HR behind the times on CSR

The Human Resources function is a critical partner in the development of a responsible and accountable corporate culture. Corporate Responsibility is often referred to as improving impacts on stakeholders. Nothing new here. Employees are stakeholders. Nothing new here either. The better you treat, or impact on, your employees, the better the business will perform. Numerous statistics and surveys prove this correlation. The engagement of every employee in the business is really the only way to ensure flawless corporate responsibility.  I am reading Adam Werbach's book at the moment, Strategies for Sustainability, and quite by chance, or not, he makes the same point - more eloquently than I do, I must admit. However, it's nice to be in such illustrious Company. Adam says: ... "to execute a strategy for sustainability, you must engage individuals personally" (page 132).

Ultimately, corporate reponsibility is not just about treating employees well, or investing in their development, or providing a ramp if they are in a wheelchair. It's not only about how satisfied they are on the job. Corporate responsibility is transforming every employee into an ambassador of the corporate responsibility message of the business. Ensuring that they understand, are involved, are inspired and know where they can play a role. This means moving from impacts ON employees to impacts OF employes. Each employee in the business interacts with any number of stakeholders every day, maybe thousands of daily connections. This potential, to turn every single stakeholder interaction into one which moves the CSR agenda forward, is more powerful than almost any other single business activity.

CSR reporting is often seen as something which primarily benefits employees. Through the report, they get a comprehensive view of the way their Company interprets and progresses sustainability themes. Often, the CSR report contains news and information which had not cascaded through to them via regular internal communication channels.  In some cases, Corporate Reponsibility reports even state the names of individuals in the Company who are responsible for progressing different action items - an example of this is Vancouver City Savings Union (Vancity) (page 35). But when I recently tried to ascertain how many Companies actually track how many employees read all or part of their reports, I couldnt get an answer.

I found one example of something coming close to this on the Adidas website where readers of their online report are asked to own up and identify themselves. The results are displayed in a neat graph.

We dont know how many people took this survey, and I am not quite sure what the difference is between an employee and a worker, but this is a great way to see what kind of people are taking interest in the report. And a very brave move on the part of Adidas to have an open survey such as this on their reporting site . In a recent dialogue with Symantec,  i understood  they progress many activities in the framework of internal communications to ensure employees are aware and engaged. But, bottom line is, overall, we DON'T KNOW if employees take any sort of interest in one of the most important documents the Company publishes to stakeholders, and if they are capable of being the ambassadors for that document, and the Company.

 

Who is repsonsible for this ? After the CEO, it has to be the HR Function. The HR function must ensure proceses are developed within the busnesss to raise employee awareness of key strategies and processes, especially those which are in the public domain. Why doesnt HR do this ? Because, I submit, most HR Managers just don't see how they link to Sustainability strategy, beyond matters relating to ethics and values, and sometimes, community volunteering (because no-one else does it). Most HR Managers really don't see the relevance of ensuring high quality communications and dialogue about sustainability programs. When was the last time you had a progressive conversation with an HR Manager about sustainability in the supply chain and the HR role which supports that ? How do HR Managers recruit people into sustainability jobs ? In what ways does HR adopt sustainable practices  as a function ? Most HR Managers cannot tell you. The HR function has still not grasped the principles of a stakeholder society and stakeholder-driven business.

 

This is a pretty damming picture of HR people. This is why i am writing a book as a guide for HR Managers on all things sustainability and corporate reponsibility, due for publication next year. In order to test my theory, I produced a short survey for HR Managers. Of the lowish number of responses I have had to date, this is some of the initial data:

• 100% of HR Manager responders say that HR Managers need to have some understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility
• 54% of HR Managers say CSR  is something they are involved with as part of their ongoing role
• 80% and 70% respectively say this involvements relates to ethics and community involvement, with zero being involved in supply chain practices and external stakeholder engagement.
• 45% said that HR Managers need additional skills (and knowledge) to support CSR
• 30% said they had targets related to CSR

and one HR Manager, in responding to the question "What does the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility mean to you ?"  wrote : "Sustainability" . Well, at least that's something.

So, they all think it's important, half of them are responsible for it (in a limited way), and a third are measured on it. Less than half think they need to learn new ways of doing things in order to do it. Frankly, I think this is a saddish picture of the HR function. And i am keen to get a wider sample of opinions from a broader range of HR Managers so PLEASE pass this on to any HR Manager you know and request they complete the survey HERE: http://bit.ly/3HpxnS
I promise to update you all with the results. Thank you !

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en