Workers on boards is an idea whose time has come

If businesses don’t catch on, they’ll find it’s forced upon them, says James Moore

There's no evidence that worker directors impede corporate performance; to the contrary (iStock)

When Theresa May first floated the idea of workers on boards, there were howls of outrage from the business lobby and her proposals were very rapidly watered down.

Under the reformed UK corporate governance code, companies now can now pick from a menu of options, the least radical of which is assigning the role of pretending to care about employees to an existing non executive director.

Care to guess which most have opted for? The doctrine of comply or explain underpinning the code means they don’t even have to go that far. They can simply “explain” why they’ve chosen to dismiss the idea.