To mark Trustees Week, we wanted to discover how board performance is being measured and what trustees are doing to enhance their organisation’s performance.
We surveyed our database of 2,000 trustees and had some interesting findings to share.
Strikingly, 47% of trustees said they recognise skills gaps on their boards and 46% say their charity doesn’t appraise the performance of board members. The skills gaps highlighted were legal, HR and fundraising as well as social media and marketing and communications.
Less than half (44%) said their charity undertakes
board member appraisals every year, 10% have appraisals every two years and 46%
are never appraised. Over a third said their Chair isn’t appraised either.
Whilst over half of trustee said their terms of office were three to five
years, almost a third of admitted there were no fixed terms of office for
trustees.
Despite recognising skills gaps charities are
recruiting new trustees by word of mouth (16%) and mainly through their own
networks (42%). Around a third use recruitment agencies or job boards and only
8% advertise vacancies.
On the one hand it is commendable that almost 50%
of organisations recognise where they have skills gaps, however, it’s
extraordinary that almost half of trustees are unaware of the skills they are
lacking. It is also worrying to see that the approach to appraising board
performance is so variable when governance is more important than ever.
A lack of diverse skills on a board is a huge risk.
By relying on word of mouth or using their own networks to recruit trustees,
charities are really limiting their talent pool. Having no fixed terms for
trustees also prevents talent coming through.
There is a wealth of talented people out there who
would be interested in becoming a trustee. However, charities must be more
innovative to reach them - using social media channels and other recruitment
methods to attract them. If they don’t, they will get left behind and the
skills gaps will widen.
According to trustees, the top skills needed around
the boardroom table are leadership, finance and chairing skills. The most
desirable characteristic of a good trustee is contributing to the
organisation’s performance (32%), next important is strategic thinking and
thirdly being passionate about the cause.
Half of trustee said they saw that their colleagues
possessed these qualities, 40% said they saw these qualities most of the time
and one in ten said they did not see these characteristics in their
co-trustees.
They also noted some unusual styles of behaviour.
Whilst over 70% recognised the ‘Helpful Person’ who always offers their time
and input, nearly 46% recognised the ‘Obsessive’ who pays too much attention to
the small details and 36% the ‘Parsley on the Fish’ a board member that looks
good, but doesn’t do much.
There are also many ‘Colonels’ sat on Britain’s
boards, trustees who are excellent at giving direction and opinions, but not so
good at action, and almost a quarter of respondents said they recognised the
‘Gong Hunter’, someone who is only looking for glory.
To be a good trustee takes many skills but also a
firm commitment to the role and the charity cause. It is the responsibility of
the Chair to bring out the best in trustees – using their skills in the right
way, ensuring that meetings are run effectively and that everyone makes a
valuable contribution at each meeting.
There is no room for Colonels and Gong Hunters on
charity boards, especially given charities are under ever increasing scrutiny
from the public and from their regulators. Having trustees not up to the job is
simply unacceptable.
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