Federal budget 2024: industry reactions and strategic messaging

There is plenty of commentary and analysis of Dr Chalmers’ Third Budget in the newspapers and elsewhere in the media and I don’t intend to add to that. Instead, I thought I would look at the reaction to the budget from civil society and the industry groups that represent the multiple vested interests in our economy and the broader community. It is illuminating to see how they frame their responses, and it is worth thinking about what they were looking…

Gender pay gap data… and how employers respond

Shock, horror…we have a gender pay gap problem in corporate Australia! On 27 February, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) released data on median gender pay gaps* of over 5,000 private sector employers with 100 or more employees noting that publishing employer gender pay gaps aims to help accelerate employer action. This data has been collected for many years but never published in this fashion. Just under a third of employers have a median pay gender gap within the target…

In praise of the rubber chicken

One of the corporate rituals that fell away in recent times was the corporate eight-to-a-table lunch in a hotel ballroom. I am happy to say that the rubber chicken[1] circuit is back! I have noticed that many industry associations are filling their calendars with lunches, breakfasts, cocktail events and this is a good thing. As humans we crave connection and as those working for companies, institutions, universities, governments and consultancies, a corporate event meets that need. It has other benefits…

‘Are we right to go?’

This short statement sums up much of Dan Andrews’ communications skills. A line that signalled the start of yet another COVID-era press conference. As people in the communications game, it is worth reflecting on Dan Andrews as a professional, political communicator. The first point to make is that he threw out most of the old rule book on how to manage political messaging. He was effectively the first post-mainstream media Premier. He simply didn’t bother trying to chase the approval…

Just ask me…

Daymark is in the midst of stakeholder survey ‘reporting season’. Several of our clients have asked us to complete stakeholder sentiment surveys for them; some for the first time, others are on their fourth or more annual iterations. Our sentiment surveys generally involve one-to-one, face-to-face surveys based on an agreed set of questions with a combination of quantitative questions and qualitative as well. We encourage interviewees to be open and honest and we capture verbatim comments which are supplied to…

Standing for something

The voices are clamouring… ‘be our sponsor’, ‘lead our effort to support this cause, ‘use some of your huge profits to deal with this important issue’. If you are a Director, a CEO or a Corporate Affairs executive these are common refrains. But while we all naturally wish to support worthy causes and advance important social issues, how do you decide to back a particular issue? At Daymark we have dealt with these questions both as executives in large corporations…

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A guide to the consultation wonderland

Everyday across the nine governments at the federal and state level, there are literally hundreds of consultation processes underway (and that is before we consider more than 530 local councils.) At the moment the relatively new federal government is in the midst of multiple consultation exercises across all portfolios. The two highest profile examples are the Employment White Paper which is itself a continuation of the extensive engagement in the lead up to the Jobs and Skills Summit in September.…

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Policy issues that matter in the next Parliament

As former PM Keating said, ‘when you change the government you change the country.’ Those changes will be both in the policy space and in the politics that surround it. This is our attempt to predict the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ in the next three years. Policy Many policy matters can be pursued by the executive government, but they will still be important to the Parliament. These are the likely top 10 policy issues for the 47th Parliament: 1.Cost of…

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Things you don’t want to hear as a reputation advisor

When you’ve been in the business of reputation awhile, there are a few phrases that raise alarm bells. They are indicative of an approach that has been known to create obstacles. We’re designing the logo ourselves No one goes to the website so we don’t need to worry about it The legal team is running the comms We’re compliant so we’re safe The issue was raised but resolved with that one employee We need to be seen as taking action…

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The ‘activist’ dilemma

As reputation specialists, exasperated clients come to us with the ‘activist’ dilemma. Will we be worse off if we engage and give them air or if we ignore and let them skew reality? They will be frustrated and exhausted by public attacks based on disinformation and oversimplification As reputation specialists, exasperated clients come to us with the ‘activist’ dilemma. Will we be worse off if we engage and give them air or if we ignore and let them skew reality?…