10 good corporate governance examples

Alexander Pavlović Date published: Jun 08, 18

When it comes to corporate governance, it’s all too easy to focus on what not to do. Looking at good corporate governance examples is a more positive way to ensure you remain on the right side of the law. This is important as directors can be prosecuted by the HSE for failing to follow best practices, and so causing injury or harm to employees. The most recent edition of the UK Corporate Governance Code outlines the expectation for company values, purpose and culture to align with the business strategy. Diversity and integrity are also emphasized within the 2018 version of the Code.

What is corporate governance?

Corporate governance is about responsible leadership, following best practices to ensure the sustainable growth of the business in a transparent and trustworthy fashion. Good corporate governance is made up of four key principles:

• Accountability
• Transparency
• Fairness
• Responsibility

So what do corporate governance examples look like?

Ideagen works with hundreds of SMEs and larger enterprises to improve corporate governance.

We share 10 good corporate governance examples and how we help our customers demonstrate this.

1) Integrated business management system (IBMS)

Corporate governance requires top management to direct and influence what is happening on the ground. One of the most efficient and effective ways to understand what is happening and when is to bring all management systems together.

In many businesses, each department has their own KPIs. Most of these departments never interact with the customer or other departments, and this means they are not aligned with what the customer needs or the overall business goals.

Corporate governance requires an integrated business management system so that there is transparency, visibility, traceability, and cross-departmental collaboration.

2) A documented policy management system

Across any industry, corporate governance best practice requires you to document policies, procedures and processes to set expectations, establish roles and responsibilities, and communicate commitments. Every document then needs to be controlled and managed, and there needs to be evidence that employees have read, understood or rejected the policy.

Systems such as our document module enable your business to have unshakeable control over documents and policies.

3) ISO certification

Another essential corporate governance example is adhering to ISO standards such as ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018. These standards provide a framework for best practice management systems.

Our software solutions provide a system to manage multiple ISO standards, without duplicating workload. 

4) CAPA systems

To effectively govern the business, leadership need to know about the issues, incidents and accidents, what remedial action has been taken and whether that was sufficient.

Our CAPA module enables employees to log risks, incidents and vulnerabilities from any device across the business. Notifications and workflows are then started, and the status can always be traced. This is an essential tool for leadership teams to quickly understand any leaking buckets.

5) Routine internal audits                 

Investing in a routine internal audit programme helps not only identify issues and vulnerabilities, it provides an opportunity to take the temperature of the corporate culture.

Are employees empowered? Are management responsive to employee needs?

Ideagen provides a suite of internal and external auditing solutions to help you to plan, schedule, audit, and produce instant reports. Findings, specific parts of checklists and actions can be sent to leadership.

6) Training management system

Investing in employee training, competency and development is key for an engaged workforce who are accountable and take ownership. We provide health and safety training solutions to help you effectively develop, up-skill and nurture your workforce.

7) Risk management

Good governance is all about identifying, assessing and managing risk.

Our risk solutions provide a robust framework for managing all types of business risks. Operational, strategic, QHSE, and external risks can be measured, management can be notified, and instant reports created.

8) Supply chain

When on-boarding a new supplier, they become an extension of your business. The supplier and their supply chain can easily enhance or damage your reputation.

Good governance requires your business to know who your suppliers are, what they do, and continually monitor their performance. This can be achieved using our Supplier Management module.

9) Equipment maintenance schedule

It is the responsibility of leadership to ensure that equipment in use is safe, maintained and employees are adequately trained on how to use the equipment.

In businesses with very few assets or equipment, this can be managed on spreadsheets and emails. But as your business grows, there are more risks, complexity, variations and issues, so a central equipment management system is required.

10) Reporting

Good governance relies on good data. All leadership teams need a dashboard of Key Performance Indicators so they can have a picture of how the business is performing.

In order to achieve these good corporate governance examples, our quality management solution provides a GRC Dashboard reporting tool which brings data from across the business into a single view. 

Next steps

Speak to our friendly team to find out how our range of software solutions can help you achieve better corporate governance.

Contact us