On 15 November 2011 Tomorrow's Company launched the first report in a programme on employee voice being undertaken in partnership with the Involvement and Participation Association (IPA). The report ‘Rethinking voice – for sustainable business success’ describes how employee voice is critical for the future of UK plc. Employee voice involves a two-way communication and an honest and trusting relationship between the organisation and its staff. Other project partners include BAE Systems, British Gas, HSBC, IAC Group, Thomson and Unipart, who enrich the report with their own experiences and challenges of voice.  Finally it sets out a framework that pulls together the factors that we think impact on the quality and effectiveness of employee voice in organisations.

Boards are operating in ever more complex and challenging business environments. At the same time, their behaviour and standards are coming under increasing external scrutiny, for example through the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) and Walker Reviews in the UK. This publication champions the concept of a ‘mandate’ which sets out the ‘essence’ of the ‘character’ and distinctiveness of the company. We believe that this ‘working charter’ can help boards navigate their way through increasingly choppy waters by facilitating more effective strategic engagement: primarily between executive directors and NEDs to improve board effectiveness, but with the associated benefit that it drives communication externally with the key stakeholders, including investors, government and regulators, and society at large. Accompanying this document is a 'tool-kit' which provides an agenda for board discussions. Please download this here.  A series of case studies illustrating how the board mandate may,...

In the UK, the US and many other countries, existing board election processes mean shareholders rely almost entirely on existing board members to identify board candidates. In the vast majority of cases, shareholders have no real say over who is chosen to represent their interests and those of the company they own. Board nomination committees are sub-committees of the board itself. Over the last 10 years, Sweden has moved away from such a system. This report examines the Swedish experience of shareholders taking this key governance function into their own hands. The report also considers lessons that can be drawn for governance in the UK and other countries with dispersed shareholdings.  It  concludes with an agenda for action by listed companies, institutional investors, the Institutional Shareholders Committee  and the Financial Reporting Council. 

These slides are from a presentation by Duncan Gallie.  They examine some employment trends in the UK, particularly the effect of rising job skills but decreasing employee task discretion in the UK. Duncan Gallie is a professor at Nuffield College, Oxford.  He researches quality of work; attitudes to social inequality and the social implications of unemployment.

   “A lack of long-term stewardship by company heads and shareholders is at the heart of the current financial crisis, an influential think-tank says in a report published on Wednesday. Tomorrow’s Company, whose previous research has helped shape UK company law, urges the government to understand better the effects of the growing “casino economy”, where activities such as derivatives trading are often far removed from the real economy activity to which they theoretically relate. The report warns against the search for scapegoats for the current crisis and says that it is wrong to attack private equity, hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds for irresponsibility, noting that different shareholders perform different functions. However, it condemns the practice of borrowing shares for voting purposes and asks if investors need to toughen up their engagement to change company behaviour or divest holdings in companies with particular shortcomings. Mark Goyder, Tomorrow’s Company...