Executive remuneration and governance advice, and COVID-19 response
20/03/2020
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In response to the evolving COVID-19 issues. Guerdon Associates has put in place working arrangements that will better protect our people, our clients and the broader community.

These arrangements enable us to fully serve our clients even as COVID-19 is creating a wider range of issues for board, management and investor consideration.

We are in daily contact with our overseas offices (as part of the GECN Group), which has seen rapid adaptation of solutions for all of our global offices and for our clients.

In Australia we have established vertically-integrated employee teams, and refined remote-working facilities so that we continue to operate a full and seamless service for our clients.

During business hours, select staff are in our Sydney office, while others are working in our virtual office. For those in our physical office we have established protocols to ensure client and team safety. We are continually sanitising all parts of the office, maintaining social  distance and utilising advanced video conferencing and call facilities. Our remote working arrangements are fully secure and tested for optimal efficiency and team effectiveness.

What this means for you:

  • Our default position will be to engage using teleconference (Zoom, Hangouts meet, or Skype)
  • We are able to continue in-person meetings if required. However, we ask that clients and visitors follow pre-arranged protocols for a smooth and healthy engagement process.
  • Should you attend our premises we have pre-meeting requirements for all visitors.

People who have travelled overseas within the past 14 days, have come into close contact with a suspected or positive case of COVID-19 or are showing symptoms, will be asked to conduct meetings by phone or video, rather than face-to-face.

We believe that everyone understands the good sense of these arrangements.

Our internal assessments so far indicate that our service standards are being maintained and, for some types of work, efficiency has even improved. Across our various work groups, and the firm as a whole, team cohesion has been unaffected, although displayed in some ways differently to those when we all shared the same geographic spaces.

Meanwhile we have been finding that the implications of COVID-19 for all aspects of remuneration and governance are many, and evolving. Through constant engagement with our clients, and our overseas colleagues, we have managed to be at least a step ahead. Hence we have a high degree of confidence that we can continue to anticipate and respond to client remuneration and board governance issues to meet challenges, expectations and, for some, opportunities, arising from the pandemic.

In addition, there are the still the business-as-usual aspects of remuneration and governance that many of our clients want to address, and that we are also undertaking in our stride.

As always, we can be contacted via phone, video call, and email.

© Guerdon Associates 2024
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