Society public company members across sizes and industries responding to the most recent Society / Deloitte Board Practices Quarterly survey: “Board oversight of culture” provided insights on how their boards oversee the corporate culture.
Among the takeaways:
Defining corporate culture (n=74)—A plurality of companies represented by respondents indicated that, to their knowledge, their company does not have a definition of corporate culture. For those that have a definition, the absence of any board or board committee review was a close runner up.
Primary oversight (n=67)—A plurality (and nearly half) of respondents reported that corporate culture oversight is not expressly allocated within their board structure. The compensation committee or full board most commonly assumes primary culture oversight to the extent it is allocated.
Management responsibility (n=65)—More than three-quarters of companies look to their Chief Human Resources Officer (or similar role) to oversee culture risk internally, although nearly half also or instead look to the CEO.
Board agenda (n=61)—Corporate culture topics are most commonly on the full board meeting agenda on an as-needed/ad hoc basis (61%) as opposed to a regular cadence.
Board resources (n=58)—While boards and/or responsible committees rely heavily on management to stay current on corporate culture topics, about one-third also tap director expertise, professional associations such as the Society for Corporate Governance, and/or management-provided briefings and publications.
Board information (n=57)—More than half of boards receive results from culture or engagement surveys, whistleblower hotline reports and complaints, the code of conduct policy, DE&I policies and reports, and attrition and turnover rates, to inform their monitoring and evaluation of corporate culture and behavior.
Board involvement (n=55)—A majority of boards/responsible committees participate in the company’s culture and behavior by overseeing leadership development and succession planning beyond the C-suite, while one-third engage with employees below the C-suite outside of board and committee meetings.
Culture & corporate strategy (n=56)—More than one-quarter of respondents noted that their board has increased its focus on corporate culture in relation to the company’s strategic priorities over the past one to two years, while half indicated no change over that time frame.
Shareholder engagement (n=56)—Nearly two-thirds of companies received no communications from their shareholders to engage on corporate culture-related matters with management and/or the board during the past year; however, 21% noted requests to communicate directly with company management.
Responses tended to vary by company size. Access the survey results by company size here.
Small-cap and private company findings were omitted from the report and the accompanying demographics reports due to limited respondent populations; however, members may access those results by emailing Randi Morrison.