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Target Unit: Board of Directors

A 15-Point Plan for Boards and CEOs to Eradicate Sexual Harassment in Their Organizations

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ATTRIBUTES
  • Leadership
  • Workplace Wellbeing and Safety

SOURCE
  • Forbes

TYPE OF RESOURCE
  • AArticle

TARGET AREA
  • Implementation

TARGET UNIT
  • Board of Directors, CEO

LINK TO RESOURCE

A 15-Point Plan for Boards and CEOs to Eradicate Sexual Harassment in Their Organizations

Forbes
This resource provides a list of actions that leaders of organizations should take to eliminate sexual harassment in their workplaces.

  1. Establish accountability.
  2. Immediately request an audit of every open case of sexual harassment and a 5-10-year look-back of every closed, settled, sealed or discarded case ever brought to the organization’s attention.
  3. Introduce a sexual harassment hotline that bypasses HR, is administered by an outside provider, and is reported directly to the board.
  4. When a credible accusation is made, the accused should be put on a paid leave of absence while an investigation ensues.
  5. Do not dismiss, deny, defend, or blame the victim.
  6. Maintain and defend a pristine due process.
  7. Make it explicit in every way you can that harassment, abuse, or misbehaviour will not be tolerated.
  8. Be proactive.
  9. Put incentives in place.
  10. Clarify the role of HR in sexual harassment cases.
  11. Promote a “see something, say something” environment.
  12. Conduct bystander training throughout the organization.
  13. Leaders should actively protect someone that might be in danger.
  14. Get more women on boards and in C-suites.
  15. Beware of backlash.

To read more about this article, click here.

Gender Diversity on Boards in Canada – Recommendations for Accelerating Progress

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ATTRIBUTES
  • Leadership
  • Recruitment, Retention and Promotion

SOURCE
  • Catalyst

TYPE OF RESOURCE
  • RReport

TARGET AREA
  • Board of Directors, Strategy

TARGET UNIT
  • Board of Directors

LINK TO RESOURCE

Gender Diversity on Boards in Canada – Recommendations for Accelerating Progress

Catalyst
This report was created to help Canadian organizations make progress on achieving gender parity on boards by promoting the adoption of targets. It also presents an analysis of the benefits of gender parity for board of directors, examines disclosures related to board renewal mechanisms, and describes best practices from leading businesses.

Recommendations for accelerating progress for women on boards include:

  1. Set the following specific targets, and achieve them within three to five years:
    1. 30 percent women board directors, if you currently have at least one woman director.
    2. One woman board director, if you currently have zero women board directors.
  2. Use at least one mechanism to facilitate board renewal (e.g. term, age limit).
  3. Establish a written policy describing how the company specifically plans to increase representation of women on its board.
  4. Review board recruitment policies:
    1. Require that lists of potential board candidates consist of at least 50 percent women candidates with the skills and profile sought, and ensure diversity among women too.
    2. Require that women – including women from diverse communities – comprise at least 50 percent of the interview pool for every open board position.
    3. Implement board effectiveness assessments, including gap analysis using skills matrices.
    4. Leverage broad networks – not just the usual suspects.
  5. Champion senior executive women for board service by:
    1. Reassessing and removing restrictions on external board service.
    2. Implementing programs to match talent with board vacancies.
  6. Address gender equity at all levels of the organization by:
    1. Reviewing, on a continual basis, all human resources systems to ensure they are unbiased.
    2. Investing in inclusive leadership training.
    3. Monitoring and tracking promotion rates, aim for proportional rates at each level.
    4. Evaluating and addressing pay equity by:
      1. Conducting periodic pay equity studies.
      2. Implementing “no negotiations” policies and paying for work, not potential.
  7. Adopting pay transparency policies.

To learn more, click here.

Board of Directors Playbook

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ATTRIBUTES
  • Leadership
  • Recruitment, Retention and Promotion

SOURCE
  • Canadian Gender & Good Governance Alliance

TYPE OF RESOURCE
  • GGuide

TARGET AREA
  • Board of Directors, Development

TARGET UNIT
  • Board of Directors

LINK TO RESOURCE

Board Directors' Playbook

Canadian Gender & Good Governance Alliance
The Playbook provides information on common obstacles, the business case of gender diversity on boards, and tools for action in order to address this issue. The Playbook is a guideline for starting to address a Board of Director’s gender diversity.

The resource provides the following practical recommendations:

  1. Formal Board Evaluation Process: This process will help boards identify strengths and opportunities for improvement, as well as reveal current and future needs of the board.
  2. Term and Age Limits: Without vacancies, increasing the number of women on boards is difficult. Establishing a formal approach to board renewal will help find a balance between renewal of skills and perspectives and retaining long-term directors who still provide valuable contributions.
  3. Board Competency Matrix: Crafting the board competency matrix with skills and competencies that make directors effective could increase the pool of women candidates. Currently, markers are thought to be limited to résumé markers that are not reflective of boardroom effectiveness.
  4. Gender Diversity Policy: According to CGGA, adopting a Gender Diversity Policy improves the representation of women on boards regardless of company size.
  5. Board Member Recruitment: In order to avoid biased recruiting, broadening the search can help identify the best women candidates. Expand the scope by using board-ready lists, networking with industry peers and advisors, engaging a search firm, and maintaining an evergreen list of candidates.

To learn more, click here.

Five Ways to Enhance Board Oversight Culture

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ATTRIBUTES
  • Leadership
  • Organizational Culture

SOURCE
  • EY

TYPE OF RESOURCE
  • AArticle

TARGET AREA
  • Strategy

TARGET UNIT
  • Board of Directors

LINK TO RESOURCE

Five Ways to Enhance Board Oversight Culture

EY
This resource was developed for board members in recognition that culture is a growing priority in the boardroom. The board is responsible for holding management accountable for the correlation between culture and business strategy, and it includes five ways to help boards govern culture in their organizations:

  1. Oversee how culture is defined and aligned to strategy: Include the cultural attributes needed to achieve the company’s overall strategic objectives.
  2. Create accountability for how culture is communicated and lived – internally and to key external stakeholder: Organizations should clearly identify the right behaviours, manage performance against those behaviours, and reinforce the board and executive team with incentive structures.
  3. Monitor how culture and talent metrics are measured to keep a pulse on how culture is evolving: Use analytics of cultural trends, benchmarking to other entities or standards to measure performance and accountability, inclusion and wellbeing, etc.
  4. Oversee intentional culture shifts to stay in step with strategy shifts: Understand the social network of the company and identify the “influencers” within the organization, and use both top-down approaches (e.g. performance and rewards systems) and bottom-up approaches (e.g. decisions and behavioural changes in local teams that create new norms).
  5. Challenge the board’s culture: The board sets the tone at the top regarding corporate culture – not just in the way that the board prioritizes and oversees the company’s culture but also in the composition, dynamics, and culture of the board itself.

This resource also includes questions for the board to consider, including:

  1. Does the board set the right tone at the top and give sufficient attention to culture as a key enabler of purpose and strategy?
  2. Does the board itself embody and reflect the company’s values?
  3. How comprehensively and specifically has the board discussed the importance of culture and helped define the desired culture?

To see more, click here.