High Risk Play for Australian Retailers Opening in a Covid19 Constrained Environment

Interesting emerging dynamic about to land on the shop fronts of Australian retailers that pose serious risks to their staff. And few retailers are ready

With moderate level of vaccinations targets achieved, the NSW Government has decided to open up from a #Covid19 lockdown. It does so, relying on compliance enforcement to be undertaken by shop staff. There are no QR codes, no tracking mechanisms currently available to assist those staff or retail businesses.

And herein lay a massive risk to those companies. How many retailers have trained their staff to deal with the aggressive antivaxxer behaviours? The kind of behaviour that sees protesters urinate on The Shrine of Remembrance, punch horses, and spit on nurses and admin staff at testing stations? The kind of behaviour that sees the Kar/vins claim they have a right not to wear a mask that helps protect others, whilst doing their attention seeking social media posts, venting on retail and hospitality staff.

What training have you given to your staff that enables them to protect themselves, their coworkers, other shoppers or your retail store? What explicit permissions have you given them to stay safe? Because one thing seems clear – your HR Department and legal team will need to deal with claims resulting from a lack of on site safety if you have not provided the training and resources needed.

And maybe, rather than rush to open up all locations, you might like to consider over staffing fewer locations until you have a handle on how things will pan out because as the #FakeTradies protests showed, you will be the subject of intense and unjustifiable attention because you want to open up to just those who’ve chose the side of society as a whole. because the anti-vaxxers understand, all though THEY have the ‘right’ not to get vaccinated, you do NOT have the ‘right’ not to serve them

The Future of Money

May 7, 2012

Have just spent a few hours discussing the Future of Money, hosted by James Bibby at Microsoft in Sydney and facilitated by Peter Vander Auwera from SWIFT/Innotribe. I’d like to flag that everyone understood that the session was way too short for such a big topic and everyone would agree that we just scratched the…

Six Emerging Trends in Corporate Sustainability

May 1, 2012

Ernst & Young and GreenBiz have completed a survey of business executives looking at the development of Corporate Sustainability around the world. The report shows that there has been a clear rise in awareness; that employees are a core source driving sustainability actions; that reduction of costs is a core appeal and that return on…

The Future of War

Apr 23, 2012

On the eve of ANZAC day here in Australia ABC Radio Darwin’s Vicki Kerrigan chats with futurist Marcus Barber on the future of war – what the future triggers of war might be and how war will be fought Increasing technology or less technology? Haves versus the have nots? On a pretty serious topic…

The Future of Workplace Design

Apr 17, 2012

In this chat with Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Radio Darwin, we chat about workplace design and the need to create functional workplaces – something the ‘open-plan’ model fails utterly at delivering. Click on the link below Futurist Marcus Barber on ABC Radio Darwin discussing the future of workplace design and the challenges of dysfunctional workplaces…

Happiness Makes the World Go ‘Round

Apr 9, 2012

Columbia University’s Earth Institute have just made publicly available their World Happiness Report, joining the expanding list of happiness reports emerging ultimately from Bhutan’s Happiness Index. There’s some interesting results in this one and some that you might expect were more obvious, like the idea that at a certain point, more money won’t make you…

Local Councils’ Role in Economic Activity

Apr 4, 2012

Whilst the main thrust of Australian economic activity is said to be in the hands of the Federal Government, we should not overlook the significant role that Local Council Government’s can have. As the Federal Government wrestles with falling taxation revenues and an apparent inability to get the message across about distributing the income of…

Eat or Extract – Farming versus Mining in NT and Australia

Mar 26, 2012

Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber chats with Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Radio Darwin about the challenges facing the Northern Territory, the farming and mining sectors. In summing up the emerging signs of a clash between agricultural uses of land and land use for resource and mining needs, Marcus uses the phrase ‘Eat or Extract’ as the…

Top 10 Tips for Resilience

Mar 25, 2012

As most of you know I nominated this year as the 2012 International Year of Resilience because frankly, that’s what I reckon large chunks of the world need right now. The twitter feed is #2012YearofResilience. I sent a few of these tips out at the start of the year and have seen a few of…

Is more foresight needed for Urban Planning in Darwin?

Mar 12, 2012

A new city is due to emerge in Darwin over the coming couple of years and the key question is – what sort of attention is being paid to weather related disasters in the design phase? Paul Dale on ABC Radio Darwin chats with futurist Marcus Barber about planning and weather. You can download the…

After the Rains – thinking about Urban Planning in a future of havoc weather

Mar 5, 2012

Dorothea Mackellar’s poem ‘My Country’ is best known for its second verse – “I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains”. As vast tracts of Australia again face the prospect of massive floods I wonder if our Urban Planners ever consider the significance of…

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