Time Commitment
Board workload is following an upward trajectory
The time commitment board directors and chairs need to invest in their board work has increased significantly, and we expect this trend will continue. To appropriately compensate board work, it is essential to dive deeper into companies’ expectations of board directors.
Most survey respondents estimated the current time commitment of a board director (including meetings, preparation, informal conversations and more) to be 20 to 40 days per year (plus/minus 20 days) for a single directorship.
The time spent on a single directorship by the board chair was higher, with most respondents estimating 40 to 60 days per year (plus/minus 20 days).
Time commitment for board role in days per year
Chair
NED
- As the time commitment for board directors ticks up, much of the additional workload can be attributed to increased demands, including stakeholder expectations, transparency required by regulators, and personal risk (reputational and legal). As quoted by one of the respondents: “Being on a board now means a lot of work and personal responsibility. It is not just ‘something to do’ as an extra.”
- Our respondents noted that they expect committees will take on the bulk of the additional work to preserve decision-making and strategy discussion time in full board meetings.
- Chairs will be the primary orchestrators of these changes, which increases the need for strong leadership skills from chairs, including the ability to constantly deal with new information and situations and ensuring that all board directors are engaged and contributing at a high level. “The chairperson should become a coach of each board member, and this is a revolution,” a respondent shared.
Contributors
Digital Leads
Amadeu Porto, Joanna Scheffel
Design Team
Aditya Gupta, Arnab Kar, Kamaljit Marwaha, Dapinder Pal Singh Bahl, Ginlian Guite and Richard Khuptong
The authors would like to thank the Chair/Board members who participated in the survey, Egon Zehnder consultants for their internal/external insight and EZ colleagues who contributed to this study: Amit Kumar, Devyanee Kaushal, Johanna Prasch, Luis Fuhrer, Sonika Ganjoo and Svenja Weitzel.