The King Committee has published a King IV Guidance Paper called “Responsible Leadership in Responding to COVID-19” to guide governing bodies on responding to COVID-19. As the person helping your organisation with governance, this guidance paper is relevant. You have to find the best way to navigate the challenges arising out of COVID-19. We are here to help your organisation with governance and, after reviewing the paper, we believe it’ll help you find the best ways to navigate those challenges.

In addition to COVID-19, we also believe that this guidance paper can help you confront other important issues such as racism. We live in a society where an organisation has to acknowledge and confront the existence of racism and its effect on employees and the society within which the organisation operates. This is especially relevant in light of the Black Lives Matter movement.

So what will you do? How will you govern? What laws, codes, rules and standards will you comply with or apply? Will you use this guidance paper and other tools you can get your hands on?

The King IV Guidance Paper and your response to COVID-19

The King Committee offers you some help with its King IV Guidance Paper by pointing to five pillars (from within King IV). This ensures that your response will steer your organisation safely through COVID-19. The main points are highlighted below.

Ethical leadership and the roles of the governing body and management

The current situation calls on you to align your organisation’s current culture and values with the changing market values and priorities. Be clear on the roles of your governing body and management. Also, ensure adequate oversight and set policy and direction. Reassess whether the management team has the skills, competency and experience to deal with the crisis. Finally, you must consider if you need additional resources or strategic counsel.

Human capital

You must acknowledge the importance of your employees to your organisation, and understand the short and long term impact of COVID-19 on your organisation’s employees. Consider whether you are managing your employees fairly and lawfully, and identify the changes or improvements you might need to adapt to current and post-COVID-19 requirements. This includes assessing whether you have a good policy framework in place.

Organisational performance, control, risk, opportunity and crisis oversight

You want your organisation to do well. That is something you have in common with many others in a similar position. To achieve this, you have to know the effect of COVID-19 on your organisation and its ability to manage the impact and risks. Your organisation’s IT governance is important in this regard, because many organisations are using technology to overcome challenges. You’ll need to carefully manage your contracts as well.

Communication in a crisis

Communication is key to the operations of an organisation. Understand the effectiveness of communication and stakeholder interaction, to ensure honest, transparent and timely communication. This communication demonstrates integrity and empathy and addresses any unknowns that may impact stakeholder decisions. Make sure that you use the right communication tools
(Zoom, Skype, and Teams are examples).

Strategy and recovery

Ask yourself key questions about your organisation’s strategy not only in this time but afterwards as well. Also, determine how capable your organisation is of successfully recovering from any significant and negative impact that COVID-19 has had on it.

Read the King IV Guidance Paper

You can read the guidance paper here.

Can the guidance paper help you confront racism and other issues?

The King IV Guidance Paper can definitely help you confront racism or race-related issues that your organisation faces.

Where the guidance paper, for example, asks you to consider the short and long term impact of COVID-19, you can instead consider the short term and long term impact of racism on your employees. A few questions to consider are:

  • Have you created a free and open environment where employees from different backgrounds can thrive without being marginalised or discriminated against? Is this recorded in a policy?
  • Have you considered the unique challenges that face employees from certain race groups?
  • Have you considered how working from home might be a different challenge for them compared to your other employees?

Note: The Institute of Directors in Southern Africa NPC (IoDSA) owns the copyright to all four of the King reports or codes on governance (including the latest version namely the King IV Report™) and owns various trademarks in relation to King IV (including King IV™, King IV™ Guidance Paper, King IV Report™, King IV Report on Corporate Governance™ and King IV Code™). All of the IoDSA’s rights are reserved. All views are our own and we are not associated or endorsed in any way by the IoDSA.