Why You Should Consider Having Employees on Your Board
With the rise of employee activism and many corporations facing this new trend, what if the next iteration is employees on the board of directors?
The notion is as simple as this: designate one or two board of directors seats to employees, and allow them to be a part of the discussions and decision-making as a means to better representation, ethics, and equity. After all, employees are stakeholders in the company, too, so logically this makes sense.
When the Business Roundtable, a group of the nation’s top CEOs, encouraged businesses to embrace all stakeholders (not just shareholders), many analysts were left asking “what’s next?” Shifting from a shareholder only view to a stakeholder one was a big statement, but the substance was lacking. A substantive next step is to encourage businesses to add employees to their boards of directors.
While it’s nearly unheard of in America, many companies overseas have experimented with employee board representation. In Germany, companies with more than 2,000 employees delegate half of their supervisory board seats to employees. France took a big step in 2013 with the creation of a law to give board seats to employees as an equal rights effort.
