporate jet set.

The first is from McKinsey, the consultants legendary at their own corporate lunch dates: “Companies must prioritise building resilience muscles today to prepare for tomorrow.”

To be fair, while that is a useful insight (and catchy terminology), Board Agenda, sitting in a home office on the outskirts of London, could have told you that. No need for a trip to Davos. Though the Swiss mountains may provide a more convincing environment than the suburbs.

Ethical practices at risk

Companies risk falling behind on their ethical agendas because of poor measurement of working practices and culture, according to the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE). The claim comes as the IBE publishes a new guide on measuring ethical culture.

Ian Peters, director of the IBE, says: “The ability of businesses to define and measure their ethical culture is crucial to staff morale and wellbeing. We have seen a decline over the last half decade in the UK of workers claiming to receive training on what represents ethical practice and those raising concerns they have in the workplace. This should be a warning sign that companies need to up their game.” People need to be led, people!

‘Alexa, just how bad is it?’

The UK economy is having a hard time. And it seems its citizens are trying to do their background research. According to City Index, “GDP definition” is the most popular financial term searched on Google, with 165,000 searches each month, and 6% of those coming from the UK.

The next most popular term globally is “acquisition” with 130,700. Third is “equity”. The global economic downturn has got everyone making sure they know what’s happening on the news.

Knight enshrining ARGA

Sir John Kingman, the man who literally wrote the book (OK, some would call it a report) about audit regulation, is to become the chair of Barclays. Fans of audit reform documents will know Sir John wrote the thriller, Independent Review of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), back in 2018. His main recommendation: abolish the FRC and replace it with something else.

Just over four years on and, while everyone agrees, and the regulator is acting like it is a brand new body, the government still hasn’t followed through on Sir John’s advice to actually bin the watchdog and replace it with a fresh regulatory powerhouse with intimidating new powers.

Sir John himself has complained about this in the past. We can only assume that things will happen at Barclays with slightly more efficacy.