Why Happy Workers Could Be Your Portfolio's Best Defence
There’s a certain satisfaction, isn’t there, when the corporate world gets a sharp, expensive lesson in common sense. I’m talking, of course, about Qantas. When Australia’s flagship airline was ordered to pay a king's ransom for unlawfully sacking nearly two thousand workers, I imagine a few investors choked on their morning tea. It seems treating your staff like disposable assets is no longer just bad form, it’s catastrophically bad for the balance sheet.
For years, we’ve been told to look at profit margins, debt ratios, and all the other usual suspects. But the Qantas debacle feels like a watershed moment. It’s a glaring, multi-million-pound signpost pointing to a new, and I think far more telling, metric for corporate health: how a company treats its people.