Ross Trustees’ Grant Suckling and Susan Andrews explain how trustee meetings will look in the future, as videoconferencing has come to stay and will have an important role to play in future governance models.
Many effective meetings have taken place online. Meetings start (and finish) earlier without travel time. Attendees challenged with freeing up a whole day for meetings can often make a call.
Advisers and company attendees dial in and out as required. We have seen savings in time and cost as well as efficiencies, with quicker decisions and shorter meetings.
The main challenge with online meetings is when technology is not our friend. Broadband width, and hence attendees, can come and go unexpectedly. Video cameras may be switched off to save bandwidth, and sometimes attendees disappear entirely.
Trustees need training on videoconferencing platforms and on-the-day support. Many of us have been making do — this is not sustainable
As chairs, it is harder to gauge understanding on screen than in the room, even more so with newer trustees. This is 10 times worse when sharing meeting papers on screen: faces move smaller, to the side and even not on the same screen.
The future of meetings after Covid
What decisions need to be made at meetings should drive the agenda and format.
In-person trustee meetings hold their value but should focus on training, strategy and long-term planning. Strategic objectives such as covenant, investment and funding would be better debated in an in-person environment.
In our experience, better outcomes are achieved where discussions take place collaboratively in the same room. Understanding of training and complex topics can be checked, ideas can flow, and questions can be asked without being restricted by cries of “you’re on mute!”
This would leave shorter online meetings in between, centring on important operational, business-as-usual matters such as administration, audit, communications, governance and legal.
In this way, these fundamental items should have sufficient airtime without being squeezed by other, seemingly more pressing topics that can often take precedence.
Additional support needed for online meetings
Trustees need training on videoconferencing platforms and on-the-day support. Many of us have been making do — this is not sustainable.
Those presenting should be mindful that some trustees are not as used to finding their way around online portals as they are.
Although late submission of papers is a fact of life, reducing the frequency would help the smooth-running of the business. It is hard enough to juggle online papers and online meetings, without searching out late emails with additional information.
Trustee meeting packs need to be shorter. An idea would be to divide them in two, having one pack for discussion/decisions and another for information/noting.
Videoconferencing etiquette is needed
If online meetings will become part of the new norm, some rules will need to be established to ensure a smooth process.
An etiquette reminder at the start of online meetings helps, especially if there are many attendees. Participants should start with using mute when not speaking.
Raising hands, visually or using the ‘raise hand’ function, ensures questions are spotted and raised without cutting across others. Chairs need to look out for those.
Consider utilising a five-second rule, where chairs ask for any objections to the summarised decision — otherwise silence is taken as consent by the trustees. This avoids the need for unmuting/muting at regular intervals.
Capturing when attendees come and go is key, to ensure meetings remain quorate. Unexpected attendees are problematic and potentially compromise security.
Chairs should use the lobby function where expected attendees are only admitted at the right time. Advisers’ support is appreciated here, by reducing the number attending or turning off their camera for the most part, so chairs can see the faces of the whole trustee board easily.
In this new world with a new way of working, everything is up for grabs. What works well for one scheme will work differently for another. A combination of online and in-person would be the best of both worlds.
Grant Suckling is trustee director and Susan Andrews is chief operating officer at Ross Trustees
