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- We encourage the membership organization CEO to conduct a review of how other single-state insurance companies structure payments (dividends, sponsorship and others) between the insurance company and the parent organization to ensure that best practices are being followed in Michigan.
• As mentioned above, we appreciated the constant quest for improvement from everyone we met, both volunteer and staff. To that end, we recommend the state board go through AFBF’s Board Roles & Responsibilities training to refresh and confirm their role as board member. We think this would set a good example for county boards for continuous improvement and would be a good start to the process of reviewing/discussing the board member job description.
• We learned that several long-term employees are nearing retirement age. No doubt this is already on the CEO’s radar, but we want the organization to be sure to consider succession planning and knowledge management for all employees, especially those nearing retirement.
• As mentioned earlier, we appreciated the fact that most CAMs are employees of the state Farm Bureau rather than the county Farm Bureau. We encourage the organization to seek an impactful way to give performance reviews to county CAMs. As we understood it, the current system for evaluating county CAMs involves getting input from county leaders through a survey, but the actual conversation happens between the field representative and the CAM. This does not seem particularly effective since the field representative doesn’t actually supervise the CAM, so the CAM may not take the conversation seriously. In addition, many field reps are entry level employees and may not yet have the experience necessary to conduct a review conversation following all the legal requirements.
• We were surprised to learn an internal audit takes place for the Farm Bureau. While having an annual external audit is prudent and represents best practices in association management, it seemed redundant and expensive to also go through an internal audit. We encourage the organization to evaluate the ROI of the internal audit, considering both direct and indirect costs of the process.
• It was our understanding that the Farm Bureau CEO is not currently attending Executive Committee meetings or Executive Sessions of the board. We encourage the board to reconsider this practice. The CEO is a valued partner in the organization, and best practices dictate that he/she be a part of those conversations unless there is a reason not to include him, as would be the case when the board is discussing CEO performance or compensation. (Please note that this did not come from your current CEO. It was an observation of the team, not something mentioned by an interviewee.)
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