A FTSE SMALL CAP Group Counsel & Company Secretary writes...
Under the UK Corporate Governance Code unless other methods are used, a listed company should have a non-executive director designated for employee engagement. My company uses this method. Our designated NED has suggested that they should have a “direct line” by email with all members of the workforce so that any member of the workforce (about 2,000 in our group in total) can email the designated NED directly with any question or concern they might have. Does anyone else do this – or know of a company that does this?
We have an elected employee voice group that is the mechanism through which members engage with the EE NED. (and other NEDs / EDs attend on rotation). We do not have a direct number/email but there is nothing stopping a colleague reaching out directly (by asking for the NEDs details or otherwise). Clearly we’d only provide these with the NEDs consent.
No direct line to the Designated NED here, but they attend the frequent in-person employee workforce forums to answer any questions, etc.
We do not have a “direct line” of this nature in place. We have a NED attend a colleague forum that meets twice per year with representatives from all parts of the business. Verbal feedback and minutes are shared at the next Board meeting. This is an interesting suggestion. It would be interesting to understand whether this “direct line” would also be accessible by management to help triage/manage e.g. by the company secretary.
We do not offer a direct email for employees to contact the NEDs. We are a decentralised business and therefore each of our NEDs is responsible for employee engagement as it would be very difficult for one single NED to cover this. We link employee engagement to our annual strategy reviews so that the NEDs cover different divisions each year and as part of the process engage with a range of different employees in our offices and on our sites. Our NEDs are also invited to our annual divisional and Group employee conferences where they are free to talk to anyone attending. I would see the challenge with a direct email to the NED being around ensuring they do not get involved in dealing with operational issues in the business as well as managing the inbox itself. I hope this is helpful.