Ethical Decision Making with Karen L. Smith

The Boardroom 180 Podcast

Join us for a compelling conversation with Karen Smith as we delve into the essentials of ethical decision-making and governance across corporate and municipal boards. Our speakers shed light on the critical importance of fostering an ethical culture, maintaining transparency, and ensuring accountability. Listeners will discover why effective governance is a must in today's complex communities, where trust and well-established frameworks can help mitigate risks.

In this episode, we tackle the complexities of managing votes of no confidence and addressing ethical violations through targeted training and one-on-one meetings. We also explore the diverse responsibilities of board members, from fiduciary duties to the need for continuous education, particularly in dynamic fields like cybersecurity.

Learn about the differences between various types of boards and the importance of representing diverse perspectives while aligning with organizational values. Tune in for valuable insights on ethical decision-making, performance measurement, and stakeholder engagement, all underscored by the power of open communication and conflict resolution to build lasting, effective governance.

About Karen Smith

Karen currently serves as Chair of Access Communications Co-operative, is a Board Member of the Regina Community Clinic, is on the board of the Saskatchewan New Home Warranty Program, and is Co-Chair of the Saskatchewan Advisory Board of the Institute for Corporate Directors. She is also available to consult on governance, ethics, and other matters since 2022.

Karen recently retired as full-time CEO for Better Business Bureau of Saskatchewan, serving in this capacity from October 2015 to December 2023. Her professional background includes Director of Employee Benefit Plans for the Saskatchewan School Boards Association. Karen's activity in the business community includes serving as the employer representative on the WCB’s former Early Intervention Program Advisory Committee and as a member of the Human Resources Committee for the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce. Previously carried the CHRP designation in both Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

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Contact Munir Haque | ActionEdge Executive Development:

• Website: AEEDNow.com
• Linkedin: Action Edge Executive Development Inc.

Contact Karen Smith:

• Linkedin: Karen Smith
  
  

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Transcript:
Karen Smith: [00:00:03] And in the end, the board is the one who has the fiduciary responsibility over those organizations. So the board has to keep up. We have to keep up with the training. So it's not just about understanding the financial statements anymore. We have to do better than that. And if you need to bring in experts to help you with the training, then do so.

Munir Haque: [00:00:33] Hello, everybody. Today's guest is Karen L. Smith. Karen is a governance and ethics consultant. She's a governance specialist with Chartered Director designation from McMasters University and the Conference Board of Canada. She's a specialist in administrative justice with a certificate in Tribunal Administrative Justice. She's a certified employee benefits specialist with designations from Dalhousie University and the International Society of Employee Benefits. Karen has a long history of serving on boards and committees. Essentially too long for me to mention in this introduction, but to name a few, currently she is a chair of Access Communications Co-operative. She's a board member of the Regina Community Clinic. She's on the board of the Saskatchewan New Home Warranty Program. She's a co-chair of the Saskatchewan Advisory Board of the Institute of Cooperative Directors. Karen is also the founding member and served as president of the Saskatchewan Administrative Tribunal Association. Professionally, she was the CEO of the Saskatchewan Better Business Bureau, recently retired in 2023, she was there in that position for eight years. Before that, she was the director of employee benefits plan for the Saskatchewan School Board Association. She was also a member of council for the Village of Buena Vista and a life member of PARKS. That's the Provincial Association of Resort Communities of Saskatchewan. Hello, Karen. Thank you so much for being on The Boardroom 180 Podcast. Is there anything that you want to make special note of that I missed in the introduction?

Karen Smith: [00:02:03] The only one is, for ten years, I was on the Workers Compensation Board. So that was a paid board member position. Full time board work.

Munir Haque: [00:02:13] There's one thing that pops up a couple of times in your bio and that's tribunal administrative justice. Do you want to explain that a little bit to those of us who don't know exactly what it means?

Karen Smith: [00:02:24] It's the final level of appeal. It was part of the Workers Compensation Board responsibilities. So besides the normal governance duties that you see when you're a part of a board that's providing oversight for an organization, in addition, with the Workers Compensation Board in Canada, the Saskatchewan Board also had tribunal responsibilities. So when a worker or an employer is looking for the Worker's Compensation Board for either benefits or coverage of some kind, one of the softs that were made when the legislation was first put into place, is that workers would not be able to sue employers if they had a dedicated insurance scheme to protect them from workplace injuries. So part of that mechanism then, to protect both the rights of both parties is to make sure that there was a final level of appeal and then if it needed to go to the courts, it would be on issues of jurisdiction or something that was patently wrong. So very limited instances during the ten years when I was on the board, there was always a tribunal. I sat on well over 2000 appeals in that ten year period. And I would say that less than five went to the court. So that's a pretty good number that there was no need for an additional review.

Karen Smith: [00:04:11] And those that did go to the court, generally speaking, they would look at it and then return it back to us and ask us to consider a certain part of that particular decision. So the process in the tribunal work is really about a worker. Let's say it's a worker. The worker appeals the decision to the first level, and we always encourage going up the chain just the same as if you were in a retail store and you had a complaint, you'd go up the chain. You don't go to the corporate headquarters until you've exhausted the local ones. And it's the same principle with workers compensation benefits, whether it's a worker attempting to get benefits or they think the benefits that were given weren't full enough or missing, or if it was an employer who was either appealing a worker's claim or they were appealing the payroll assessment that was made, because the payroll assessment is what funded the worker's compensation scheme. So as a tribunal, we were the final level of appeal. There was internal levels through whatever department it was organized through. They had an internal appeals department as well that looked at both worker and employer appeals. And then if they still weren't satisfied, then they would have came to the board appeal tribunal.

Munir Haque: [00:05:35] Well thanks for that little bit of education there. It's helpful for me to put a framework around it. So I want to talk about ma...