Society members responding to the most recent Society/Deloitte Board Practices Quarterly survey concerning key areas and trends expected to impact board agendas this year identified board and/or workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion and pandemic response and recovery as among the top emerging or trending topics their boards will want to focus on in 2021.
Oversight structure - Always of keen interest to corporate governance professionals, the board/committee oversight structure for the six emerging or trending topic areas addressed in the survey varies by company, as follows:
Management liaison with the board - Although management liaisons with the board across its numerous oversight responsibilities also vary by company, the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) or equivalent is increasingly serving as a principal liaison with the board on several trending topics. Respondents overwhelmingly identified the CHRO (or equivalent) as the principal liaison on human capital management; board and/or workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion; and corporate social purpose/corporate culture.
Frequency on the agenda - Also noteworthy is the frequency of two topics on the agenda that are among all respondents' top priorities - pandemic response and recovery and human capital management, with the former most commonly occupying a spot on the meeting agenda at every full board meeting and the latter most commonly being addressed by the full board on an annual basis.
Disclosure - A significant 73% of respondents plan to increase their level of human capital management disclosure in the next three to six months, and nearly 40% are considering expanding their disclosure of board and/or directors' human capital management-relevant skills and qualifications.
Respondents consisted of Society member corporate secretaries, in-house counsel, and other in-house governance professionals with public companies (91%) and private companies (9%) of varying sizes and industries. See the survey results online and by company demographics here.
Access additional resources on our Board Practices/Governance Practices page.
This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!