Board Recruitment Guide for sports organisations
Table of Contents
Introduction
Why develop a board recruitment process?
Step 1 – Preparing for recruitment
1.Recruitment planning and timeline
Check your governing document
Timeline
2.Overview of board structure
3.What is the role you are hiring for?
Who is who: chair of the board and board member
Payment of board members
4.Who are you looking for?
Skills audit and board evaluation
Focus on diversity
The degree of objectivity - independent director vs executive director?
Step 2 – Attracting new board members
1.Writing the advert
How to approach potential candidates?
2.How and where to promote the role?
Advertising options
Step 3 – Carrying out recruitment process
1.Role of nominations committee
2.Appointment process
Collecting applications
Reviewing applications
Interviewing - best practice and practical tips
Meeting with potential board members
3.Election process
Election procedure
Nominations for the board of directors
Voting
4.Appointment vs Election
Thank all the candidates
Step 4 – Welcoming new board members
1.Keep it legal
Contracts
2.Induction of new board members
Welcoming your new board directors
Induction process for new board members
Other points to consider
Step 5 - Ongoing management
1.Board training and development
2.Succession Planning
A board is only as good as its members
Help and support
Introduction
This document provides insight, guidance and practical steps for recruiting and inducting new board members. It has been developed to help sports organisations improve their recruitment policies and implement them effectively, to achieve a skilled, diverse and objective board and to meet the requirements of The Principles of Good Governance for Sport and Recreation.
The Board is often referred to by different names, depending on the organisation’s structure and its legal framework. Therefore, this guidance on ‘Board member recruitment’also applies to the recruitment ofmanagement committee members, council members, executive committee members, non-executives, directors and trustees.Although the terminology varies, the roles are similar: they are members of the senior decision-making body in the organisation.
Why develop a board recruitment process?
Recruitment of board members is crucial to your organisation’s long-term success. While the task of recruiting board members might seem a little discouraging, it is important to take the time to find candidates with varied experience, the right set of skills, values that match the organisation and commitment to the role. The process outlined below will help improve your chances of finding the right people for the job.
Board members are ultimately responsible for the management of the organisation. Most importantly, directors represent their organisations outside of the boardroom, i.e. they act as key spokespersons and promote their mission and vision.
When problems arise in organisations, they often stem from poor governance, the origins of which are found at board level. Remember, success starts with the way your organisation is governed and led.
Step 1 – Preparing for recruitment
1.Recruitment planning and timeline
Board recruitment is not just a matter of process. It is about embedding good governance into your organisation and ensuring your board has the skills it needs to do its job effectively. Each organisation should consider what its unique needs and challenges are and how it can use board recruitment and board training to further improve its performance. Rather than just focussing on the new people you want to recruit, the board recruitment process provides you with an opportunity to review what your organisation is doing to support and develop current board members; to look ahead at further developing the skillset and knowledge of your board members and identify where the board, as a whole, feels it needs to grow.
All organisations should have term limits for board members, which will lead to a regular need to recruit new board members as terms end. For this reason,
the majority of board vacancies should not come as a surprise, and you should have a template plan in place for running board recruitment.
Check your governing document
Before you start the recruitment process, you need to check the provisions for board recruitment as laid out in your organisation’s governing document. Your governing document is the rulebook for the way your organisation is governed and structured; it will outline how you should recruit board members.This should be the first place to look for terms of office, eligibility and procedures for election, etc.
Your first step in planning recruitment is confirming the details of the role you are recruiting for:- What is the title of the role you are recruiting for?
- Is it a specific portfolio, or a generic “Board Member Role”?
- How clearly defined are your expectations of board members?
- Does the successful candidate need to meet the definition of independence?
- How will new members be chosen (election, appointment or co-option)?
- What is the process for doing this?
- What is the timetable for appointment?
- How long is the term of appointment for the board member?
- What are the eligibility criteria for board members?
Timeline
Typically, engaging a new board member takes several months, and involves a range of people. Think about the steps, timescales and costs involved in the whole process. Reading through the whole document will help you prioritise what is necessary and what you already have in place.
Planning pointers:- You should be clear about who should manage the recruitment process (i.e. the nominations committee or the board), who is responsible for what, and what information you will need to have prepared and by when.
- It is useful to have a date in mind by which you want to have recruited, and work backwards.For example, if you plan to elect a board member at the AGM (Annual General Meeting), when do you need to start the process?
- The process will include several stages that you should consider: advertising the role, collecting applications (in case of appointment), reviewing the applications, interviewing the shortlisted candidates, second round interviews or informal conversations (if necessary), appointment or election and induction process. You should foresee enough time for each of these activities.
- Board recruitment is an ongoing process. Make sure there is a process for active succession planning, including the selection and replacement of elected or appointed board members.
- It is helpful to ask one person to oversee and co-ordinate the process.
2.Overview of board structure
Your recruitment should be based on the skills, knowledge and experience needed by the organisation. To establish this, you will need contemplate your organisation’s goals in the coming one to four years. Your organisation’s strategy will inform the skills and knowledge your board needs to deliver.
Boards should reflect the community they represent. In order to achieve this, you need to attract candidates from different backgrounds and with different skills. When deciding where the balance is, a number of factors should be considered. Principle 4 ofThe Principles of Good Governance for Sport and Recreation will help you think about elements of board structure that contribute to good governance.
Board composition:- The board must be the right size. It should be limited to 8 -12 members to allow effective decision-making and constructive discussions. Of course, you need to take into account the overall size of your organisation.
- Diverse and inclusive groups enhance board performance and bring a positive challenge to the decision-making process. During the recruitment, consider factors including gender (the requirement for the board composition to be at least 30% of each gender), ethnicity and age need to be considered.
- The board composition should find the right balance of elected and appointed directors, as well as including at least 25% independent board members.
- You should also consider what the appropriate mix on your board could be in light of other options such as using staff, volunteers and other stakeholders for specific tasks or activities.
- The board must maintain fixed term limits of two 4-year terms or three 3-year terms to allow the board to be refreshed regularly and to ensure greater predictability as to when vacancies will occur.
- A written robust and open recruitment policy will help stabilise board recruitment practices.
3.What is the role you are hiring for?
Who is who: chair of the board and board member
While planning your recruitment process, you should clearly outline what position you want to fill, as each role not only requires a distinct set of skills but also entails a different level of responsibility and engagement.
The chair is the person who leads the board and the organisation. Depending on your organisation they may be known as the chair, chairman, president or by another equivalent title. The chair, as the lead director of the board, must first fulfil all the duties of a director. In addition, the chair is responsible for managing the board, manages and guides the CEO and, as the name suggests, chairs board meetings.
Directors are the people appointed to oversee the running of a company. Collectively, the directors make up the board. In The Principles, we have used the term director throughout to refer to board members. However, if your organisation is not a company, you might refer to these people as trustees or committee members. Regardless of the term used, The Principles apply in the same way. Non-executives have a purely strategic role, and do not get involved in operational work. Non-executives are almost always directors.
Payment of board members
You should confirm whether your organisation wants (and has constitutional powers) to pay board members for their role, rather than recruiting them as volunteers. Your organisation needs to think carefully about the consequences of paying board members, both for the organisation and the role, as well as the responsibilities of the individual board members. You need to be clear about whether or not your board members will be paid, or if you will just be providing out of pocket expenses.
If you are a registered charity, there are specific requirements around the payment of trustees. Information can be found at the Charity Commission - CC3 Trustee Expenses and Payment:
4.Who are you looking for?
It is impossible to find the right people to govern your organisation if you do not know what you are looking for. You should start by establishing criteria for selecting board members, so as to erase any doubts and be sure to find the right people. Recruiting some board members from outside of sports would increase chances of avoiding the dominance of sports-based decisions, and can help ensure there are no conflicts of interest.
Skills audit and board evaluation
Every board should undertake askills audit, and maintain an up-to-date skills matrix. This is a useful exercise to review the roles and skills of your current board directors, as well as identifying the gaps you need to fill with the board members you are recruiting. It can also allow you to assess the workload and capacity of your board.
When contemplating the skill and knowledge needs for your board, our Board Skills Matrix template can help you identify the expertise and attributes needed at the boardroom table. It is also worth discussing the following questions:
- Is this a role best carried out by a new board member, or could it be performed by an executive staff member or volunteer? Make sure that you assign only the strategic tasks to board members, as the operational ones are performed by managers and executive directors.
- Is the amount of work reasonable for one person?
- What skills, experience or background are lacking in the current board?
- Is the balance kept between candidates with long experience in the sector, and those who can bring new ideas and fresh energy?
You should consider who would make a good member for your board. Board roles are jobs, not honours, and candidates should be recruited for the experience and knowledge they possess. The most efficient board members are united in values and purpose but are diverse in skills, style and approach.
Focus on diversity
Diversity is crucial to the effective decision-making and overall success of your organisation. Diverse groups have been shown to make better decisions by bringing in new perspectives and new voices.Organisations should seek skilled and experienced board members from the underrepresented groups. You can share your job advertisement with organisations that actively represent these groups, e.g. Women in Sport, Women in Football, Sporting Equals, the Black Collective of Media in Sport (BCOMS), English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS).
The Sport and Recreation Alliance (the Alliance) has publisheda Case Study: Recruiting a gender diverse board, where it shares its experience about identifying the board skills gaps and the implementation and recruitment process.
Engaging young people in leadership development is beneficial for sports organisations as young people can reach wider networks than their more senior counterparts and use language their peers can relate to. It will also help to build a pipeline of future leaders, board members and chairs as well as helping the board to remain accountable to their young members.
Even where you have a representative board, you should think about promotional activities that make people from different backgrounds aware of the role and the procedures for putting themselves forward. For example, do you have a coach representative or an official representative and have you made those respective groups of people aware of the expectations for the nominated person?The Duty of Care in Sport review suggests inviting an athlete representative to join the board, in order to ensure that the voice of athletes is heard and represented. Groups that work for people with disabilities need a representative who can understand their needs; a person with disabilities would therefore be an ideal board member.
The degree of objectivity - independent director vs executive director?
One of the biggest challenges for sports organisations is to ensure that their board is both representative of its members and appropriately skilled and experienced to govern the organisation. It is often recommended that organisations should have independent non-executive directors on their boards.
Independent directors are free from any connections that may lead to conflicts of interest or affect their judgement. Having at least 25% of non-executive directors on the board will improve the governance standards as well as your organisation’s credibility and transparency.
Larger organisations may benefit from appointing an independent chair who can improve leadership within the organisation and foster the creation of a dynamic and objective board. On the other hand, the smaller sports entities may want to appoint a chair with a closer link to the sports and recreation sector.
Check the British Orienteering case study to find out about their challenges linked to the board recruitment process and the appointing of independent directors.
Step 2 – Attracting new board members
1.Writing the advert
Being a board member is not widely understood and talked about by the general public. Most people would not put themselves forward for something they do not understand, so you need to find a way to describe the role.You should think about how to ‘sell’ the role to someone. Think about what might motivate others to join or stay on the board? What can you offer to potential board members? This is particularly important if you are trying to attract people who do not have a background in your sport.
How to approach potential candidates?
People want to know what is expected of them. If you do not have a role description and person specification, you need to develop them. The job description should include three main things:
- What your organisation does - a brief summary of the organisation’s strategy and its main goals and current activities.
- What a board member would do - this should be in line with your matrix skills assessment. You should enlist the statutory duties and specific responsibilities of the board member, person specification, terms of office and if it is a paid or voluntary position. If it is unpaid, are the expenses covered?
- How the recruitment process works - in other words, how to apply and what the logistics of board meetings are.
Take a look at our How to write an advert guide, which will give you some idea of what information to include, and check the Alliance job board where you can find role descriptions of board members: