Issues moving away from narrow committee oversight

Board members are shifting narrow oversight of several topics on committees to the full board as urgency rises to handle everything from human capital issues to whistleblower concerns with a complete set of eyes, Agenda’s latest Directors’ and Officers’ Outlook Survey shows. This is a reversal from last year, when higher percentages of respondents believed such topics belonged in specific committees’ purviews.

Last year, 38.7% of 54 respondents said that human capital issues belonged to the full board. That percentage rose to 50% of 54 respondents this year. Similarly, 28.3% of respondents last year believed labor and/or union issues belonged to the full board; 35.2% did this year.

Some 59 S&P 500 companies currently assign human capital issues to the full board, according to public company intelligence provider MyLogIQ.