Every week we publish an IR press review with exciting topics related to IR. And every week we look at the number of hits on the most read articles. What do you think are the topics that readers are most interested in? ESG? Yes, that is usually quite far ahead. “Sea change in research costs”? Interestingly enough, no. Although one would think that small and medium-sized limited companies in particular would benefit from this, research costs are not a focus of great interest. Investor targeting? No, not that, either.
So what topics are our readers (mostly IROs and IR managers) really burning to read about? It is less specialist articles on the subject of IR. Rather… let’s call it “survival tips for everyday office life”. The following topic, for example, was very well received by the IROs: “Out of office note: You should avoid these embarrassments”. Also widely-read was: “Eight tips on how to deal with narcissists in the boardroom” or: “How to survive boring meetings”. By far the most read article this year: “The six biggest time-wasters in day-to-day work“. Almost 30% of the readers of our newsletter were interested in this article. Lack of time thus seems to be a nationwide issue in the IR departments.
And why is that? According to the article on FONDS professionally ONLINE, the biggest time-wasters are work journeys, disruptions, never being done with work, neglecting priorities, getting stuck on details or even welcome distractions such as news feeds on the mobile phone or small talk with colleagues.
In particular, the point: “never be done with work” seems to us to be the most telling when it comes to the working reality of IROs. At the end of the day, despite all the to-do lists, there are still too many unfinished tasks left. Yes, it is of course conceivable that – as online contributions to FONDS suggest – this may be related to the individual working methods of the people concerned. But that would be to overlook the enormous workload which has fallen on IROs in recent years. In addition to IR, IROs are often also responsible for corporate communications, PR or corporate strategy. And within the IR, there are topics such as event management (HV, conferences, roadshows), communication with investors & analysts, investor targeting, mandatory publications /capital market compliance, coaching of the C-level with regard to capital market topics, market analysis, reporting, visibility in the financial media, ESEF. Not to mention current topics such as Shareholder ID, ESG & Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, European Supply Chain Directive, and EU taxonomy.