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EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT: CSR ADDING THE SUGAR
November 23, 2009 in ALL CATEGORIES, Human Resources, Stakeholder Engagement | Tags: Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR Engagement, CSR Recruitment, HR | Leave a comment
It’s a tough proposition for company’s to engage with their employees. Non HR experts might argue otherwise… I can just hear them now: “If you want to engage with staff, why not offer them flexible working, or ooh wait, subsidized gym memberships? Or the coup de grâce … performance bonuses…a no brainer really!”
HR professionals, however, will quickly tell you that the soft fluffy stuff, although it looks and sounds great, is not likely to keep employees engaged for very long. Think tassels at the end of a very long tablecloth. A quirky initiative is no silver bullet and all that.
Speaking at the Employee Engagement Summit in the City earlier this week, Jane Sullivan, senior consultant at the Work Foundation warned HR delegates against taking a quick fix approach to employee engagement. “There is no quick fix, its more a holistic and fundamental approach,” she said, adding that there is no one size fits all model, but rather a model that works for each individual.
Mike Conder, UK HR director at financial services firm, KPMG, bigged up the value of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a tool to engage with employees. “Its an added opportunity to communicate with employees, and to demonstrate your care attitude.
“CSR is something most employees really care about: ‘It impacts me personally, my family, and its something I can get my head around'”.
Conder said that if used in the right way, CSR can change the perception of an organisation, while good management will also change employee perception giving them the opportunity to participate in something meaningful. “Logically it makes sense, and statistically, it’s absolutely true,” said Conder.
Source: Personneltoday.com
THE ROLE OF HR IN CSR
October 27, 2009 in Human Resources, Search & Selection, Stakeholder Engagement, Training & Development, VENTURING | Tags: Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR Engagement, CSR Recruitment, HR | 1 comment
In the second of a new series of informative articles explaining the rise of CSR and where HR fits into its evolution, Article 13’s Paul Toyne looks at where HR fits into the picture.
Within business, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is managed in a variety of different places. Large FTSE 100 companies have dedicated teams overseeing CSR and their names vary reflecting the different emphasis companies place on it. For example, the bank HSBC Holdings has a community unit that is within corporate affairs. Last year, a survey of UK businesses active in CSR found that less than a fifth had teams dedicated to the function. Over 80% placed CSR in public relations and HR accounted for a quarter. However, the topic of CSR is becoming a must for HR because of the growing recognition that staffing is an area of risk to business. This link of risk and CSR is fundamental relating it to the business and as this article discusses a key driver for HR involvement High staff turnover, loss of key employees at critical times, the high cost of recruitment and the training of new staff can all damage a business. CSR strategies and programmes can help manage this risk by creating an environment where staff can enjoy their work and where they can feedback concerns about the company’s behaviour so action can be taken – for example, the identification of illegal workers in the supply chain. The recognition of the value of staff to an organisation is one of benefits from CSR as it is not just about engaging with external audiences. Moreover, it is about how you interact with your staff. Increasingly businesses are realising the importance of employer brand. Just like other stakeholders, employees expect certain things not just a salary from their employer. Staff members want to feel they can identify with the company. Employer branding is about making sure that employees feel good about the place they work. They can then be ambassadors for the company and that ‘feel good factor’ can permeate out to others, notably customers and clients. For these benefits to be accrued the organisation needs to be CSR compliant (see note 2 below for more on this). The role of HR HR can play an important role in developing the process where the business objectives are assessed and values re-aligned to match them with staff expectations. There are many ways this can be done:
HR should also play the gatekeeper role in the development and monitoring of staff policies and practice. It needs to be asking questions such as: ‘Does the business have a social responsibility policy or an environmental policy?’ and ‘How does the business ensure that these policies and the company’s values drive the way the company does business?’ These values need to be reflected in staffing issues – recruitment, training, appraisals, and in other processes such as procurement. HR has an important role to play in ensuring this happens. Future trends in CSR for HR departments? HR departments may have a natural ally in their financial directors who are beginning to recognise staff as an area of intangible risk. FDs should be prepared to invest to manage this risk and create an employer of choice which delivers benefits to the bottom line in a number of ways from improved staff retention to improved work performance through more motivated staff. Note 1: How HR can make the case for CSR ownership. Questions to ask the board or senior management team.
Making the business case – the benefits for championing CSR in HR
Note 2: Is your organization CSR compliant? Despite the wide scope of CSR there are some simple things that can be done to identify the way your organization conducts its business, for example:
This article was first published in February 2004 on HR Gateway. Reproduced with the permission of HR Gateway, February 2004. |