Board committee sees itself as ‘Office of Staff Affairs’

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/ban.31140
• Published date: 01 August 2020
• Date: 01 August 2020

August 2020 • Volume 36, Number 12 5

DOI 10.1002/ban© 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC • All rights reserved

Board committee sees itself

as ‘Ofce of Staff Affairs’

I received a Board Issues Hotline (515.963.7972;

jeff_stratton@msn.com) call from a Missouri adminis-

trator who has a serious problem:

His newly formed board personnel committee is

concerned about staff morale and is planning to

make a “suggestion box” available to the organiza-

tion’s employees. The committee chair’s method

for this suggestion box? Just email your com-

plaints, suggestions and thoughts to the commit-

tee chair!

“I don’t even know where this idea came from,”

said the Missouri executive director.

Here’s where this type of board action comes

from: Board members are volunteers, and for the

most part are well-meaning when they make sug-

gestions about “suggestion boxes.” As volunteers,

they typically have very little day-to-day contact with

the organization. So they often wonder how things

are going in certain areas—such as “are employees

happy?”

When enough board members start thinking

this way, watch out. Management of staff is the

CEO’s responsibility. It is your job to ensure that

staff is being listened to, that their complaints

and suggestions are given thorough and fair

hearings and acted upon when they are good for

the nonprofit.

So when board members express a desire to

know more about employees and their work,

show them turnover rates, evidence of how you

resolve standard staff grievances, staff awards

and testimonials from those you serve that focus

on employee accomplishments.

Maybe the best way to keep a personnel com-

mittee or the board from stepping way out of line

is through an online survey to find out what is on

your employees’ minds. A survey on Survey Mon-

key will help you uncover any below-the-tip-of-

the-iceberg issues that staff are hesitant to bring

to your attention. These might be occurring in the

areas of morale, lack of communication, account-

ability or no sense of the direction the nonprofit is

taking.

This activity may be well worth your while,

because if you do not undertake it, someday the

board may do it for you. ■

Board work session timed at end of workday

Administrator Raymond Fashano (Jamestown,

New York) and his board use work sessions to

help the board dig deeper into topics they are

interested in.

“We usually hold these at a time when board

members can come right from their work to the

meeting,” Fashano said. The organization pro-

vides a light supper for the board.

Topics for the work sessions include budget

work sessions and discussion, research re-

lated to the mission, discussion of the non-

profit’s vision and a review of strategic plan-

ning efforts.

The sessions usually last about one hour, in-

cluding a board discussion. “The board schedules

the work sessions as they feel they need them or

a topic comes up that they want to learn more

about,” Fashano said.

Let board chair handle board discipline

Administrator Debra Tanner (Wakefield, Rhode

Island) figures she has enough to do with manag-

ing the day-to-day affairs of the organization. So

when board members showboat at meetings, or

are inappropriate in their interaction with board

colleagues or staff, she asks her board chair to

handle the matter.

“The chair usually gives the board member

a call to discuss issues privately and avoid

embarrassing the board member,” Tanner

said.

“The chair discusses the matter and they reach

agreement on how to handle things appropri-

ately,” she said.