With the competition for talent and retention remaining fierce, it’s essential to consider what your company is offering in terms of incentives. Mairead Harbron explores. Talent attraction and retention are important issues for all private businesses in today's competitive environment. Employees and management constantly compare remuneration packages between companies to ensure that they receive the best deal and one that suits their needs and values. There are many reasons private businesses implement a management incentive plan (MIP). The benefits for both the company and the individual include: retaining key talent in the industry; recruiting key people and help compete with larger organisations; providing real ownership to employees in the form of equity; the linking of rewards to the growth of the business. Not only that, but MIPs are tax-efficient. Capital gains tax (CGT) of 33% applies to the sale of equity, whereas income tax of 52% applies to a cash bonus, along with employer PRSI of 11.05% (which does not apply to options or free equity). Types of incentive plan Employers can choose from many incentive plans, and a MIP can be either an equity incentive plan or a cash incentive plan. It doesn't always have to result in a company giving away equity, as certain factors may preclude them. Cash-based plans usually involve a cash bonus, pension contribution or shadow equity. While pension contributions may be eligible for relief, cash bonuses and shadow equity are typically subject to tax rates of up to 52%. In contrast, private businesses can choose from various equity schemes when implementing an incentivisation plan. Typically, these businesses shy away from Revenue-approved schemes as they can be onerous to implement. They also provide less flexibility to the private company, as liquidity may be needed within a defined timeframe. Ultimately, the scheme chosen will depend on the stage of the business (established business or scale-up), the type of employees to be rewarded (top executives, key management, employees, etc.) and the objectives for the business (high growth or an established business with bolt-on acquisitions). Plan design The plan's design will be dependent on the type of plan chosen. Nevertheless, organisations should consider the following when putting together their plans: targets or hurdles should be challenging but achievable; the scheme should be simple to understand; the scheme should be designed to have a life of, say, three to five years; typically, there will be milestones within that time frame; whether the scheme will be open to current employees only, or if future employees will also be included; and how will leavers be dealt with? There is the potential to treat good and bad leavers differently. What organisations can do now When deciding on whether to implement a MIP, private businesses must ask themselves: Do other companies in your industry offer a MIP? Do your compensation packages adequately attract the right person for the job? It is essential to ensure that the package is suited to the position (whether managerial or technical) so that it is in line with other similar roles. What's the right MIP for your company? Each company is different, and every MIP can be designed to suit the company’s needs. Private companies often have more flexibility in the types of plans available, as Revenue-approved schemes are typically not suitable. What's the right MIP design for your company? Any MIP must be appropriately designed and implemented, and the tax implications for both employees and the employer considered and managed. Designing the MIP is only the first step in the process. After the MIP is implemented, the employer must also consider other aspects, such as the initial valuation of the shares, share reporting obligations and payroll obligations. Mairead Harbron is Director of Entrepreneurial & Private Companies Practice at PwC.

Employers need to be up to date on developments around the right to work being allocated to those fleeing violence in Ukraine. Moira Grassick explains what you need to know. The war in Ukraine has had a devastating effect on many, and Ireland is attempting to help the people affected. 40,000 Ukrainian refugees are expected to be in the state by the end of April, and those people need the support of Ireland’s business community. This includes finding meaningful employment while here in Ireland. The EU has created a specific Directive – the Temporary Protection Directive – to coordinate member states granting Ukrainian citizens a residence and work permit, known as a Temporary Protection Permit. This temporary protection will be valid for one year and can be extended for up to three additional years. The Directive may directly impact employers as it will afford the right to work in Ireland to those coming from Ukraine. Currently, the Temporary Protection Directive has been given immediate effect. However, the situation is fluid regarding access to employment and the implementation of the Directive within each member state’s structures and systems. Temporary measures Temporary measures are in place to protect those fleeing the war, which is different from the usual immigration regulations. The Irish Government has stated that once someone has received their letter granting Temporary Protection under the EU Directive, they are entitled to seek employment, self-employment, or vocational training education here in Ireland. The European Council implemented Decision 2022/382 on 4 March 2022, giving effect to the Council Directive 2001/55/EC. The right to work is provided for under Article 12 of the 2001 Directive, which states: “The Member States shall authorise, for a period not exceeding that of temporary protection, persons enjoying temporary protection to engage in employed or self-employed activities, subject to rules applicable to the profession, as well as in activities such as educational opportunities for adults, vocational training and practical workplace experience. For reasons of labour market policies, Member States may prioritise EU citizens and citizens of States bound by the Agreement on the European Economic Area and legally resident third-country nationals who receive unemployment benefit. The general law in force in the Member States applicable to remuneration, access to social security systems relating to employed or self-employed activities and other conditions of employment shall apply.” This is a developing situation, and to ensure Irish society can help Ukrainians coming to the state, all employers must keep themselves updated on developments from the Department of Justice and related government departments dealing with immigration. Moira Grassick is the COO at Peninsula Business Services.

The most effective way of protecting your business against cyber-attacks is to be vigilant and empower your staff through appropriate cyber-security training. Noel Comerford explains. Cybercrime has seen unprecedented growth in both impact and sophistication over the last few years, and as the crisis in Ukraine continues, the cyber threat landscape is getting blurrier. Even before these increased threats, Irish organisations across public and private sectors were vulnerable, as we saw in May 2021 when the HSE was the victim of a cyber-attack. The European Central Bank and the Irish Central Bank have put businesses on high alert. While the National Cyber Security Centre assessment of the current cyber threat is low, it highlights potential for escalation. There is not only a risk of direct attack, but also a secondary risk of contagion, or secondary impact, from criminal actors reusing cyber warfare tools and techniques. Cyber criminals are seizing opportunities to interfere, and businesses must remain vigilant as the threats may soon become a reality. If you’re responsible for keeping your organisation secure, you already know that no organisation – regardless of size or industry – is immune from attack. When an incident occurs, it can quickly escalate, leading to high-profile media attention, financial losses, operational disruption, increased regulatory scrutiny, and damage to customer loyalty and investor confidence. Having a cyber incident response plan is the first step, but for the plan to be effective it must be tested across the organisation, involving all relevant stakeholders and focusing on key business processes and systems. It’s no longer the sole responsibility of the CTO, CFO, CSO or even the IT manager to protect against attacks. So, what else can you do to improve your organisations’ resilience to potential cyber-attacks? Educate your people – Human error is often regarded as the main cause of cyber security incidents. Educating your people on simple steps they can take to protect against attacks is crucial. These include: not opening suspicious emails; avoiding unsolicited links in emails; using secure file sharing solutions; and supporting people in understanding their role in cyber defence and how to report suspicious behaviour. Secure your processes – As cyber criminals become more sophisticated, it’s paramount to ensure your systems and processes give the highest possible protection. You can do this by: ensuring all remote access to your systems requires multi-factor authentication, and all cloud services are correctly and securely configured; ensuring all software vulnerabilities are patched, especially those known to be exploited in the wild; if working with Ukrainian organisations, taking extra care to monitor and inspect traffic to and from these parties; and ensuring availability of those in key cyber response roles in case of emergency. Understand your risks – Although every industry has its sectoral nuances, the widespread risks are often similar. Understanding where your vulnerabilities lie will help ensure you have the best protection: take the time to understand the threats and the exposure that may be unique to your organisation; if operating in the financial services sector, check your SWIFT security; look for and report on anomalous behaviour in your network; and use anti-virus and anti-malware solutions. While government, financial services, energy and critical infrastructure sectors are currently at the most risk because of the situation in Ukraine, the threat is heightened for all industries. As the risks across the landscape increase, it’s crucial to adopt a heightened security posture and actively design, review and test crisis and backup plans. Staying up to date with news on cyber-attacks and how they are evolving can support you to adapt your approach accordingly. Finally, empowering employees to understand their risks and take an active role in preventing them will help keep your organisation secure. Noel Comerford is a Director in the Risk Advisory practice at Deloitte Ireland’.

Private companies that fail to think long-term about ESG reporting risk losing out on funding opportunities. Andrea McAvoy explains why. One of the advantages of a private company structure is greater autonomy over governance. Theoretically, private companies face a lighter burden of bureaucracy than their publicly listed peers, allowing them to be nimbler. Nor do they have to cater to the demands of public shareholders increasingly focused on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. Even without these external pressures, however, private companies need to start thinking carefully about their ESG strategy and what it will mean for their long-term future. Times are changing and, in the past year alone, three separate developments have shunted ESG to the forefront of the SME agenda. 1. Regulatory changes The assumption that only listed companies will be subject to increasing ESG regulation is outdated. While ESG regulations introduced by the European Union, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and EU Taxonomy Regulation, will impact large private companies by 2023, their scope will expand to include all small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by 2026. These new regulations will also have an indirect impact on SMEs, because they will influence their business relationships with listed customers and suppliers. The requirement for ESG data disclosures — in particular, climate-related information — will only continue to grow. 2. Funding requirements ESG is now part of the lexicon of most private fund providers – from private equity to debt and beyond. According to the Pitchbook 2021 Sustainable Investment Survey, 81 percent of general partners are either already evaluating ESG risk factors or will be focusing more on ESG risk factors in the near future. The integrity and diligence of such pre-investment ESG reviews may vary. However, at a minimum, private companies should develop an ESG narrative to prevent excluding themselves from funding opportunities. While most private equity (PE) firms include ESG as a non-financial risk for reviewing investment decisions, some also use it to help identify opportunities for value creation during the deal life cycle. Ensuring that ESG is addressed in all forms, and integrated into a company’s long-term strategy, can help private companies maximise exit value, compete for capital against listed peers, and align with increasing listing requirements. More than 50 percent of the global stock exchanges published ESG reporting guidance last year, compared to just 15 percent in 2015. 3. Commercial longevity In a rapidly evolving world, where the operating landscape is adapting constantly to sudden events — emerging pandemics, climate disasters and social disruptions, for example — a focus on ESG could help SMEs mitigate future risk. Developing a genuine ESG narrative can also support key stakeholder relationships with customers, employees, and communities. Some elements of this narrative will be aligned with immediate outcomes (i.e., how short-term expense will impact the bottom line). Others will relate to the cost of capital or the ease of doing business over the long term. Applying an ESG lens to business strategy can bring broader benefits, however, helping SMEs shift the strategic focus from short- to long-term value creation, measured not just by profit, but also by environmental and social value. Andrea McEvoy is Climate Change and Sustainability Services Senior Manager at EY.

People’s productivity and wellbeing go hand-in-hand, but how can organisations go about achieving the best balance in a hybrid working environment? David Keane explains. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in one of the most significant shifts in working practices ever seen. This enforced experiment has allowed organisations to reimagine how and where work gets done, and the changes they introduce will be here to stay. As offices reopen and organisations decide on the most appropriate workforce model for their staff, customers and business, they must define how their teams will enhance productivity. They will also need to ensure that flexibility and employee well-being take centre stage in driving performance. There are several steps managers can take to ensure employees perform well in a flexible working environment that also supports their well-being. 1. Implement the digital tools that drive performance Investing in digital tools that support your hybrid-working model will enable business leaders to address critical challenges. Digital tools should facilitate team and cross-team communication. They should be fast and flexible and provide real-time data to managers and team members on their daily, weekly and quarterly performance indicators. A dedicated digital space for collaborative team-wide tasks will improve employee engagement and facilitate transparency on value-add activities. 2. Improve internal communication While communication is important for employees and management alike, top-down and organisation-wide communication must be clear, concise and continuous. This approach will foster a culture of adaptability and trust throughout the organisation. Maintaining clear lines of communication, especially among hybrid teams, will be essential to improving operational performance. Consider starting each day with functional and team performance meetings. Fifteen-minute huddles – virtual or face-to-face – will enable teams to assess their performance targets, prioritise tasks for the day ahead, and discuss risks and issues that may hamper performance. 3. Drive new ways of working With dispersed team members, business leaders may have to implement new ways to drive team performance. Relying on what worked for a purely traditional or remote-working model will not be as effective in a hybrid working environment. Focus on establishing clear roles and responsibilities to ensure smooth operational transitions between and within teams. Be metrics-led and allow decision-making based on measures that matter to the organisation. And finally, drive new behaviours that align with the team's overall values. These actions will ensure that employees are going in the right direction, are aligned to team objectives, and clear on their role in adding value to your organisation. 4. Train team leads to manage a more flexible workforce As the work environment and team dynamics continue to evolve, managers will need to adapt their skills to manage staff, both in-person and digitally. Creating a dynamic that works in a hybrid environment places more pressure on management to balance the need for task-orientated outputs with employee satisfaction and well-being. Daily coaching with team leaders can support businesses in embedding a management style that enhances performance while enabling team leaders to have productive conversations and develop team members. 5. Optimise processes and embed a proactive approach to change As working models are changing and adapting, it is time to review existing processes and assess whether they are still fit for purpose. By analysing current practices and eliminating non-value-add activities, your team can become more agile and lean. This should be a continuous exercise. Each staff member should feel empowered to drive change, and organisations should strive to foster a proactive view of change that positively impacts team performance. David Keane is Director of People & Organisation at PwC.

A healthy workplace culture is essential in helping both employees and employers to thrive, so what can organisations do to improve workplace culture in a hybrid-working world? Patrick Gallen explains. As we emerge from the pandemic and begin to reflect on what will change in the new hybrid environment, there has been a lot of talk about office culture. The pandemic has given organisations an opportunity to review the challenges and opportunities presented by the pandemic-driven work-from-home experience. Taking everything they have learned on board, they can now rethink, reshape and improve workplace culture, creating the best possible hybrid working experience for their employees. What is ‘culture’? Workplace culture is a shared set of attitudes and behaviours that affect how people interact at work. It can have a huge impact on an organisation’s effectiveness. The days of wandering through an office and getting a feel for the vibe of the place – intuitively assessing body language and interpersonal interactions – are over. Managers need to acquire tools and skills that can help them evaluate employee relationships and gauge productivity, without relying exclusively on in-person observation. Healthy cultures create tremendous corporate value – up to threefold higher returns to shareholders than that earned by companies with unhealthy cultures, according to McKinsey research. The question is not whether a company’s culture is ‘strong’ in itself but whether it serves the employees and the business. The evolution of workplace culture Before COVID-19, workplace culture mainly emphasised the importance of the firm’s productivity and profit above all, but organisations can’t expect to return to the same culture that existed in 2020. There’s been too much change, both at the individual and business level. This crisis has created an opening for organisations to experiment and adapt their policies and practices. From an organisational point of view, during this global disruption, we saw offices with healthy cultures prioritise the needs and well-being of their employees while continuing to meet (or even exceed) profit and productivity goals. Employees, on the other hand, saw their personal and professional lives converge during the pandemic and were given room to reconsider their priorities. Working from home highlighted the challenges of work–life balance. It also revealed which elements of the in-person workplace are most important to employees, and which are dispensable or even detrimental – long commutes, for example. Remote work has enabled workers to reconsider the meaning and purpose of their jobs. Prioritising employee needs Now that we are entering the next phase of this pandemic, consultation on employee needs must be at the top of leaders’ agendas, whether it is about hybrid work, work-life balance or ESG initiatives within the organisation. Employees have had the opportunity to re-evaluate their values, and they want to see these values reflected in their workplace culture. The future of the workplace must emerge from a dialogue between employees and leaders. Employees want their needs considered when finding the right balance between returning to the office environment. Leaders should, therefore, solicit and carefully consider employee feedback about the advantages and disadvantages of in-office versus remote work. Now is the time to reshape workplace policies and corporate culture to accommodate what works best, technologically and socially, for a business and its people. Leaders must adopt new, appropriate managerial approaches, model best practices and clearly communicate their rationale and purpose. A healthy workplace culture that works for its people and business is not only the right thing to do, but can also positively impact the bottom line. It is vital that companies take the steps needed to strike the right balance. Patrick Gallen is People and Change Consulting Partner at Grant Thornton.

The pandemic has changed the way we work, but also the way we conduct ourselves as professionals – be that virtually or, more recently, in person. Orla McAuliffe outlines the new business etiquette basics we should all be practising. Since March 2020, we have all gained invaluable yet unwished-for experience in interpreting guidelines, navigating restrictions, and keeping ourselves and those close to us safe in an unprecedented situation. At its core, etiquette is associated with ‘the right thing to do’. During the pandemic, the potential consequences for doing the wrong thing in terms of personal safety, as well as reputation, have never been higher. So, as Ireland continues to open up, it’s important to review the dos and don’ts of socialising in a business environment. Ask about boundaries Communication is going to be vital at this stage. It has become second nature to ask others about their mask preferences, distancing needs, and vaccination status. While all are undoubtedly personal questions, asking once will help to avoid any potential awkwardness. This conversation will look different in different contexts – you may find yourself asking ‘are you comfortable with coming over or would you prefer to meet outside?’ with friends, but the pressing question in professional situations may be, ‘could this meeting be a Zoom call?’ In both situations, your questions will reassure people that you are receptive to their needs and preferences. It is important to note also that people will be at different stages of readiness, and it is down to you to be informed and avoid passing judgement. Prepping the environment Once you are informed of other people’s red lines and green lights, you may act accordingly to plan an in-person meeting: Make sure the room chosen is large enough for people to relax in, and that it has been visibly and thoroughly cleaned. Provide visible sanitiser options. If supplies are provided, make sure they are clearly clean and new, and provide instructions as to whether guests are expected to dispose of them or keep them for repeated use. If you are still requesting masks, make sure this is clearly stated. Remember things are fundamentally different now. I can’t imagine anyone will want to share a communal birthday cake in the office ever again, for instance – so avoid potential conflict by suggesting alternatives right off the bat. Be a best guest For guests, your responsibility is for your own safety, but it is still considered correct to follow any guidelines set by your hosts. If a host has sanitiser prominently visible and available, for example, it is appropriate to be seen using it. Declining is no longer the polite option. Nobody will be offended if you choose to take further precautions for your own reasons, but you should also avoid passing judgement on those who follow the minimum legal requirements or specific requests. Communicate your boundaries clearly and be aware that, in the current climate, everyone understands that health and safety come first. Nobody wants to be seen to cancel or postpone a meeting, but if you are sick, that is absolutely what you need to do. Polite and prompt notice will always be appreciated, and people will be reassured that the meeting will be safe. Tracing Etiquette is fundamentally about doing the right thing for you and for others. For this reason, it may be useful to bring back a visitor book for this transition period. If something does go wrong, it will help enormously when you need to inform people that they may be a close contact. Anxiety and nervousness Even for those of us excited about the accelerated reopening, a certain degree of anxiety is entirely understandable. Being visibly organised and engaged when planning to host or attend a meeting will provide important reassurance for people, as well as serving a useful practical purpose. Equally, as it has been so long since any of us has had regular plans, scheduling meetings again now will be an adjustment for people in and of itself. Provide people with plenty of notice and be clear about the running time, as well as your own adaptations and requirements. Taking these steps will make the whole process easier for everyone. Orla McAuliffe is the Founder of the Professional Training Centre.

While gender equality in the workplace is improving, we are far from the finish line. Carmel Moore reflects on her own career and what she’s doing now as a female leader to help other women get ahead. Little did I think that 30-plus years after starting my accountancy career, I would be writing about International Women’s Day. Back then I was less ‘launchpad’, more ‘shoulder pad’; less ‘profit and loss’ and more ‘poodle-perm.’ At that age, I assumed that, by 2022, we would be done and dusted with the need for an International Women’s Day. I may have been a bit complacent in expecting that gender parity and equal pay would be the norm by now. I foresaw a world in which women would be well-represented on the boards of the companies that matter. I now question my own passivity in failing to help make any of this a reality. By any number of external benchmarks, my working life has been a success, but it has taken me a long time to appreciate that I was merely the reconnaissance. As my career progressed, I didn’t realise that my job wasn’t just to forge my own way, but to also pave the way for other women to follow – and in heels, if they so desired.  It was a lonely station back in the 1980s as the only trainee on all-male team. I got by, through a combination of my desire to please, charming naivety, bottomless capacity for hard work and my acid wit. My career moved forward in a linear way. I worked hard, I learned new stuff and promotion followed. I didn’t pay much attention to how I showed up as a woman. Female leadership When I hit my 40s, I had to confront what being a leader meant for me, not just as someone brilliant at her job, but as a woman — and I’m still working this out. There were clues along the way that others in business not only saw my gender, but also factored it into their business-making. I became accustomed to statements like: “Yes, your bonus is lower than last year, but as a new mother, we decided you weren’t considered a flight risk.” “No, we didn’t consider you for that overseas assignment. We thought, as a mother, you wouldn’t want to uproot your young family.” “Yes, you would have been a great speaker at that event, but you lacked the ‘beer and cigar gravitas’ the conference needed.” I was once even invited to join a panel of male and female leaders to discuss Sheryl Sandberg’s book ‘Lean In.’ After polite applause, the panel were thanked with gifts. The men got bottles of red wine and the women received a brooch! I asked one of the men to ‘lean in’ and swap with me. He politely declined. Such occurrences were clearly and clumsily discriminatory, but I dealt with them privately, sucked it up and leaned into myself and my own resilience. I didn’t speak up at the time. I didn’t use my skills to create awareness, to educate and encourage change. Thankfully, it’s never too late. These days, I coach other women in leadership roles, helping each to find her unique voice and say the things that need to be heard. And, if I falter, there is always that little brooch on my desk to remind me how important it is to keep going. Carmel Moore is Director at One Moment Company.

As tensions rise in Ukraine, now more than ever is the time to make sure your staff know about the wellbeing supports available to them, writes Moira Grassick. With the crisis unfolding in Ukraine a source of concern for millions worldwide, employers will need to be mindful of the needs of employees from the impacted countries or with relatives and friends who may be in danger. Equally important will be the needs of those staff members whom, although not directly impacted by Russia’s invasion of the Eastern European country, may also be experiencing heightened stress or anxiety at this time. As with any personal or collective crisis, there are a few steps you can take to help and support your employees: Communication Proactively identify workers affected by the crisis and issue company-wide communications outlining the support options available to them and the wider workforce. This information can be disseminated by email, intranet sites, notice boards, or through discussion at team meetings. Ask managers to check in on the wellbeing of their team members regularly. At times of crisis, it's essential to reach out to staff and let them know your support is there if they need it, either informally or via an employee assistance programme. Make sure your managers maintain regular one-to-one catch-ups with all team members. Such meetings give employees an important opportunity to discuss any problems they might be facing. Create a culture of support by communicating clearly to staff that their health, safety, and wellbeing is a priority for the organisation. Let them know how to go about accessing support, and signpost any wellbeing services you have in place. Encourage senior leaders to communicate all available supports to their teams. This will help to set the right culture and tone from the top of the organisation down. Flexibility Where employees have friends or family members abroad, it may be reasonable to temporarily change work conditions to allow them to maintain regular contact. Helpful changes might include flexible start and finish times, more or longer breaks, and/or amended duties. Encourage employees to raise and discuss any concerns they may have, both in their professional and personal lives. This can improve staff satisfaction and motivation, which contributes towards increased employee productivity and higher staff retention. If an employee is affected by any crisis, they may be struggling to stay engaged and productive. You may wish to offer reasonable time off to help them manage. Impartiality People with family and friends in Ukraine and Russia may be struggling right now, and it's important to recognise and support everyone impacted — politics should not be part of the workplace. Whatever a staff member discloses about their situation, management should remain supportive and non-judgemental. With any crisis, an open conversation about mental health is the best approach to take. Trauma and crisis can have devastating implications if ignored, and recovery can be more easily achieved with open discussion and understanding. By taking the time to create a culture of support and communication, employers can give their employees the best chance of recovery. Moira Grassick is Chief Operating Officer at Peninsula Ireland.

Despite the apparent dominance of ‘The Great Resignation’, a promotion could well be the right career goal for you in 2022. Niamh O’Keeffe shares her six steps to landing a promotion in the year ahead. Are you stuck in a career rut? Are former peers progressing ahead of you? Do you feel like you are doing all the hard work and getting none of the rewards? You may think you have no power over any decision to promote you and that you are simply at the mercy of your boss and your employers’ whims in this regard. I have some exciting news for you: you hold most – if not all – of the cards in terms of shaping your future. There are many proactive strategies you can exploit to build your reputation, re-platform your skills and credibility, get noticed, and get promoted. Consider the following six key moves you can make in your 2022 game plan to secure that much-sought-after role promotion this year. Clarify Before investing the time and effort required to get promoted, take a moment to step back and look at the bigger picture. Why do you want to get promoted? Are you happy with the career path you are on? How would your next promotion fit into your long-term career goals? Try to understand what is motivating you – is it intrinsic or extrinsic desires? Extrinsic motivations are quite transitory and arise from external influences like seeking higher pay and rewards, a brand or status boost, and impressing other people. Intrinsic motivations are internal drivers that touch deeper chords within you, such as your core values and what is truly at stake for you in the pursuit of meaning and what matters to you. They are not mutually exclusive – and ideally, you want to find meaningfulness and a pay rise! However, extrinsic motivations, while very powerful, cannot by themselves lead to long-term internal satisfaction for most people. So, take a moment to take stock and check if you are pursuing the right career path and promotion that will ultimately satisfy you, your values, and your sense of purpose in life. If getting the next promotion right in front of you is just going to get you further along a treadmill that already makes you unhappy, is it time to rethink what you want from your career and refocus your next move? With more clarity on your long-term direction and what would make you feel fulfilled, you can now focus your time and attention investment on the best promotion role and opportunity for you. Commit Be prepared to carve out some time and energy for the effort of getting promoted. See it as a separate project to your day job. You need to continue to work on your day job, and in parallel, you need to set up and run your ‘get promoted’ project. To fully commit to the ‘get promoted’ task, you will need to move out of your comfort zone, stop waiting, and start creating opportunities for yourself. For example, in my experience, the number one reason why a person does not get promoted is that they don’t ask for the promotion. The adage of ‘You don’t ask, you don’t get’ certainly applies to promotions. You need to be your own best PR agent. If you just sit there quietly doing your work, thinking your boss will simply notice your hard work and that the right rewards will inevitably follow, you are just being naïve. You will likely end up in a very negative spiral of disappointment, bitterness, and regret (if not there already). The simplistic approach of ‘I will just do my work, and the rewards will follow’ might work at junior levels where many promotion slots are more mathematically available. As soon as you start to ascend the pyramid structure of the organisation, however, there are fewer available vacancies. It then becomes essential to become more proactive in asking for your promotion and working out a strategy for why it’s as much a win for your boss as it is for you to get promoted ahead of your peers. You probably need to speak up more at team and company meetings, offer more opinions, get more involved in cross-industry and cross-company initiatives. You need to build relationships with more senior people. You probably need to learn more, grow more, and continue to evolve your attitude and approach. Wishing for the promotion you desire and committing to securing it are two very different mindsets. Confidence You say you want the promotion, and you may indeed really want the promotion, but are you truly confident that you can step up to the challenge and do the role at the next level up? Confidence is viral, and belief in your abilities and potential is critical if you want others to believe in you too. Stakeholders and decision-makers need to feel confident that if they place a promotion investment bet in you, that you will be able to deliver on it. Of course, they can look at the evidence of your track record and your qualifications and experience, but in the end, it is always a leap of faith to promote someone and assume that they have not yet reached the limit of their potential. The market is constantly changing, the customer is becoming ever more sophisticated, the competition more cut-throat. Whatever the dynamics of your set-up, you will not have done this exact same role in this exact same economy or environment before, so there is always a question mark over whether it will work out. For reassurance, decision-makers will often take their lead from your level of confidence in yourself. If you believe you can take on the next challenge, others are more likely to back you. Appreciate what you have achieved to date. Make a list of your accomplishments because only you know what it has taken for you to get here in your career. Take a moment to connect with who you are and where you have come from. And take confidence from your previous experience, learnings, and pattern of success. Have faith in yourself. Credibility You can give yourself an edge over the competition for the next promotion by already starting to work at the next level up – proving you are capable of the promotion. This makes you a lower-risk option than your peers, who are keeping their heads down in their current role and level. Becoming a credible candidate for promotion means you already need to be acting at a more senior level of capability, professionalism, and reliability. Before corporate dress codes became casual, the adage of ‘dress for success’ was about dressing as if you were already promoted. Now it is less about what you wear, but the kernel of the idea is still the same – which is to present yourself in terms of impact as if you are already a more senior person. Ideally, you want the promotion to feel like a de facto admin stamp to merely confirm that you have already stepped up. In other words, the promotion lags the performance. For example, suppose the next promotion is about managing a team of people and you have already taken the initiative to manage a group of peers in a cross-functional company initiative. In that case, the evidence points to relevant skills already formed. To gain this edge, follow these steps: Show a willingness to take on extra responsibilities; Show maturity when dealing with role setbacks and challenges; Respond constructively to performance feedback; Be proactive, take the initiative – don’t always wait to be told what to do; Demonstrate an ongoing drive to improve your skills and personal development; and Build up a strong reputation with your peers, bosses, and customers for being reliable and having a strong work ethic. Top tip: in the end, promotions always eventually lead to a bigger management or leadership role. So, whatever your current level, invest now in developing your leadership and people management skills for the future. Campaign Develop a groundswell of support around you for the promotion. Your boss may not be the sole decision-maker. In fact, they may have nothing to do with the decision on your promotion. It may be your boss’s boss who makes the promotion decision. If you have never met that person and have no relationship with them, you are disadvantaged versus a peer who may have already established the right connections. Identify the various influencers and promotion decision-makers and consider how you might get to know and impress them. A great ‘get promoted’ campaign incorporates an understanding of corporate politics and culture. We all like to believe that we work in a meritocracy and that promotion decisions are based entirely on performance. Unfortunately, this is not always the case – especially the more senior you become. The best person does not always get the job. Who does or doesn’t get promoted will be affected by myriad factors, including the strength of relationships, a history of power pacts, and a currency of favours – unwritten rules will likely prevail. Ignore the politics of promotion at your peril. The sooner you understand the politics at play when it comes to your promotion, the smarter you can be about how to campaign with the key decision-makers. Close the deal In an ideal scenario, the promotion you are offered is precisely what you wanted in terms of role title and description, pay and rewards, and start date. However, this does not always play out. The promotion you are offered may not be the exact size and shape you sought. So be ready to negotiate before signing up for anything. There may be wiggle room such as formalising a better title, negotiating a higher salary and better bonus terms, and the number of days working from home. Part of closing the deal may require you to turn down the promotion offer if it really cannot meet your terms. Perhaps you need to be patient and reset your focus on another opportunity, even if that means leaving your current company. Always remember that a promotion without a pay increase is not actually a promotion! Should I stay, or should I go? Sometimes, it might feel easier and quicker to get that promotion by resigning and joining another company. Just be careful that you are not trading down on company brands too quickly in your career, as it is harder to get back into a big brand from a lesser brand. And, of course, wherever you go, there you are! Should you stay and figure out the skills of how to get promoted in a familiar environment, rather than leave just for a promotion and be immediately more disadvantaged by a whole new set of unfamiliar stakeholders and company politics? That, my friend, is up to you. Sometimes a move to another company is the only solution, and a fresh start will invigorate your motivation levels and your career. Whatever you decide, I wish you every success on your ‘get promoted’ journey. Niamh O’Keeffe is the author of ‘Get Promoted’, part of the Penguin Business Experts book series. Niamh also advises corporate CEOs and senior leaders in London and New York.

Europe’s foreign and security policy is in bad shape. All eyes are focused on Germany’s new coalition to see how it will deal with the big strategic issues that will affect every EU member state, writes Judy Dempsey. What happens in Germany matters. As the European Union’s biggest economy and country, Berlin was pivotal during the global financial crisis, the euro crisis, the Russian crisis, and the migration crisis. Some member states viewed Berlin’s role as hegemonic. Others viewed it as a leadership necessary to keep the EU together – especially since other EU leaders were so weak. Angela Merkel, the former Chancellor who spearheaded these policies, was also a great supporter of the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland Protocol. Her outlook was based on her philosophy of strategic patience, especially for the big economic and security issues. She rarely let the big dossiers – Russia, China, transatlantic relations, and Ireland – leave her desk. They were the remit of the Chancellery, not the foreign ministry. She had an insatiable appetite for detail and juggled Germany’s interests, which were crucial to the country’s export-driven economy, with the values upon which the EU and democracies are built and what she herself believed in. Olaf Scholz, her successor – who was her finance minister – will make a big effort to retain these dossiers, but it is not a given. Annalena Baerbock, the Green Party foreign minister, is determined to put values at the core of her foreign policy. Baerbock is not naïve enough to believe that any country can discard interests, but with German public opinion on her side – especially a younger generation acutely sensitive to human rights, climate change, values, and more European integration – Baerbock can exert influence. Take China, for example. The Greens know that Germany’s economic interests and trade relationship – and indeed Europe’s – with Beijing are huge. China has overtaken the United States as the EU’s largest import source for goods. All the more reason to use that clout. Yes, China can retaliate by threatening embargoes if the Berlin government increases its criticism of China’s human rights record, its ineluctable shift towards authoritarian rule, and its untransparent procurement procedures and weak intellectual property rights. But would Beijing go down that path? Germany is too big inside the EU, and its relationship with the United States is too important for Beijing to threaten Berlin. It picked on Lithuania, which for a small country has taken an admirably tough stance on China’s human rights records and has opened a Taiwan office. Beijing sent its wolf warrior diplomats into overdrive, but China’s crude tactics are backfiring in many EU member states. That is why the German coalition must defend its values. The more united the EU is, with support from the United States, the better. As for Russia, Germany has a deep, ambiguous and historical relationship with Russia. Angela Merkel went out of her way to stop, or at least contain, the conflict in eastern Ukraine. However, the Minsk Accords and the Normandy Format talks she brokered with France, Ukraine, and Russia are unravelling. In retrospect, it was a mistake that Merkel did not include the United States or the EU. Meanwhile, Russia is using its gas as a geo-security weapon and its military build-up against Eastern Ukraine in much the same way as Belarus’s discredited leader, Alexander Lukashenko, is using migrants to divide the EU. It’s all about testing Europe. In short, with this new German government ensconced, the EU must finally act strategically in a way that can combine values with interests. Europe as a bloc has the economic power to do just that. Putting interests first is doing the EU – and its credibility – a disservice. Judy Dempsey is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe and Editor-in-Chief of Strategic Europe.

Employee advocacy can help businesses attract and retain people, drive revenue and cut costs, so what’s it all about? Paris Callan explains. Employee advocacy is one of the most authentically impactful tools a business can have at its disposal. Endorsement from the people working for you is a raw representation of your company’s culture and what can happen when your mission and values permeate every aspect of how your business operates. When your people openly support and champion your business, they are acting as your advocate. A healthy company culture, executed with care and consistency, is what fuels employee advocacy. This advocacy is borne of the pride people have in their job, materialising in how comfortable they are sharing this with others. The potential value-add here for employers lies mainly in two areas: faster, more cost-effective hiring, and better employee retention. Faster, more cost-effective hiring Collectively, employees have an average reach ten times greater than any social media following a company might have. When an employee shares company news, events or announcements with their network, not only is the information likely to spread ten times farther, but prospective hires who know and trust this employee are also more likely to take notice. So, how do you go about turning your employees into advocates for your business? Building a brand people want to be a part of is one of the best ways to boost organic employee support. According to US software provider Jobvite, employee referrals account for 40 percent of all hires, even though they make up less than a tenth of all applicants. From a time-to-hire perspective, a the standard recruitment process takes 39 days from posting to hiring compared with a 29-day average for a referred candidate. The Great Resignation Cracking the code on how to keep a company's most powerful asset – its people – has gone from important to imperative amid the “great resignation.” The Microsoft 2021 Work Trend Index released last July found that 41 percent of the global workforce was likely to consider leaving their employer within 12 months. For employers, resignations can cause disruption, loss of productivity and additional costs associated with finding and hiring replacements. Against the backdrop of the “great resignation,” employee retention matters now more than ever. This is where employee advocacy can lend a hand. Employee advocacy: where to start Much like reputation, employee advocacy is built over time. While the key components needed to inspire this advocacy do not generally bear immediate results, the long-term impact can be powerful. Employee advocacy results from an organisation living up to its values. It is the outcome of a business establishing a fair, inclusive and diverse workplace, and fostering a positive culture that inspires productivity and champions transparency. By delivering on these elements, businesses can inspire their workforce organically to become genuine advocates. This, in turn, can build a brand prospective hires want to be a part of, and customers want to support. Handled correctly, employee advocacy can also help organisations to become more operationally efficient. There is, however, no one-size-fits-all approach. It is paramount that the intent behind any employee advocacy drive be made clear to all involved, and that it is fully aligned with a strong set of values embedded in an authentic company culture. Paris Callan is a Creative Strategist at The Pudding.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine signalling further hikes in energy prices, Neil Hughes asks if the government’s cost of living package will really make a difference for Irish households facing spiralling costs. The Russian military invasion of neighbouring Ukraine will undoubtedly carry devastating consequences for its people and economy. At our firm, our thoughts are with our colleagues at Baker Tilly Kyiv as their country faces the greatest challenge in its 31-year history as a democratic European state. The crisis has also presented the Irish government with a fresh set of unwelcome challenges concerning the spiralling cost of living here. The €505 million support package announced earlier this month covers several areas the government has prioritised to help alleviate the recent spike in consumer prices. Chief among them is the surge in energy prices, now more pressing in the face of the Ukraine invasion. Cost increase factors The rising costs we are seeing are down to factors including global energy prices, inflation for basic commodities, and pandemic-induced supply chain issues in critical locations. Russia accounts for the highest EU imports of natural gas (41.1%) and solid fuel (46.7%), according to 2019 Eurostat research. As Russia has such a stranglehold on the energy market, sanctions introducd by the EU, UK and US (among others) will inevitably destabilise energy costs in the coming months. Government supports The Irish government is offering cost of living supports in a number of ways: Electricity rebate The government announced plans for the €100 rebate before Christmas, but has since opted to double the amount to €200. The rebate will be VAT inclusive and will apply automatically to electricity bills through the March and April billing cycle. It will be added as a credit of €200 to pay-as-you-go providers. Public transport Public transport fees will be reduced by 20 percent from the end of April. Fare reductions will apply to Bus Éireann, Irish Rail, Dublin Bus, Go Ahead, Luas, DART and Local Link services. Fuel allowance Families receiving the fuel allowance will be given a lump sum payment of €125 before St Patrick’s Day. Health The Drugs Payments Scheme, which sees households paying €100 or less per month for specific medicines, will now be reduced to €80 per month.  School transport The family cap for school buses will be cut to €150 per family at primary level and €500 per family for secondary schools. Family payments The Family Working Payment will be brought forward, kicking in from 1 April instead of 1 June. The weekly tax-free payment is targeted at employees with children and supports low pay workers. Is it enough? Although these government supports are welcome, they will not benefit everybody in the same way. For instance, someone from commuter counties, like Wexford or Louth, who is reliant on their car for work will not benefit from the public transport price cut in the same way as a Dublin commuter might. On top of that, the electricity rebate is not being rolled out in a targeted manner. Instead, it will be made available to every household as a blanket payment of €200, no matter the energy rating or financial situation of that household. This support might have been better suited to a claims process, similar to the pandemic support subsidies made available to businesses, so that the more a household needs the support, the more they could receive by claiming through a centralised process. The decision not to implement a claims process might have been down to a perceived time-crunch. As the impact of the Ukraine war may now render the package woefully inadequate for many families, however, this strategy could come back to bite the government in the next election. Neil Hughes is the Managing Partner of Baker Tilly. He is the author of A Practical Guide to Examinership, published by Chartered Accountants Ireland.

The way we work has changed dramatically in the past two years, from fully in the office, to fully at home and now onto hybrid working. Moira Dunne shares her top tips on how to get the most out of the latest phase of working life. As pandemic restrictions ease, many businesses are moving towards a hybrid working model. The aim is to get the best out of both worlds: the flexibility of home working, increased collaboration, and the benefits of office interaction. After working permanently at home for two years, however, it can be hard to embrace yet another new way of working while maintaining momentum week in, week out. A little bit of planning can help employers and employees to get the best out of hybrid working. Here are my top three tips: 1. Reset It’s essential to recognise that this latest phase of working life brings with it an opportunity to reset. For employees, it’s chance to review your current home working arrangements before moving to a permanent hybrid work model. Ask yourself some key questions: Do I need a better working from home routine? Can I optimise my workstation and equipment in my home office? What distractions at home cause me to lose time and focus? This review will help you identify issues with your home-working environment and assist you in increasing your focus and productivity. 2. Plan It is crucial to plan how best to split your work between home and office. We instinctively know that tasks requiring a high level of focus are more suited to a quiet home environment. Time in the office enables group work such as problem-solving, innovation and coaching. Consider the time and location dependency of your work. Each employee can plan for: time-dependent tasks that must be done during core hours; location-dependent tasks that require access to files or systems in the office; collaborative tasks that require interaction in the office; and solo tasks that can be done individually, independent of location or time. Aim to have the team in the office on the same days, if possible. This can help to ensure all team responsibilities are covered while also making the most of collaboration time. 3. Deliver Hybrid working is most effective when each person takes responsibility for delivering in their role. This builds trust, and can help to remove any residual stigma about remote working. It shifts the performance assessment focus away from presenteeism and towards delivery. Both employees and managers have a part to play here. Open communication is beneficial in any working environment, but it is imperative in the hybrid working environment. Productivity is improved when: employers provide clarity about what needs to be delivered. This helps people to work independently at home; and employees seek clarity when they are not clear about expectations, report on progress and discuss any issues that may arise. 4. Continuous improvement mindset Hybrid working can benefit both the business and its employees, but there is a collective responsibility to make it work. It is new territory, so it is best to take an iterative approach. Encourage people to adopt a continuous improvement mindset by: trying the model; reviewing the model; modifying the model; and improving the model. With these tips for successful hybrid working in mind, businesses can achieve both productivity and flexibility while maintaining employee momentum, focus and satisfaction. Moira Dunne is founder of beproductive.ie.

The unprecedented disruption of the past two years has transformed the way many organisations operate. The question is: how adaptable is your business, and what happens if you can’t keep up? Paul O’Donnell has five tips to help business leaders embrace transformation. As firms slowly remove the dust sheets and move beyond this extraordinary and disruptive pandemic period, two potential futures emerge for firms and their employees. In the first of these two futures are those organisations intent on returning to the pre-pandemic workplace. Their employees are likely to experience difficult working conditions, outdated work practices, and eroding culture. In the second category are those firms that see a future in which there is no going back. They understand that we have never before undergone a period of such collective transformation in working arrangements, cultural practices, applications of technology and business value propositions. These businesses will not only respond to new demands, but will also create new markets. Their leaders will re-purpose resources and pivot to new ideas over the next 18 months. Their employees will experience real innovation, considerable learning, and meaningful opportunity. The difference between these two types of organisation is agility — the ability to think differently and decentralise decision-making — and it is in the agile organisation that the best talent will want to work. In this environment, leaders will take what they have learned during the pandemic and blend it with the best of their existing work practices. Here are five questions for leaders to consider as they figure out how to make their organisations more responsive to the changes brought about by the pandemic. 1. Who led your firm during this extended crisis period?  These are not necessarily the senior employees in your firm, but those key influencers with a reach that extends throughout your organisation. You may want to consider them for future leadership development. They are the people who bring others with them by demonstrating resilience, raising morale and showing commitment and adaptability. Which of your senior “leaders” let you down, failed to deliver consistently, or kept away from the fire? These are the people you need to move on. 2. How will you ‘de-layer’ your organisation?  Adaptable companies are flat structured. Information moves freely, enabling fast decision-making and error correction. No matter what your organisation chart says, you are a hierarchical firm if you tolerate egotistical leaders. They are driven to avoid any change or action they perceive may diminish their status. To be a flat structured, agile organisation, only hire leaders with humility. 3. Does your organisation make good use of talent-on-demand solutions?  The speed at which the shutters came down on the economy, as the pandemic took hold, meant many essential projects were shelved overnight. If these projects are still relevant to the business, get out of the blocks and have them delivered by hiring contractors. Additionally, bring in contractor support for operational HR or HR project delivery. Don’t wait until essential people services fail, creating down the line problems for your customers and other critical stakeholders. 4. What is the most creative move your firm has made during this crisis?  For many leaders, struggling with current challenges makes contemplating the future version of their business almost impossible. That said, innovation is at the heart of adaptation. What has your firm learned to do more efficiently? What has changed for your clients and how is that impacting their needs now? 5. How has your workplace changed for the better?  Learning needs to be fun and change set up as a challenge. Some of the more complex issues to be managed centre around formal and informal organisational design, particularly if you incorporate hybrid working. How will you create structure and effective operating practices for employees in the future? How will you replicate the essential social elements of your culture and maintain a high-productivity ethos? Engaging employees in addressing these difficult questions can elicit productive solutions. Unlike previous global economic shocks, there are not many ready-made answers to these new challenges. Leaders who lean on their employees to work out how they can most effectively get from where they are now to where they want to be next, will have the greatest outcomes. Paul O’Donnell is the CEO of HRM Search Partners.

While many organisations stand proudly behind their ethical ethos, there is always room for improvement. Julie Fenton tells us how important it is to embrace technology and new ways of working to ensure a genuine culture of integrity. Most Irish organisations set out to conduct their business with integrity. Indeed, most senior leaders believe their organisations adhere to the highest ethical standards. It is only when they measure those aspirations and beliefs against independent benchmarks that potential weaknesses and shortcomings are exposed. The EY Global Integrity Report revealed that many organisations find gaps between what they say is important and how they behave. This 'say–do' gap can have severe implications in critically important areas like employee engagement and customers' perceptions of the organisation. Bridging that gap can present challenges for even the most well-resourced organisations. Integrity is not simply a question of laying down rules and protocols; it must permeate the organisation's culture. Organisations that successfully build a culture of integrity take more than a 'tick box approach' to compliance. Senior people lead by example, engage with their teams, and follow through on any issues that may arise.  For a high integrity culture to thrive, values must be shared across every level and function within the organisation. Those values must include a commitment to a high degree of transparency and zero tolerance for transgression. There are several steps leaders can take to embed a high integrity culture. Act at speed to address issues Data-enabled and robust fraud and corruption risk assessments are essential tools for protecting your organisation. Still, these assessments will be of little value if they are not followed up with prompt action to address any weaknesses or poor behaviours uncovered. Take a human-centred approach While they may facilitate it, systems and processes do not commit fraud. Even the best and most rigorously enforced compliance frameworks can be compromised without a strong culture of integrity. Unlock the power of your data Many organisations see the growth in data volumes as a threat due to the increased compliance obligations placed on them by GDPR. This is the wrong way to look at it. More data means more power to combat fraud. Organisations can apply analytics and other technologies to use their data to detect irregular behaviour, assist in its investigation, and guide future measures to prevent recurrence. They can also use their data to support their sustainability journey and environmental, social and governance reporting. Prioritise education ahead of training Training people on the implementation of processes and procedures is important but does not encourage the behaviours that will support the integrity agenda. Training must be augmented by communication and education, ensuring everyone understands why integrity is critically important to the organisation's success. Implementing these actions can not only help to embed a culture of integrity in organisations but can also add to the bottom line. Organisations that leverage data analytics and technologies such as artificial intelligence to monitor integrity performance and gain insights into anomalous events and behaviours can move beyond compliance to create long-term value for the business. Julie Fenton is Head of Forensics & Integrity Services and Global Operations and Talent Leader Forensic & Integrity Services at EY.

As restrictions ease and businesses fully open again, what does the future hold for Irish insolvencies? Ken Tyrrell explains.   Given the hardship businesses have faced over the past two years, a rise in insolvencies in Ireland would be no surprise. A recent PwC report examining 18,000 business failures over the past 17 years sheds further light on the current state-of-play for companies around the country.  Measuring the correlation between key economic indicators and other trends with rates of insolvency, the report found that Government pandemic supports saved at least 4,500 Irish companies from going bust during the pandemic, representing an average of 50 companies per week during the period. A new enhanced measure for business failures developed as part of the research identified the ‘insolvency rate per 10,000 companies.’ When looking at business failures per 10,000 companies per county in Ireland, Kilkenny had the highest number of insolvencies in 2021, with 25 business failures per 10,000. Dublin ranked second with 24. Cork averaged 12 failures per 10,000 companies. Irish insolvency rates Overall, the Irish insolvency rate (number of liquidations and receiverships per 10,000 companies) stood at 14 in 2021, down 87 percent from its 2012 peak of 109 per 10,000 companies. The arts and entertainment sector was the most heavily impacted last year, with 85 insolvencies per 10,000 companies. Other sectors to feature at the higher end of the scale included travel and transport (47) and health (36). The research shows that retail (8), hospitality (16) and construction (15) had a much lower than expected rate of insolvency, an indicator that Government supports targeting these job-intensive service sectors were effective. At the other end of the spectrum, analysis of the report shows that the lowest insolvency rates per 10,000 in 2021 were in the information and communications, professional, scientific and technical sectors. This is likely due to the strong performance of FDI-heavy sectors, and the ability of people employed in these industries to transition to working from home during the pandemic.  Comparing the Irish results with those of our UK neighbour, Ireland’s rate of liquidation in 2021 (11 per 10,000 companies) was significantly lower than the corresponding UK figure of 26. The analysis also revealed that, over the past 17 years, the liquidation rate in the UK has historically trended 35 percent higher than in Ireland. Debt overhang of at least €10 billion  The pandemic and its successive lockdowns have certainly resulted in many businesses struggling to survive. PwC estimates that there is currently a debt overhang of at least €10 billion among SMEs in Ireland, made up of warehoused revenue debt, loans in forbearance, supplier debt, landlords, rates and general utilities.  Small Company Administrative Rescue Process (SCARP)  Based on the relatively low rates of business failure in the retail and hospitality sectors during the pandemic, it is clear that many of the 4,500 companies buoyed by the Government’s COVID-19 supports are in these sectors. While they have not gone bust, many are on life support and will need additional financial support to repair their balance sheets as the service economy fully reopens. Some businesses will agree to new terms with lenders and trade suppliers. Others will need to repair their balance sheets proactively. Many of these companies will need to restructure their debts and will look to formal processes such as the Government’s recently launched SME restructuring SCARP process, as well as traditional processes such as examinership. I expect to see a step-up in restructuring activity throughout 2022. As businesses recover and the economy fully reopens, critical areas for review will be liquidity, working capital and new funding avenues to finance growth.  Ken Tyrrell is Business Recovery Partner at PwC. Read the full PwC report.

Staying on top of the latest marketing trends in a digital age is essential for any company. Mary Cloonan outlines several ways you can keep ahead of the curve. As a professional services firm, it's crucial to ensure you are putting your best foot forward in digital marketing. The digital age has made it very easy for clients to find the services they need immediately. And you're not just competing against other professional services firms in your area –  you're competing against every business, big and small, that has an online presence. When it comes to digital marketing for accounting firms, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Every firm is different, and each firm will need to tailor its marketing strategy accordingly. However, a few general tips can be helpful for all professional services firms. The empty chair Let's begin with an exercise that will help you to better understand your target audience. Imagine you are sitting at your desk with an empty chair opposite you. Picture your ideal client seated in that chair. What are their personality traits and interests? What do they care about? What kind of services do they need? How are they finding information? What are they reading? Once you have a good idea of who your ideal customer is, you can begin to tailor your marketing efforts accordingly. You want to make sure that your brand and messaging resonates with them, and that you are easily found online when they need your services. Search for your business online One way to gauge how well your digital marketing is working is to search your name and firm after clearing your internet cache. If you’re not happy with the results, then it’s time to make some changes. You may need to focus on search engine optimisation (SEO), create more content, or invest in paid advertising. It may even be an issue with your website design or user experience. Whatever the case may be, it's crucial to identify and address any weaknesses that your online presence may have. For example, Google will often rank businesses higher in search results if they have a complete and up-to-date Google My Business listing. Take the time to fill out all of the information requested, and post new content on a regular basis. Ask for online reviews Professional services firms should aim to build Google reviews. When clients leave positive reviews about your firm, it will help to boost your ranking in search results. Plus, it assists in increasing trust and credibility among potential clients. You can ask clients to leave a review on Google by providing them with a link. These reviews are useful for your website as testimonials, when doing proposals or tenders as validation of your engagement with clients. Don't forget about LinkedIn LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for marketing professional services firms. It's a great place to share your content, connect with potential clients, and even generate leads. If your target audience includes businesses, it’s wise to ensure you have a strong profile. Use LinkedIn to its full potential by creating a solid profile, sharing relevant content, and connecting with as many people as possible. Your contact details on your LinkedIn profile must include your email, telephone number, web address and office address. LinkedIn can also be a great way to build your firm’s brand. You can do this by creating a LinkedIn firm profile. Administrators to the firm account can invite their personal LinkedIn connections to follow your page, which is a useful way to harvest personal connections from multiple individuals. Regular posting, tagging, and hashtags When it comes to digital marketing for accounting firms, one of the most important things you can do is post regularly on your social media accounts. This includes sharing fresh content, tagging people and companies in your posts, and using relevant hashtags. Pay-per-click advertising Paid advertising can be a great way to generate leads and focus on robust marketing strategies for service providers. You can use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads. When setting up your PPC campaigns, make sure you target the right keywords and use relevant ads. You should also track your results and make changes as needed. Hiring a reputable digital expert is highly recommended to get help with all these aspects of marketing. Review analytics and your progress One of the most critical aspects of digital marketing is regularly reviewing your analytics and progress. This will help you determine what's working and what's not and make changes as needed. It's also a good idea to set some goals and track your progress towards these goals. This can help you to stay on track and ensure that you're making progress. Use expert copywriters and digital gurus Last but certainly not least, you may want to consider hiring expert copywriters and digital gurus. This can be a great way to get help with your marketing efforts and ensure that you're doing everything possible to reach your target audience. With marketing, it's essential always to learn and evolve with the times. Make sure you stay up-to-date on the latest digital marketing trends and make best use of them to ensure your firm’s success. Mary Cloonan is the owner of Marketing Clever.

Tara Higgins demystifies the growth mindset and provides tips on how to best demonstrate your growth mindset in interviews. We hear the term ‘growth mindset’ more and more these days, and it has even become part of some mission statements. But what exactly is a growth mindset, and why is it important? What is a growth mindset? A growth mindset is often incorrectly defined as an inherent trait. Many people believe that if you are positive, flexible, open-minded and enthusiastic, you are showing that you naturally have a growth mindset. The reality is that a growth mindset means something entirely different. The good news is that it can be both taught and learned. Psychologist Dr Carol Dweck developed and popularised the term “growth mindset" in her 2006 book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. She describes it thus: “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work – brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” She describes the core of the growth mindset as: “The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.” Why is a growth mindset so important? It’s helpful to look at the opposite of a growth mindset – a fixed mindset – to understand why having a growth mindset is so important, not just for an individual but for any organisation. A fixed mindset is where you believe that your talent and intelligence is static, that you are born with a certain level of ability and unable to improve your levels over time. Workplaces that cultivate a growth mindset culture are often more innovative, inspired, efficient and have a more positive outlook that encourages new ideas. Employees in a growth mindset culture take more risks and demonstrate growth throughout their careers. Growth mindset in interviews Because of this drive to create a growth mindset culture, organisations often look at how new hires can demonstrate their growth mindset during the interview process. Here are a few ways you can do that: Give examples of how you have learned something from scratch, be it a new language, how to build a macro on Excel, etc. Highlight how you have successfully completed a new task you had never done before despite being out of your comfort zone. Demonstrate examples of times you were resilient and kept problem-solving when something challenging came up at work. Show your commitment to continuous learning by outlining courses you have completed since qualifying. Highlight the goals you have set for yourself personally and professionally, and outline your plan to achieve them, showing motivation. Discuss any failures or shortcomings from the past and what you will do differently in the future. Demonstrate how you embrace feedback and view it as an opportunity to learn. Ask solid and well-formed questions to show you are inquisitive and eager to learn more. Tara Higgins is an Associate Director with Barden Cork.

While 2021 was a big year for ESG pledges, climate ambitions and keeping the 1.5°C target within reach, 2022 will be the year of action. Russell Smyth outlines the seven ESG themes we will likely see this year. The global emphasis on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues increased significantly in 2021 among governments, NGOs, the business sector, and other stakeholders. Given the remarkable momentum achieved last year, mainly stemming from the run-up to, and discussions at COP26, we expect the ESG growth trend to continue apace in 2022. Here are seven ESG themes we expect to see throughout the year. 1. Moving beyond the pledges At the close of the year, more than 2,000 companies worldwide had set or committed to setting emission reduction targets in line with the Paris Agreement climate goals through the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi). At COP26, global leaders agreed to the Glasgow Climate Pact, securing a near-global net-zero with over 90% of world GDP now covered by net-zero commitments. These actions have kept the 1.5°C target alive, but 'its pulse is weak', as stated by COP26 president Alok Sharma. In the year ahead, there will be increased pressure and scrutiny on corporates and countries to deliver on these (often vague) commitments, with regulators and stakeholders seeking transparent and robust evidence of tangible action, quantifiable progress, and interim targets well in advance of 2050. Companies failing to act on their climate and broader ESG goals risk suffocating the already weakening 1.5-degree target as well as experiencing the expanding impact inaction will have on business continuity. 2. You've got to bring your supply chain with you For companies, a key opportunity to deliver effective change in 2022 sits within their supply chain. Supply chain emissions, or so-called ‘Scope 3’ emissions, are typically the most difficult emissions for companies to track and influence depending on the complexity of their supply chain. However, tackling them can be transformational for corporate climate action. This stems from the fact that supply chain emissions often significantly outweigh a company's direct emissions – on average, supply chain emissions are 11.4 times that of operational emissions. Decarbonising Scope 3 emissions will require a rethink and possible redesign of current value chains but also provides a significant untapped opportunity in the drive towards a net-zero carbon economy. 3. Quantifying climate risk The corporate ESG agenda has to date focused on quantifying and reducing the impact companies have on the environment (e.g. carbon emissions, waste production). Now, however, the focus is shifting to the impact of ESG, particularly climate change, on companies. This will include quantifying, in monetary terms, both physical risk (e.g. flooding risk to factories) and transitional risk (e.g. new regulations, changing consumer sentiment) to a business, driven by the requirement to report against frameworks such as the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and investor demands. This will involve moving beyond qualitative assessments of climate and environmental risk to the provision of quantified and financially-based risk assessments to inform investors on the business's risk profile and assist management in business planning and strategy. 4. ESG reporting is coming of age The ESG disclosure and reporting rhetoric has been dominated by the challenges posed by the proliferation of competing metrics and, subsequently, the lack of consistency in measurement and disclosure. In 2022, however, a tipping point has been reached, and the next phase of ESG reporting is unfolding rapidly. This includes: EU Taxonomy: A new type of classification system which establishes a list of environmentally sustainable economic activities. The Taxonomy will require financial market participants and companies to disclose their climate change mitigation and adaptation performance in a comparable way by the start of 2022 and other environmental objectives by January 2023. The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures: Provides a framework for companies to issue climate-related financial information. Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD): CSRD will come into effect in December 2022 and will entirely replace the NFRD. The proposed changes made by the CSRD include the extension of reporting requirements to include additional categories of companies and the inclusion of the 'double materiality concept'. International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB): The ISSB is tasked with developing mandatory corporate ESG disclosures. 5. Biodiversity Biodiversity is fundamental to long-term business survival. Businesses depend on highly-functioning ecosystems for important inputs into their production processes and essential services like air, soil and water quality. This year will see the global biodiversity conference, COP15, take place in China after two years of delay due to the pandemic. The conference aims to set a Paris Agreement-style global goal for nature, with many organisations calling for a worldwide goal for businesses to be "nature-positive." A nature-positive world requires no net loss of nature from 2020, a net positive state of nature by 2030, and full recovery by 2050. To mitigate impacts on biodiversity, businesses are asked to avoid and reduce pressures on nature loss, restore and regenerate, so that the extent and integrity of nature can recover, and transform underlying systems to address the drivers of nature loss. It will be easier for companies to solve these issues by setting science-based targets for both nature and climate.   6. The emergence of the green consumer According to the Harvard Business Review, consumers want more sustainable products, but when faced with them, they don't consistently buy them and "keep reverting to old, habitual behaviour". The tide seems to be changing in 2022 as consumers become more aware of how individual actions can be part of climate change mitigation. In addition, governments are increasingly pressuring businesses to nudge consumers towards making that sustainable purchase. 7. The role of the circular economy In 2022, all businesses should investigate measures for enhancing waste management, increasing product durability and quality, and seek to involve recycling/take-back schemes for product end-of-life. These methods, among others, are examples of how companies can begin to implement circular economy principles into their day-to-day processes to become a more sustainable business. In Europe, the Commission has estimated that adopting circular economy principles could increase EU GDP by 0.5 percent by 2030 and create an additional 700,000 jobs. In the context of Ireland, EPA estimates suggest a 5 percent material reduction in the 100 million tonnes used annually could correspond to an annual €2.3 billion opportunity. In December 2020, Ireland launched its first Whole of Government Circular Economy Strategy, in which it estimates that annual savings of €2.3 billion could be achieved by boosting Ireland’s circularity. Russell Smyth Sustainable Futures Partner in KPMG.

After two years of lockdowns, restrictions and anxiety, Ireland is opening up. Three members explore how their goals have changed – both personal and professional – in 2022. Jennifer Nickerson Owner Tipperary Boutique Distillery Limited In 2021, our goals were focused on survival. We had been hit hard by COVID-19 and were trying to keep our heads down to make sure that we would make it through the year. Everything was about existence. Our focus has definitely changed in 2022. We are thinking about growth and opportunities; the conversation is about breathing life into new ideas and developing critical markets. We have some fantastic product ideas and interesting distillation projects, but I think the most interesting and novel opportunity will be tourism in 2022. Our distillery has been operating for over a year now but hasn’t been open for tours. I think the opportunity to welcome visitors will allow people to understand our distillery and allow us to tell our story naturally. We are an entirely authentic business, a true field-to-bottle distillery, and people will be able to experience this for themselves when they visit us. My main challenge this year is both personal and professional. I will be coming back into the business from maternity leave with fresh ideas and will need to figure out how to make these work with a small child in tow.  I poured my life into Tipperary Distillery for six years and barely took a day off – I took a laptop on every holiday and even worked on our honeymoon. We have been lucky to get a good crèche space for our little boy, but I’ll need to work smarter this year to make everything happen for our business and still be present for our baby when he needs me. In some ways, COVID-19 has helped in this regard, setting the stage for more online meetings and showing how much we can achieve remotely, but I still see this being the main challenge as we try to find a new normal. I’m feeling hugely optimistic about the year ahead. There are so many opportunities as life begins again in 2022, and while some challenges will crop up as we emerge back out into the post-COVID world, for us, they bring infinite possibilities. Mark Lawther Assurance Director EY I think it’s safe to say that we all hoped 2021 would be the year that we managed to emerge from the pandemic. While things didn’t work out that way, I feel a real sense of optimism as 2022 gets underway.  While challenging, the great ‘work from home’ experiment has genuinely proved just how effective we can be when working remotely. Before COVID-19, I wouldn’t have considered the possibility of delivering complex global audits in an entirely remote way! But by using cutting-edge digital technology and integrating that into our audit processes, we were able to continue to provide high-quality audits, enhance the way we look at risk and offer unrivalled insights to our client throughout the process. We haven’t just adapted our working approach with clients, we’ve also had to modify how we work internally. We have a fantastic culture of collaboration at EY, and of course, we are a training firm, so a lot is learned by observation. Having fewer days in the audit rooms meant our newer staff had fewer opportunities to learn by osmosis from senior colleagues, so we were mindful that we had to find creative ways to continue to nurture junior talent. Leveraging the latest tech, we were able to find plenty of opportunities for people to learn from each other while tapping into our extended networks to help people make valuable contacts.  My hope for 2022 is to fully embrace hybrid working and give our newer team members greater access to the ‘on the job’ learning that I was lucky to benefit from in my early career.  Overall, when reflecting on the past two years, the most significant benefit of the disruption has been the opportunity to be much closer to those that matter at home. I have spent two years at home on time for dinner with my kids, and my travel and commuting time has been virtually zero. As we move into 2022 and adopt a new hybrid approach to work, I plan to keep these benefits going a few days a week. Isabelle Cairns Tax Manager James Hardie International Finance DAC 2021 brought with it a new role in a new organisation, and although it’s been a year, we haven’t yet been working in the office at full-team capacity. Mastering the balance of the hybrid work model and building strong team connections are worthy challenges that lie ahead for businesses and their employees. The most significant change from last year is the specificity of my goals. What was previously pencilled in for ‘one day’ has now been given an actual timeframe. A positive taking from the pandemic was having time and space to reflect on what matters, which, in turn, helps decision making going forward. Working in tax in a growing global business, combined with the ever-changing international tax landscape, certainly keeps one on their toes! Right now, navigating international tax reform and its associated implications across business operating jurisdictions is a key focus. While some things are out of our control, it’s great to get back into planning for life beyond lockdown. Now that international travel is on the cards, adventuring to far-flung destinations is something I look forward to. Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, a long-term resident on my bucket list, is a more realistic prospect this year. In 2022, I look forward to in-person meetings and other opportunities to connect face-to-face with colleagues.  Personally, I hope to get my foot on the property ladder. Aside from, I have signed up to cycle the Ring of Beara with a group of friends. Two very different challenges, both of which I look forward to with a degree of apprehension.