Heidrick & Struggles
September 2024
As boards’ responsibilities become more complex and they seek to become more effective, adding more directors with HR expertise can help, as highlighted by our interviews with 18 sitting board members
Boards have a few foundational responsibilities, among them overseeing performance, risk, and CEO succession planning—endeavors that are evolving and increasingly complex.
Risk, for example, now extends to talent risks of all kinds, as they are more material than ever before. “Talent is at a level of complexity that we have not seen before,” one board director told us. Companies face the perennial need to attract new people, which is getting harder as workforce dynamics shift and as more potential employees seek newer ways of connecting with their company, such as a shared purpose or flexible work arrangements.
Retention is a particular risk today: recent Heidrick & Struggles research shows that 76% of executives are very or entirely willing to change companies in the next one to three years.
And then there are the links between performance, people, and culture, which are increasingly being recognized as make-or-break elements of organizational success. One-third of recently surveyed CEOs in ten markets around the world cited culture as the factor with the most influence over financial performance, for example, and 71% cite it in the top three.
Finally, boards are navigating the seemingly more complex landscape around hiring underrepresented groups, including adherence to new guidelines and regulations that can make this goal more challenging to achieve in certain geographies.
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