EFFICIENCY AND HR
Improving efficiency in the boardroom
Mike Evans, CEO at ICSA Boardroom Apps Limited, explains how public service organisations can improve efficiency in the boardroom by using electronic board papers.
T
hose who attend board or committee meetings will agree that papers
distributed prior to the meeting can be 100- plus pages long. What about the time we spend waiting for papers to arrive and review them to make informed decisions?
The process of preparing board papers and delivering them on time is rather complicated and time consuming, not to mention the stress when last-minute changes to agenda items or documents need to be distributed to board members.
When considering switching to a digital board pack, directors should ask themselves questions such as:
- Will productivity increase? - Will the change save time and money? - Will it be more secure than our current practice?
One could argue that the use of technology in the boardroom requires significant investment and board portal software is really popular among FTSE listed companies, but not so much among public service organisations.
Based on my experience working with public bodies such as housing associations or NHS trusts, they have a lot of meetings and spend a significant amount of money on the traditional distribution of papers. They need to calculate the actual spend using their current method – including manpower – and compare it with the amount they would incur if they switched to an electronic alternative. It might be that in the short term there is an initial investment that might seem high, but in the long term they will reap the same benefits as large companies – so why not do it?
NHS trusts are a good example of using paperless meeting solutions to cut costs and improve efficiency in the boardroom.
On average, most NHS board papers are 350 pages long and must be couriered to each member when they are published, only a few days before the meeting. With the ‘Go Paperless by 2018’ initiative, each trust needs to eliminate its paper trail. Why not lead by example through your boardroom?
Electronic board papers give both directors
and secretarial staff the ability to work in a quicker and more efficient way, cutting down on manual processes and the time it takes to put the packs together and have them delivered on time to the board.
For secretarial staff, electronic board papers provide a streamlined and more automated way of working with board packs because they eliminate the traditional method of printing, collation and courier delivery, since all information is held and distributed to a portable device. Also, any additional updates to board papers can be done instantly and sent to directors, regardless of their location, to ensure they always access the most up-to-date information.
Directors will benefit from electronic board papers in a number of ways; the obvious one is that they don’t need to carry cumbersome packs around. They can have fast and secure access to multiple board papers, anytime, anywhere, even when offline.
They can also annotate the electronic board papers in much the same way as the traditional paper ones.
Added security of controlling printing and emailing of board papers, access to certain information combined with remote deletion of any dated, lost or stolen papers makes electronic board papers a very appealing solution to the board.
It does not matter if you work for a big corporation or a public service organisation – efficiency and good governance in the boardroom applies to both.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
T: 020 7497 5511 E:
info@boardpad.com W:
www.boardpad.com
32 | public sector executive Sep/Oct 13
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