PRESENTING TO THE BOARD
Presenting to the board can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Use these tips to turn the board into a strategic thought partner.
(1) Evaluate your progress on building the function. People Operations tends not to exist when ParkerGale invests in a founder owned business, so there’s a lot to build. A simple checklist communicates to the board that you know where you’re at and where you are headed.
(2) Be data driven. Boards love data. A great way to ensure you are being consistent is to build a scorecard with the same metrics each board meeting. You then can dive more deeply into a focus area of that particular board meeting.
(3) Create a narrative arc. Most large scale People Ops initiatives, and most corporate initiatives in general, span several board meetings. When communicating progress, develop a sense of what you want to tell over the lifetime of the initiative.
EVALUATE YOUR PROGRESS
A department isn’t built overnight, and boards understand that. It typically takes 18-24 months before a People Ops department reaches a level of maturity that we can all be happy with. This checklist helps you communicate to the board where you are on the journey and that you have a handle on the entire department.
At the start, not everything is going to be green. In fact, most areas will be red when you first start out. That’s entirely the point. You are entering an environment with very little rigor around process, and we’re working together to build that process over time. Many leaders like to tweak this document, so use this as a starting point and make it your own.
We recommend starting each board meeting with the scorecard and sharing your candidate evaluation of the function. The areas that are the most urgent (which isn’t always the areas that are red) then get focus in the rest of your section of the board presentation. Starting here gives the board confidence that you understand the full scope of the department and how to evolve it thoughtfully over time.
BE DATA DRIVEN
A very common complaint among board members is that HR or People Ops leaders do not defend their point of view with data. Do not fall into that trap. Most of your slides in each board deck should have data. The good news is, most modern HRIS platforms make it easy to export key data and information in a way that allows you to report on it fairly easily.
A best practice we encourage People Ops leaders to adopt is to develop a scorecard that you can share each board meeting. Similar to the checklist noted above, this page in a board report paints with numbers how the department is performing. Early on, the metrics might not be all that good. Again, that’s ok. As you make progress against the checklist, the metrics will improve. By showing the board the same data each quarter, they start to appreciate the slow steady progress you are making.
Below is an example of an excel dashboard one portfolio company built. You can download it as a starting point to build your own dashboard.
CREATE A NARRATIVE ARC
Most large scale People Ops initiatives, and most corporate initiatives in general, span several board meetings, and they typically have a beginning, middle, and end. When presenting to the board, keep that in mind. When setting out, share the goals and timeline of the initiative and how you will be measuring progress. In the middle, discuss roadblocks that have emerged, how those have impacted progress, and what you are doing to address those. At the end, share the impact of the initiative on the business and connect that back to your initial metrics for success.
By starting with the end in mind, you weave a consistent message that the board can digest over a 9-12 month period, and demonstrates your handle on the direction of the initiative and department in general.
An example narrative
THE BEGINNING
The executive team has established an aggressive hiring plan to achieve the goals for the year. You are now responsible for driving the hiring plan.
At the first board meeting of the year, establish the metrics you’ll use to assess (e.g. - a burndown plan), the process you’ll use to make progress against the plan, and the support you’ll need from executives and hiring managers across the organization
THE MIDDLE
As you make progress, you run into issues with sourcing candidates and on-boarding all of the new employees.
At the second and third board meetings, you share process against the plan in the same format you shared in the first board meeting of the year. You elevate the challenges you’ve experienced and walk them through what you are doing or have done to mitigate the issues.
THE END
By the last board meeting of the year, you’ve hit your target, but it took a concerted effort in Q4 to get things over the finish line.
In addition to sharing the results of the effort, you share lessons learned along the way and what you’ve incorporated into your overall process to improve
IN CONCLUSION…
By following these simple steps, you avoid the panic of being 3 weeks out from the board meeting and feeling urgency to throw something together. By keeping an eye on the big picture with the checklist, a handle on the team’s performance with the dashboard, and a clear articulation of the large scale initiatives by creating a narrative arc, you ensure you’re always prepared to tell a compelling story that connects from board meeting to board meeting. And takes a great deal of stress and urgency out of the process. It’s harder up front, but the benefits in the long run are substantial.
Jimmy is joined by Dave Kellogg, Board Member of a couple ParkerGale companies and writer of the Kellblog. The two discuss a classic post from Dave's Kellblog - A Missive To Human Resources, where Dave argues that HR exists to "Help Managers Manage." The two dissect the pithy purpose, discuss common pitfalls People Ops leaders fall into, and share examples when People Ops leaders really shine.