Pennsylvania-based Rita Auritt, Senior Governance Advisor at BoardEffect, a division of Diligent Corporation, stresses the importance of technology tools in automating tasks that help governance professionals focus on governance best practices.
As board work has evolved in the digital age, board governance has become more complex. Today’s governance professionals now fill an essential strategic role within organizations, providing the skills and dedication needed to support boards and other company leadership in pursuit of governance excellence. In fact, without the support of these key players, boards would struggle to keep pace.
While non-profit boards have always depended on an individual board member – traditionally with the title of ‘board secretary’ or ‘board administrator’ – to plan, keep track of meetings, capture key points of discussion and assist other board members, this governance professional now has additional considerations to contend with.
Board governance today requires those charged with this duty to not only keep pace with an escalating amount of news, risks and opportunities that constantly stream in, but then to effectively share this intel across the entire board and organization. Wearing a wide range of hats, modern-day governance professionals help boards to:
• Source key insights and analytics to inform board decisions
• Enable team-building efforts among board directors
• Facilitate strong communications and strategic partnerships between senior managers and board directors
Read on to diagnose how well your organization stacks up against the new standard of excellence required in relation to governance professionals’ core responsibilities of board education, board meetings and practices, and communications and relationships – and learn how technology tools can help bridge the gap if you identify shortfalls.
Board education
Governance professionals need to get new directors off to the right start while also ensuring the ongoing development and education about industry and company issues. The first point generally involves board member orientation via development of a structured orientation process that incorporates training and knowledge-building about industry trends and issues, good governance practices and information about the larger organization.
Next, since an educated board is a higher-performing board, governance professionals need to develop an ongoing, organized system for board-member development. This helps to ensure that directors participate in continuous learning that keeps them current on key industry issues.
Finally, board chairs and CEOs also rely on the designated governance professional to keep an ‘ear to the ground’ on issues and events in the organization so that board members are not caught unaware. This means governance professionals must also have a way to stay on top of and distribute organizational insider insights.
Essential technology tools have become critical to the work of governance professionals, enabling their success in each of the three key roles pertaining to board education. The technology best practice in this arena should involve providing key documents and materials for education and onboarding.
Ideally, an organization should be able to complete orientation and training via a platform that allows the governance professional to send one message to direct new board members into the platform-eliminating the need to communicate back and forth throughout the process. The platform should also allow new board members to access all the information they need in advance.
For example, a platform with a centralized resource library allows governance professionals to store important notices, alerts, onboarding and educational materials. They can then feature links to the documents in a ‘welcome message’ or ‘news’ section to increase their visibility among onboarding and/or current board members.
Board meetings and practices
In addition to their important role concerning board education, governance professionals also are expected to take the lead in a number of areas related to board meetings and practices.
These include ensuring that there are current board job descriptions and a decision authority matrix in place to inform about defined board roles, responsibilities and designated authorities; knowing how to work with chairs and executives to develop agendas and implement board meeting processes; and populating board committees with experts and support.
Some additional duties for governance professionals related to board meetings and practices include board competencies and succession planning, board documentation and compliance and board assessment.
It’s clear from these varied critical responsibilities why it’s essential to implement a technology platform that can streamline the board meeting itself; for example, a platform that allows board members to handle voting items first before going to management reports makes it much easier for participants to follow along. It’s also helpful to have a platform that can handle last-minute changes, so that such revisions are easy to make and board members are kept updated.
When considering a platform, governance professionals also need one that allows them to securely prepare for meetings from anywhere and facilitate regular self-assessments for the board. A ‘scheduler’ feature, for example, can help with co-ordinating and rescheduling meetings. An optimum platform will also decentralize and streamline the process of assembling meeting materials, assign user permissions for materials and use integrations to embed video conference links.
Communications and relationships
Governance professionals are often the linchpin in facilitating timely communication – both formal and informal – between the board chair, CEO and directors. They served the role of a neutral party when board political issues arise, but they also must be vocal advocates for governance best practices.
Governance professionals additionally play a key role in enabling board chairs to maximize their performance by providing appropriate support. Finally, board directors rely on governance professionals as an indispensable point of contact, providing support and assistance to individual board members.
Having a tech platform in place to automate those tasks can help governance professionals focus on governance best practices. The right tools can facilitate conversations between the various key players, ensuring all parties are supported. For example, an ideal platform streamlines board decision-making by enabling users to create dedicated virtual ‘workrooms’ for certain topics or initiatives, where members can access polls, surveys and other core collaboration features.
In summary, pursuing governance excellence in today’s digital environment requires a solid understanding of the intricacies and demands of the modern-day governance professional’s role. Having a robust technology platform can make all the difference in the work of governance professionals – allowing for good governance in their core responsibilities of board education, board meetings and practices, and communications and relationships – so that the entire board benefits.
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