Why UK Companies Need More Effective Boards of Directors

Board roles require individuals who can both conceive of an organization’s strategic direction while simultaneously dealing with any administrative matters that might impede its growth. Their tasks include safeguarding shareholder interests, making balanced judgments about company growth, and adhering to all regulatory requirements.

Boards must strive to fulfill these expectations and develop processes to ensure directors remain fresh and diverse while working toward eliminating bias and blind spots.

1. Recruiting the right people.

An effective board of directors is a valuable asset to any company. Members who serve can offer invaluable guidance, support, and connections across a vast network of people, but for maximum effectiveness, the membership should consist of individuals with various skill sets and experiences.

When hiring new board members, it’s essential to be strategic and creative. Instead of basing judgment solely on academic qualifications or work experience alone, take into account what each candidate cares deeply about, their future goals, and what kind of discussions they enjoy engaging in. Also, please take a peek at their past work experience or social media pages in order to get a feel of how they communicate.

Once you find the ideal candidate, it’s crucial to create a comprehensive job description for their board member role so they understand exactly what to expect in their new position. This should include desirable skills, expected monthly time commitment, and any committee memberships or financial contributions required of them. You may even use BoardClic as an effective board evaluation tool, as this provides access to thousands of best practice questions that have proven to elicit valuable responses from directors.

Finding and recruiting suitable members of your board of directors is the first step toward creating an efficient one. Spending time and energy on this process will ensure your board of directors has the resources it needs to manage itself effectively in times of crisis.

2. Invest in technology.

As a global leader in innovation, the UK boasts an excellent investment ecosystem and attracts investors with generous tax incentives. Furthermore, this country features highly trained personnel as well as vibrant tech clusters.

However, the UK faces several hurdles that threaten its future growth. One such challenge is its technology skills gap – a growing concern among many companies – so in order to attract talent, an integrated strategy is required, such as working closely with schools and universities as well as offering apprenticeships. Promoting STEM careers also needs to take place.

Chairmen typically identify climate change as a top board priority, and their role involves encouraging, cajoling, and, when necessary, educating management on its need to take steps against global warming. Though this can often be challenging work, most chairmen see the benefit in inviting climate experts to board meetings to increase director understanding.

Boards must strike a careful balance between profitability and sustainability when setting long-term business goals. Although most chairs acknowledge the significance of sustainable goals in creating long-term success for their businesses, achieving them may involve investments with uncertain returns in the short term. They also must be willing to “lift their head above the parapet,” as one chair said, and openly discuss issues that undermine trust with stakeholders and customers in business.

3. Develop a strong culture.

After the 2008 financial crisis and its economic aftermath, trust in business has declined drastically. Many parties have been held responsible, including governments, regulators, central banks, and auditors – but company directors themselves are being blamed, mainly due to high-profile governance failures and corporate scandals that have made headlines worldwide.

One key issue companies face in communicating their values, beliefs, and culture to employees is communicating it effectively. A strong and positive culture can foster engagement, well-being, and productivity for more excellent employee performance, while conversely, an ineffective culture can cause profits to leak away through low morale, high turnover rates, or poor customer experiences, resulting in losses for companies.

An influential company culture must be supported by both leadership and management, with leaders encouraging open communication and transparency and providing clear direction. Furthermore, companies should create an environment that promotes employee participation in decision-making processes and the sharing of ideas amongst staff members.

Establishing a healthy culture is an ongoing journey, and the most successful boards incorporate cultural considerations both implicitly and explicitly into discussions about strategy and its implementation. Chairs suggested this could mean holding in-person or virtual social gatherings (such as “Zoom drinks”) between board meetings in order to build community among board members and help form productive working relationships among them. Chairs worldwide agreed upon conducting independent, confidential board evaluations as an integral component in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of boards themselves.

4. Invest in succession planning.

New business owners often face difficulty when trying to maintain smooth operations after crucial team members leave or retire, with one of the best ways of doing this being by creating a succession planning process.

A talent management strategy involves identifying critical roles within a company, creating a talent pipeline, and planning for any unforeseen skills requirements. A correctly implemented talent management plan ensures leadership continuity while mitigating risks from the loss of knowledge or skills while giving organizations an opportunity to attract and retain top talent aligned with long-term goals.

Succession planning can be essential for smaller companies with limited staff since finding skilled employees may be more challenging in your local community. Furthermore, family businesses must plan for eventual ownership transfer to prepare themselves.

Idealy, boards should involve high-potential employees in the creation of a succession plan. This can make them feel valued by the company and motivate them to work harder toward attaining senior roles. Involvement also promotes diversity and inclusion (DEI) within the workplace while building trust between the board and management – ultimately benefitting the long-term growth of your company!