Diverse young pension board discussing their individual characteristics and assigning tasks

Board Dynamics

Aon supports pension boards to understand board dynamics, diversity characteristics of individuals and how this contributes to the collective performance of the board, given the agenda of work. This awareness helps shape succession plans for company appointed trustees and governance committee members, and informs the process for attraction and selection of member-nominated trustees.

What Our Clients Say About Us

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This process has been especially insightful in focussing our attention on our committee composition.

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From a recent Member Nominated Trustee selection exercise, the client told us they really valued the process and landed good quality candidates and two new appointments as a result, when they worried there would be no interest.

Aon's tools help boards understand their collective strengths, gaps, cognitive diversity and the means by which individuals are best able to contribute. This knowledge will support the board in improving the skills and diversity of the Board and increasing inclusion, all of which has been demonstrated to improve effective decision-making.
Aon's tools help boards understand their collective strengths, gaps, cognitive diversity and the means by which individuals are best able to contribute. This knowledge will support the Board in improving the skills and diversity of the Board and increasing inclusion, all of which has been demonstrated to improve effective decision-making.

Getting the Right People Around the Table

The pensions environment is ever more complex, with those involved requiring a multitude of skills - both technical and soft skills. Having visibility of the diversity of strengths and experiences of the collective pensions team, together with the analysis by individual can help identify training needs for the group; agree the structure and agenda of work for sub-committees; understand the risks attributed to key individuals ceasing to be involved in the pension arrangement, support succession planning and recruitment to the board.

Aon supports boards to understand:

  • The strengths and potential gaps in the board.
  • How individual board members make decisions and contribute to meetings, including the behavioural biases that tend to impact group decision making.
  • The key skills to look for in future appointments to enhance the board's performance.
  • The diversity characteristics represented by the current team including physical diversity characteristics through to cognitive diversity.
  • Identifying areas where key person risk exists.

Aon's tools include:

  • A skills and diversity survey.
  • A personality profiling exercise.
  • Training and tools to overcome behavioural biases in decision making.
  • Exercises to uncover unconscious biases in decision making and techniques to draw these out.
  • Refreshed materials, including videos, to support the recruitment of a more diverse board.

Practical Diversity and Inclusion for Trustees

This guide is aimed at giving some initial practical and implementable thoughts and ideas. We have reviewed how D&I potentially impacts on decision making across a wide range of scheme areas.

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The Pensions Regulator welcomes the development of guides like this which help trustees and pension schemes take practical steps to improve their diversity and inclusivity, something we believe is crucial for better decision making.

David Fairs, Executive Director of Regulatory Policy, Analysis and Advice at The Pensions Regulator

Key Resources

Trustee and adviser in discussion working through 10 questions to test and assess their ideas
Ten Questions to Help Trustees Challenge Their Advisers

The trustee role can be viewed as similar to that of a non-executive director; they are expected to make decisions on a range of topics. The challenge here is that trustees are unlikely to reach a stage where they are as knowledgeable on every topic as the advisers who are presenting them with recommendations. Our questions will help you to understand the decision, to test it and to assess how robust the idea is, all the way through to completion.

Happy trustee taking minutes of board meeting whilst being effectively chaired by fellow trustee
Behavioural Checklist for Chairing Meetings

It is clear that how a meeting is chaired has a direct impact on the board as a whole, the decisions made and how effective those decisions are. Our research also showed that although trustees are better than the general public at mitigating their cognitive biases, errors in judgment are still apparent.

Pension scheme trustees reviewing the composition, skills and characteristics of their trustee board to enable better decision-making
Trustee Skills and Diversity Assessment

Having the right board composition in terms of breadth of skills, experience and characteristics is essential to enable better decision-making and to drive the pension board agenda forward.

Trustee reviewing their behavioural assessment from the Aon ADEPT 15 service
ADEPT 15 Behavioural Assessments

Aon’s work-related behavioural assessments measure the personality dimensions vital to consistent performance.

Two female trustees on a walk discussing topics from the Aon Diversity and Inclusion podcasts for Pension Schemes
Diversity and Inclusion podcasts

Listen to our Practical Diversity & Inclusion Practical Guide Podcast Series where we introduce Aon’s Practical Guide to D&I for Pension Schemes and cover key actions Pension Schemes can take to improve their D&I across a whole range of areas.

Pension trustee watching a case study video on engagement with scheme membership
MND Recruitment Video

Our video shows other ways to engagement with your membership when looking for a more diverse range of candidates for your pensions boards.

"We believe that diverse and inclusive governing bodies are important for effective decision making and we’re committed to working with industry to share good practice. We welcome practical tools that can help employers and governing bodies to attract a wider range of candidates to the trustee role."

Find Out More

If you would like more information on any of these topics, please contact us.

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Susan Hoare, Partner, Aon

Susan Hoare, FIA
Partner

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Andy Nichols
Senior Consultant

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Shromi Jeyakumar
Associate Partner

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