Measure What Matters
Our surveys are benchmarked against comparable boards within your chosen industry.
Board Effectiveness Surveys Overview
If you want to set high standards for your organisation’s performance, start by setting a high bar for your board’s governance and performance.
Your shareholders and other stakeholders have the right to expect your board to set a high bar for its governance and performance. Conducting a regular board evaluation shows that your board is serious about finding new and better ways to work together and is committed to continuous improvement.
Significant worldwide governance failures following the Global Financial Crisis led stock exchanges, prudential regulators, and other regulators to increase their requirements of boards. Including requirements to assess their own performance and that of their committees and individual directors at least annually. Many regulators also require that an externally facilitated board review be conducted at least every two or three years.
Many governments have set similar requirements for entities under their control. Many not-for-profit organisations have done the same, with some adopting the principles and recommendations published by the country’s stock exchange, despite no requirement for them to do so.
Our Board Effectiveness Surveys
Free Trial Shortened Board Survey
Designed for a singer user only to try a shortened survey and get their own benchmarked report.
A report will be sent directly to you on completion of the survey with responses benchmarked against our whole database.
Lite Board Effectiveness Survey
Our lite survey was designed for the tens of thousands of very small organisations that don’t otherwise have access to an affordable fit-for-purpose Board Effectiveness Survey and a benchmarked report. It was designed for organisations with a turnover of less than US$1 million and only a few employees.
The survey can also be used as a lite touch version for larger organisations, including for those that previously used our Essentials version for their deeper dive review.
Essentials Board Effectiveness Survey
Our Essentials version was designed for organisations with a turnover of up to US$2.5 million or even US$5 million and for smaller organisations where organisation performance is important.
The survey can also be used as a lite touch version for larger organisations, including for those that previously used the Advanced version for their deeper dive review.
Advanced Board Effectiveness Survey
The Advanced version was designed for organisations with a turnover between US$2.5 and US$10 million and for smaller organisations where executive remuneration, talent and succession planning is important.
The survey can also be used as a lite touch version for larger organisations, including for those that previously used Board Benchmarking’s Premium version for their deeper dive review.
Premium Board Effectiveness Survey
The Premium version was designed for all large and very large organisations with a turnover in excess of US$10 million which have more than one board committee and where board delegations are important.
The survey can also be used as a lite touch version for those organisations that previously used the same version for their deeper dive review and who want to use the same survey again and get full comparable reporting.
Benefits of a Board Review
Board Benchmarking believes that better boards lead to better organisations. Not many directors would disagree.
A well-structured benchmarked board assessment will identify strengths and areas for improvement across the 20 most critical dimensions of board effectiveness, as outlined in our WhatWhoHowDo framework. This approach allows for the quick identification of hot spots, enabling a more detailed analysis in those areas and making the review process highly effective.
The review establishes a crucial baseline for measuring the impact of subsequent improvement initiatives. By concentrating on the hot spots identified during the review, boards tend to improve significantly in these key areas, enhancing their overall effectiveness.
How It Works
Benchmarking makes all the difference
Board Review Process
The best practice for board evaluations is to conduct an independent, externally facilitated assessment every two to three years. This should be followed by annual, lighter-touch reviews focusing on the progress in addressing the hot spots identified in the comprehensive external assessment.
The external review will often involve the following steps conducted by us, a Board Advisory Partner or a similarly qualified professional:
- Directors and executives who regularly attend board meetings complete a validated, benchmarked Board Effectiveness Survey.
- A governance expert conducts a structured interview, lasting either 30 minutes or one hour, with each director and executive who completed the survey. During these interviews, the expert will also probe the areas of the survey that the interviewee rated lowest.
- The governance expert synthesises the results of the surveys and interviews into three to five main areas for improvement. They then write an Executive Summary or a detailed report outlining their findings and recommendations.
- The Chair is debriefed separately on the results of the benchmarked survey and the report recommendations before a debrief of the whole board.
- Following the findings and recommendations, subsequent workshops or action-planning sessions might be organised. These assist the board in understanding the hot spots and agree upon the improvement initiatives that will be implemented.
Most boards also do a lighter touch review between the two or three yearly external reviews. Many used to use some form of survey process, such as paper, Excel, Survey Monkey, or similar, to assist with the survey process. Evidence shows that directors and executives participating in internal survey processes are more reluctant to provide candid responses.
Organisations now have the option of using one of Board Benchmarking’s affordable, validated, world-class, benchmarked Board Effectiveness Surveys instead of the cumbersome and less meaningful internal reviews that they have done in the past.
Quick Links
Download an overview of our Board Effectiveness Surveys
Our Surveys
Improve your organisation’s performance
Board Benchmarking has developed other surveys and reports to help boards achieve organisational success. These surveys are supported by expert advice on how to interpret and act on the results by our Global Board Advisory Partners.
