Every year I deliver a Thanksgiving address. This year, my theme was self-reliance, a principle advanced by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who instructed us to rely on our own capabilities, resources and efforts and to follow our own instincts, intuitions and ideas. Self-reliance enables our success both as individuals and as a nation.
 

In many businesses, regardless of the importance of the company’s brand or intellectual property, or even the magnitude of its fixed assets, it is often said that “the real assets go home every night.” Board oversight of a company’s human capital has steadily grown in importance, first with workplace safety issues and the #MeToo movement, and more recently with the heightening of social justice issues. The COVID pandemic and the ensuing “Great Resignation” have left many companies struggling to retain employees, and finding it even harder to attract new ones.
 

During a recent conversation I had with a fellow public company director, the subject of board detection of corporate wrongdoing came up. She told me that her approach was always to meet privately with the internal and external auditors to explain that they could always speak with her in confidence if they had an issue not appropriately addressed by management. Her words made me smile; they reminded me of a conversation I had over 25 years ago with similar parties at Sunbeam, where I was serving on my first public corporate board.

A recent study confirms that employees really want to work from home.

Employees today yearn for the opportunity to work from home, and boards should be collaborating with management to ensure their policies reflect these needs. In other words, wherever possible, the flexibility to work remotely should be seen not as a perk, but as a must-have.

Boards must clarify whether they expect to be consulted on the company’s response to social and political issues.

How to use tabletop exercises to generate the right questions to ask of your cyber team.

Business leaders consistently rank cybersecurity as one of their top concerns. For top companies, cyber capabilities have to be considered a competitive differentiator. They have moved past being a cost center and are no longer just a strategic business enabler. The risks of a cybersecurity breach in lost business revenue, customer dissatisfaction, lost intellectual property and brand reputation mean cybersecurity will continue to be an important board agenda item.

Recent guidance from the Department of Justice shines light on the importance of corporate compliance efforts.

Investors prefer performance-based incentives and are skeptical of time-based awards for executives.

Boards must be prepared to take a more comprehensive and strategic approach to sustainability.

As ESG standards have gained prominence in recent years, directors are increasingly being asked to weigh in on a host of new and often complex issues. Companies are also looking more granularly at specific ESG activities and taking a more sophisticated approach to reporting and compliance.