Thoughts for Board Directors about the COVID Playbook
story by: Kimberly Casiano
The “playbook” of innovation and collaboration brought on by Covid is still being written. It is too soon to know what changes to the way we work will be sustained in the longer term. But it is clear that Covid has not only accelerated innovations that were already partially in process, but also been the catalyst for new innovations.
Immediately after the emergence of Covid and the shutdown of many economic activities, management and boards should have focused on financial strength and liquidity. Prudent boards were targeting all sources of cash – and deciding whether to draw down corporate lines, take on additional debt, or explore other sources of financing in order to have a “war chest.” No one really knew – and we still don’t know -- what form or timeframe economic recovery will take. But we all know that this economic recovery will be plagued by issues of additional outbreaks and variability by geography and industry.
How effective will executives be at managing overseas operations without travel? Specifically, as a board member, and as a member of the Audit Committee of every company on whose board I serve, one of my principal duties is financial and internal controls oversight: I am keenly focused on the Internal Audit Department and how effectively it can function when audits are conducted remotely and audit personnel are not permitted to travel. I am especially concerned with countries which have higher risk profiles.
The most obvious area where Covid has advanced the pace of change and impacted technology is in the work-force. And this goes way beyond the IT Department’s implementation and training for Zoom or Microsoft Teams or WebEx or GoToMeeting.
There have been some definitive up-sides to the wider acceptance of a virtual workplace. For example, more customers and prospects are able to “meet” the CEO and top management because in a virtual world, the CEO can “meet” with customers and prospects all over the world in a single day.
Board members must ensure that their company has undertaken an exhaustive analysis of their workforce to distinguish between “knowledge” workers whose jobs can be performed remotely and those members of the workforce who must work on-site.
Regarding the “knowledge” workers -- whose jobs can mostly be done remotely – we as board members must ask about four areas:
Efficiency and productivity
Teamwork, innovation, simulation and collaboration
Human Resource functions and how they must be re-imagined
Cybersecurity
Covid has been the ultimate Black Swan event. It is no time for “faint of heart” directors. The board must ask – head-on – several key questions: What are lessons learned of how responsive, flexible, and innovative our company has been during the Covid crisis? What is the future of work in general, and specifically to our company? What are the implications of the change in our work paradigm on the risk profile of our company?