Simplify the Onboarding Process with a Board Portal
Using an online board portal can make the onboarding process easier for new board members and their mentors. Here’s how.
Bringing new talent to serve on a board is a necessary process that provides new ideas and perspective. One of the best ways to give new board members the opportunity to contribute as quickly as possible is a robust and effective onboarding process. As part of that process, rather than allow for a long orientation through gradual participation, it would only make sense to rely on a seasoned board member as an adviser to provide mentoring to the newly recruited board member.
Establish an Adviser to Streamline the Onboarding Process
This adviser should be well informed of both the history of the board, and the organization of which it serves. Choose an adviser who can commit to the time necessary to meet and communicate with the new member. They should also have spent an appropriate amount of time on the board: a minimum of one year, and preferably more.
Once you have recruited an advisor for this purpose, you will want them to provide all of the knowledge and history of the board as well as procedures and communications requirements. All of this can be accomplished quickly and efficiently through the use of an online, secure board portal.
The new member can quickly have access to all of the information necessary to be up-to-date on the activity that is currently under discussion, as well as a history of previous meetings, future goals and contact information for all of their new colleagues.
Because the board portal is accessible virtually anywhere and at anytime, the new board member and their adviser can address the following important areas quickly and easily.
Board Portal Setup
If the new member’s personal dashboard has been set up by the administrator, the training and demo process should be painless, depending on your board portal provider. With this tool in hand, accessible from virtually any location on numerous devices, the new board member and their adviser can move forward to the following:
Board Education
Board procedures, by-laws and strategic goals will all be available in the portal. By simply accessing the materials stored in the board portal, the new board member can immediately be brought up to speed on everything they need to be productive in their new role.
Board Background
Past accomplishments and initiatives can be easily pulled from the existing data, organized with quick, easy access in mind.
Key Relationships and Board Structure
Board members, committees and staff are easily accessed from the portal’s membership directory. Familiarity with new colleagues is greatly streamlined when their information is immediately and easily available. And photos are a great help too!
Communications, Schedule and Future Events
Utilize the portal’s calendaring feature (be sure to check if your provider has this capability) to coordinate with others on the board as well as sync board, committee, and ad hoc meetings with the new member’s calendar.
Governance
Policies, compliance and the code of ethics can be accessed in a documents and resources section. The mentor can quickly review the information with the new board member and add notations to the most important sections.
With a goal of getting the new director up to speed quickly, the online portal allows the new board member and their advisor to learn to be remarkably efficient and productive with time spent on board activity. After all, they chose to serve in order to focus on the work at hand, not the paperwork.
