As the NBR columnist ‘Shoeshine’ notes, one of the most disagreeable social changes wreaked upon us by Covid-19 is the virtual public meeting – where company management and directors are visible and audible on the screen, while shareholders watch silently from home.
Under Covid lockdown, such virtual meetings were a necessity. Not so much now, but the NBR fears directors may get a little bit used to the distance from stakeholders that this meeting format gives them.
“Tradition dictates that an AGM or similar public-facing event is the stakeholders’ moment in the sun. They get to eyeball the men and women in charge, to have their voices heard, to eat free sausage rolls. As Shoeshine has found in recent days, digital communication most certainly rules out the latter and severely curtails the former.”
