Director Onboarding As Competitive Advantage
How to leverage director onboarding for growing and enhancing your business.
Director Onboarding for Effective, Engaged Boards and Creative Employee Retention Perk
Board onboarding is a great opportunity to enhance your organization, its cultural growth, and the engagement of directors of all tenures. Organizations can miss opportunities when they view onboarding as a governance “check the box.” Instead, when director onboarding is deployed effectively, including creating an energizing two-way dialogue between directors and management at all levels, it can pave the way for operational and leadership success.
Content drives engagement
Assuming you’ve completed all the procedural requirements like D&O questionnaires, background checks, SEC forms and the like, your creativity can start to take hold. The content of onboarding starts with a thoughtful strategy about what directors really need to know to discharge their duties, the internal effectiveness goals of the Board, the distinct differences between executive management and director roles, and specific considerations for first time directors versus those who bring extensive expertise from other company boards.
The key components of a productive board onboarding program, whether you are a public company, private company or nonprofit are:
Some ideas for content in these categories include:
And, if a director has industry expertise (*see above), modifications can and should be made to the onboarding plan to focus on differentiating the company from others in the space.
TIPS: Don’t miss the opportunity to leverage the new “within industry” director by having them share their insights in a special “Open Dialogue/Deep Dive” session that includes other directors as well as members of the management team. In addition, inviting more tenured directors to all onboarding sessions enhances the value for new and tenured directors alike, as they can share real world experiences relevant to the various topics and build relationships outside of a formal meeting setting.
Onboarding content timing: firehose v. periodic regular sessions
Content categories provide the skeleton, but scheduling the various topics based on when each will be most valuable is critical. For example, some companies take a firehose approach with directors spending a week going through all the areas of the program. In my opinion, the more effective approach is to break it out into sessions throughout a longer period, such as the director’s first six months. In addition, I advise companies to go back through the key topics after the director has completed a full year of meetings (with updated or more complex information so that it isn’t just a rerun of year one) to allow that director to apply real boardroom examples and company specific experiences to clarify understanding.
Relationships beyond the C-Suite can enhance board engagement and effectiveness while creating retention “perks” for employees and managers
Keep in mind, the “shadow goal” of onboarding is to build the necessary relationship foundation among the directors AND between company management and the Board. Since we know that the company and industry content of onboarding is a critical piece of the puzzle, who better to offer that perspective than non-executive leaders within the organization? This allows the directors to build relationships beyond the C-suite, and for leaders not yet in C-roles, the opportunity to present and interact with directors provides rare experience and valuable skill sets that will serve them throughout their careers.
In addition, two-way relationships between directors and managers are even more powerful when they are ongoing. Use onboarding to determine the director’s interest in mentoring other leaders in the organization, which can often help the director gain a more robust, “boots on the ground” perspective, and allows employees to enjoy a more direct relationship with directors. This can pay dividends in talent strategy through greater job satisfaction from elevated visibility and a tool for retention because board exposure is not something that many companies offer to employees at varying levels in the organization.
In short, don’t miss the opportunity that board onboarding offers your company by taking a view that extends beyond governance and compliance.
What are some things you do at your company to enhance the onboarding process? Feel free to comment and share!
#corporategovernance #boardofdirectors #boardeffectiveness #boardgovernance #boardonboarding
Originally posted on LinkedIn