A former Unum executive and chairman of the Maine International Trade Center writes about why businesses of all types need to take stock of talent and plan accordingly. In cybersecurity and elsewhere, it’s important to know what you know.
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It has been 20 years since the Sarbanes-Oxley reform legislation and widespread concern over a potential disaster surrounding financial reporting and responsibility.
One of the earlier requirements was that a public board of directors have someone with financial and accounting expertise. The light shining on corporate board responsibility was starting to brighten and as a result many useful reforms were made in corporate behavior.
Now it appears that the SEC could require public company boards to have corporate expertise in cybersecurity. If anyone has been paying attention to the evolving corporate governance needs of companies’ cybersecurity has got to be on top of the list. Private as well as public companies need to pay attention. The stakes are huge.
Don’t be fooled by the notion that cybersecurity concerns are only for the larger companies — that could be a disastrous mistake.
Your company’s IT or chief information officer has hopefully already put in place a disaster recovery plan that anticipates a shut-down of critical systems — including alternative work capacity space and available equipment — due to a cyberattack or other systems disaster such as an out-of-control fire in the computer room. Depending on the nature of the attack or disaster it could be a company survival issue.
The need for talent
In addition to the seismic changes in corporate liability from a wide range of corporate changes in corporate (and resulting board) responsibilities, the need for increased and knowledgeable talent has never been greater. Cybersecurity expertise has become the latest hot topic in many companies as company systems become more complicated and the stakes grow larger.
How is your company positioned from a knowledge standpoint? This latest hot topic and increased talent need is only a continuation of the increasing complexity of our modern-day companies. Expertise in corporate system security will continue to grow in importance as your company grows.
As your organization deals with the present pressures to perform, it is helpful for all companies to maintain a well-documented “skills inventory” of your organization’s talent base, a clear process to match up this talent with the organizations’ needs and a well-thought-out human resource development plan designed to groom your current employees for increased responsibilities and success.
The goodwill attained by investing in each employees’ success cannot be overstated. The gap created by the current personal development plans for each employee — that investment will pay huge dividends and could be very helpful to employee retention.
The follow-up
Follow-up systems are critical — a plan without effective execution is worthless.
That skills inventory should include everyone in the company, including all employees, members of management and the current members of the board. If you haven’t performed this task already you are missing a valuable tool that will positively contribute to company success. Once that inventory is completed make sure it is distributed to the appropriate levels of management to maximize its effectiveness.
Part of an effective talent development program involves not letting talk substitute for action. It takes real commitment to spend the time with each employee to put together and monitor an effective personal development plan. Part of the action needed is to review their personal development progress along with their job performance on a periodic basis — say, every six months.
From an employee development and “caring” standpoint, very few actions send a more clear signal to employees that you care about them. Perceived lack of caring is a major reason for employee turnover.
Ward Graffam was the founding chairman of the Maine International Trade Center, and served as chairman and CEO of UNUM UK and chairman of FINEOS in Dublin. He can be reached at wgraffam@aol.com.