TWO VIEWS: BOARD RECRUITMENT IN A POST IN-PERSON WORLD: Virtual interviews tend to be more structured and somewhat more formal, encouraging everyone to be more prepared.

• Author: Daum, Julie
• Position: THE AGE OF RISK: Character & Culture in the Recovery

The magnitude of the COVID-19 health crisis and collapse in economic activity is unlike anything we have seen. Within most organizations, traditional in-person work patterns have been disrupted, while others have seen widespread layoffs or furloughs. Anxiety about job loss, economic uncertainty, personal well-being, safety and ongoing disruption is prevalent.

Boards are not free from these pressures. They must deal with both the strategic implications of COVID-19--how the business will rebound out of the crisis and the bets the organization should make for the future--and the disruptions to their routines and processes. Boards have adjusted how they work by embracing virtual meetings, new communications and information-sharing technologies, and even virtual shareholder meetings. In our recent survey of nominating/governance (nom/gov) committee chairs of S&P 500 and Fortune 500 companies, most (84%) anticipated that boards would continue to have more virtual meetings after the crisis, and almost half (48%) expected to eliminate their annual in-person shareholder meeting.

A responsibility some directors are less comfortable conducting virtually is director recruiting. A majority (58%) of nom/gov chairs said they feel somewhat or very uncomfortable appointing a director to the board without meeting in person, with nearly one-quarter (24%) anticipating that the crisis will slow their board's refreshment plans.

It is unsurprising that directors would feel some discomfort nominating new board members without in-person interviews given the importance of healthy boardroom dynamics to board effectiveness. It is harder to read a person's body language and soft skills in a video meeting, or to recreate the casual interactions that often happen before or after the formal interview that might give clues to the candidate's chemistry with other directors. An added pressure for video interviewing is the risk of technical difficulties: lag on the call, internet connection issues, poor video quality, etc., that can disrupt the flow of the conversation during the limited time the meeting is scheduled.

But for the foreseeable future, virtual meetings and interviews are the new reality for boards, and refreshing the board is an imperative, even in the current environment.

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