Australian CEOs upbeat as staff return: KPMG

Australian chief executives are much more upbeat about the outlook than their colleagues overseas, according to a new KPMG survey.

KPMG chief executive Gary Wingrove: ‘The return to normal in terms of the office in Australia is ahead of some of the countries overseas.’ Picture: John Appleyard

Australian chief executives are much more upbeat about the outlook than their colleagues overseas, with more employers expecting staff to return to work in their offices soon, according to a new survey of 500 global CEOs by KPMG.

The survey shows that most global chief executives do not think their companies will return to normal until next year, if ever, in the wake of the COVID pandemic, with many not expecting staff to return to work in offices until later this year at the earliest.

But all the Australian CEOs surveyed are confident or very confident about their company’s growth prospects for the next three years, compared with 89 per cent globally.

The survey finds that 45 per cent of global chief executives believe things will not return to normal until 2022, with another 24 per cent believing their business has “changed forever”.

“The outlook in Australia is pretty positive compared to what we might have thought a year or so ago,” KPMG chief executive Gary Wingrove told The Australian on Thursday.

“We are in a good place.”

“People in Australia are feeling better and more confident in the outlook for the country,” he added.

Mr Wingrove said KPMG economists estimated that only 100,000 of the million people currently on the JobKeeper allowance would lose their jobs when the employee subsidy finished this weekend.

He said that many Australian chief executives were now expecting their staff to come back to the office, at least on a part-time basis.

But the survey found that many global chief executives are waiting at least until the second half of the year before planning to get their staff back into the office, waiting on changes in government restrictions and watching the impact of the rollout of the vaccines.

“A lot of global CEOs are saying they will wait until at least the second half of the year before returning to the office,” Mr Wingrove said.

But he added that CEOs in Australia were pushing ahead with a hybrid model that was seeing a lot more staff returning to the office, often on a part-time basis.

“A lot people are back in offices across Australia although not all are returning full time,” Mr Wingrove said.

He said KPMG’s staff of some 8000 were working on a “three-hub” basis — a combination of KPMG offices, the offices of clients and their homes.

“The return to normal in terms of the office in Australia is ahead of some of the countries overseas,” he said.

“Most global chief executives are looking for government to give them the signal to return to more normal business operations.”

Many Australian chief executives are now expecting their staff to come back to the office, at least on a part-time basis. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

He said many global CEOs also believed a successful rollout of the vaccine would influence their decision to bring staff back to work.

He said global CEOs who had staff in several countries were worried about the different rates of vaccine rollouts, with not all staff having access to vaccines around the world.

The annual survey assesses the sentiment of CEOs in 11 countries.

Some 60 per cent of Australians involved in the survey of 500 global chief executives believe their business has changed permanently, compared with only 24 per cent globally.

The survey found that the top three risks for CEOs around the world concern cyber, regulation and supply chains.

But Australian CEOs rank cyber risk and climate change their top two concerns.

The survey shows that almost 80 per cent of global CEOs are expecting economic growth of between 2.5 per cent and 10 per cent over the next three years.

Less than half are optimistic about prospects for the global economy over the same period.

Mr Wingrove said KPMG Australia’s analysis predicted that there would be a 2.8 per cent boost to world GDP if there was a successful rollout of the vaccine.

However, global growth could drop by 1.2 per cent if the vaccine rollout was not successful, he warned.

Mr Wingrove said environmental, social and governance issues had emerged as a much bigger issue for companies in the wake of the pandemic.

“Business now has a heightened ‘green recovery’ agenda,” he said.

He said the Biden administration re-signing the US to the Paris Accord was seen by CEOs as giving climate change “a big push”.

“ESG has been the big climber in priorities since the COVID era began,” he said.

He said there was also more focus on the mental health of staff and employee engagement.