As an HR leader with a seat at the table, you are in a unique position to strategically connect you and your team’s influence to organizational strategic goals on the biggest battlefield of them all – the boardroom.
But without data and insights, it can be difficult to make those connections and show big-picture strategies to influence culture, leadership, and values to help your business meet its goals.
Organizations without HR representation on the board are more common than you think.
According to Forbes, less than 3% of directors on the boards of Fortune 1000 companies were current or former HR executives. Without a doubt, change is needed here. But in the meantime, consider yourself as one of the few pioneers paving the way for greater representation of HR in the boardroom.
Cutting through the boardroom noise
So how can you better position HR and your influence on your organization’s objectives in board meetings? Have there been occasions where you come away from these meetings feeling that your voice was not heard, or even feeling undervalued?
For example, you have found best-in-class HR tech that will directly support the growth of your organization through a digital transformation of the employee experience to support wellbeing. But you have come away from the board meeting knowing that Executive colleagues did not share your enthusiasm and thought your proposed HR tech was not a worthwhile investment. Sound familiar?
We want to help you come away from board meetings feeling incredible and knowing that you have positioned HR as a driving force for growth and adds considerable value to meeting goals and the bottom line.
Upgrade your arsenal
Now’s the time to upgrade your arsenal and introduce the right data that will cut through the noise in the boardroom. In the end, it will be difficult to challenge black and white that points to cultural and operational struggles in your organization.
Sustaining and delivering growth is one of the most common business goals. With that, there is a source of data that you can arm yourself with data that directly influences this goal, and that’s employee absence.
Absence is often an overlooked issue in organizations because it is either poorly managed or it is not clear to the leadership team of its direct impact and influences on productivity and company culture.
Stunningly, sickness absence costs the UK economy £29bn per year, with stress and mental ill-health noted as the most common causes along with general minor illnesses.
Your influence on the bottom-line and strategic objectives
So, what about winning over revenue-driven peers on your board? How do you strengthen your recommendations that directly influence the bottom line? Make a clear connection to your organization’s objectives. Let us look at the median cost of absence which is £522 per employee.
For organizations that work globally with a headcount of thousands, absence can quickly become a sleeping threat to your organization’s objectives around growth and sustainability. This is your opportunity to change perceptions and turn attention to employee absence.
Arming yourself with story-telling data, such as certain unplanned reasons peaking a particular period of the year, will promote proactive strategic thinking and early intervention. In turn, you have positioned a problem with a solution to the board that is clearly linked to strategic goals.
Data is also a snapshot of your culture and the employee experience, which is a key pillar for growth. Without this, in time, you will struggle to keep your top talent if there is an emerging trend pointing to stress, burnout, and presenteeism.
This is your opportunity to cut through the boardroom noise and make a seismic impact on your organization. If this resonates with you or you are struggling with a different challenge in the boardroom, we love to listen.
We explore 6 reasons absence management is failing businesses in our free e-book, download and see for yourself.