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

Australia, We Are Killing Ourselves

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Every where we look we are being given clear signs of the blatant stupidity and arguably outright criminality of a toxic system of decision making. The Menindee Lakes and Darling River disaster is one example   A couple of years ago I was invited to speak at a Private Equity conference at a lovely resort…

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2019 The International Year of the Cooperative

Dec 30, 2018

Every year I aim to identify what I think a major focus of the upcoming year will be and in that light I’m declaring 2019 the International Year of the Cooperative. I’m prompted by a multitude of signals that my daily research has uncovered, many of which will be familiar to you – Cost of…

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Can the United States Survive the Childish Tantrums of an Incompetent President?

Dec 23, 2018

Here we are with the last posting of the year looking at the potential for wide ranging strategy for a country like the United States. Arguably the United States is undergoing its own version of #Brexit though without the vote of the people. Instead the dictatorial nature of what I see as an incompetent strategic…

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When will the next Federal Election be held in Australia?

Dec 3, 2018

I’m reluctant to make predictions but am getting a few calls so: My tip is on a March 2019 election – the 9th or 16th But that will be an attempt to protect the existing NSW Government hoping that voters will have sufficiently vented. That said though, it also required a Federal Minoroty Government to…

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Asia on the Rise – why Australia’s Neighbours Will Leave us Behind

Oct 30, 2018

The Asian Productivity Organisation has shifted gears from being a centre for member countries to talk about productivity, to one that now wants to upskills its member countries. We’ve just completed the first chunk of helping National Productivity secretariats to ready their staff for a more proactive, future facing approach to their Country’s development  …

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10 years on from the Australia 2020 Futurists Summit

Oct 18, 2018

The question is, ‘how does the thinking inside this document stack up?’ Turns out, pretty good. What we spotted and what problems we said we’d have to watch out for, are just about spot on   When it was discovered that the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was going to hold the Australia 2020 Summit,…

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BBC Article on the Future of work and the likely skills needed

Oct 14, 2018

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Inverting the City/Country Dynamic

Aug 17, 2018

At a recent session with the Gen Y group working on the ‘Future Melbourne’ project for the City of Melbourne I suggested that the group consider what the result might be if they could ‘invert’ the way the State of Victoria operates. What would you be likely to see if more of the functions of…

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When it comes to decision making ‘Bias’ can be friend or foe

May 19, 2018

McKinsey’s interview with Richard Thaler on ‘debiasing the corporation’ is a really good one. I’ve spent the best part of two decades trying to help organisations unpack their biases through the use of foresight. I recommend this article to you   Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler offers some great insights as to how to make more…

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Disaster Ahead for the People of Ipswich

Apr 22, 2018

As the Ipswich Council has determined that recycling schemes are too expensive and indicates it will end collections, the question is ‘what happens next’? If result of the explosion in Tip fees by Councils around Australia is anything to go by, what happens next will not be good   China recently decided to end acting…

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