Who wants to be a director? That's a question many are asking themselves - with relatively little reward for an increasingly risky and complex role.
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The annual Institute of Directors report on fees prepared by consultancy EY has found the median payment for non-executive directors rose 2.3 percent to $45,000 over the past year -- an increase of a thousand dollars.
That compares with a 20 percent increase in the hours spent on board matters over the past year, or an increase of 44 percent over the past four years.
Institute's chief executive Kirsten Patterson said the workload had become much more complex and difficult, with revisions to the NZX Corporate Governance Code, the refreshed Financial Markets Authority governance principles, as well as pressure to comply with the recommendations of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's report into the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
"You'll often hear people sometimes joke, 'who would want to be a director these days?' or 'maybe it's not for me anymore that the liability is at such a level'," Ms Patterson said.
"I often say that as CEO, if I have a bad day at the office I could get fired, but as a director, you have a bad day at the office you could end up in jail and you're losing your house."
EY Partner Una Diver also said directors were likely under-reporting the time they spent in the role by as much as 30 percent.
Another concern highlighted in the report was the number of uninsured directors, as one in four companies did not provide insurance for directors.
Ms Diver said some not-for-profits thought directors who served as volunteers would be exempt from liability, but nothing was further from the truth.
"Some of organisations just don't understand that director liability insurance is a really important protection," she said.