Corporate governance is a set of rules, practices and processes that ensure that an organisation has transparency around setting and monitoring strategy whilst meeting governance regulation. When the rules and processes fail it can have significant consequences for the organisation.

Examples of poor governance practices may include; lack of transparency in reporting, non compliance with legislative reporting leading to fines or corporate regulators, management may mislead or undermines the organisation.

Choosing the most appropriate structure for your business, division or team is critical to remaining efficient and focused to achieve organisational goals. Structures define hierarchy within organisations and with that generally decision making and reporting relationships.

We can help design the right structure for your organisation. A decentralised structure usually gives each employee a certain level of freedom in decision making, whereas a centralised model has a defined chain of command with clear delegation.

Having the right structure in place helps with efficiency and can provide clarity at all levels. It also means that reporting relationships are defined letting people get on with their day to day tasks being more productive and leads to good governance.

There are numerous reasons why this occurs but one of the most common is a lack of strategic leadership where an organisations strategic direction is not linked to clear outcomes for success. This can be further exaggerated by skills gaps at the strategic level, particularly at Board level.  These strategic governance issues create an environment where the Board struggles to effectively monitor organisation performance and drive strategy to achieve optimum performance outcomes.

A further complication has arisen over recent times as many organisations are going through significant change.  This can defocus the organisation where the key players at both the Board and senior management levels lose their way strategically as operational demands overtake strategic intent.

In all of the examples identified above we have found that refocusing the Boards direction is the key to repositioning the organisation.  This can be achieved through strategic Board and senior leadership team renewal and implementing high level strategic engagement programs.

Staff need to feel engaged. If they understand how their job/effort contributes to the success of the organisation they feel empowered and have greater job satisfaction. This type of engagement can be learned and contributes to a performance based workplace.

Strategic engagement is key to improving performance and lifting the quality of service delivery.

Change management is really about understanding where the leadership team want the business to be and implementing a range of initiatives to achieve this vision.

Whilst this involves having a clear vision and plan it also means being focused. It is also about being able to measure success and where a plan goes off track, take quick action to address this.

Of course, bringing people along on the journey is critical to effective change management, making clear and consistent communication the key to success.

If your staff do not have the necessary skills to perform their roles effectively then organisational performance will suffer. A well trained workforce will be more engaged and confident in delivering on their individual targets and importantly on the organisations performance outcomes.

Highly skilled staff create a far more motivated workforce with career growth providing both organisational performance and individual wellbeing. These factors are the key to organisational success.

An EA allows employers and employees to reach an agreement that will benefit both parties. Employers will save time (and therefore money) worrying about applying different awards to different employees. Generally, employees benefit from receiving better rates of pay and conditions.