A New Model of CSR for HR

As the global market changes, companies have the opportunity to capitalise and move with these changes by greater involvement of corporate social responsibility (CSR), which this article argues should be aligned as closely as possible with and as a key part of business strategy.

Businesses must play a part in creating healthy societies and create shared value rather than just try to maximize profit, in order to drive the economy, and many forward-thinking businesses seem to be trying to do just this – crucially led by HR.

Although reputation is a strong driver of CSR, so is the need to think strategically about “mega-trends” (which can be greatly innovative for new products and services), as well as improving trust and growing the business by finding commercially sustainable ways to fix problems. Social and business value must go hand-in-hand, as merely creating social value is not enough – there must be a higher purpose. According to James Watts, CSR is “not something you choose to do or not do”; it is an obligation of any big business to give back to the community.

One useful strategy to understand markets and address related challenges is to consult with and partner third sector experts in charities and volunteer organisations as a form of “immersive, experiential learning” – this helps to embed community involvement deeply into business strategy, and in return, the third sector partner gets strategy advice and help from the organisation.

HR can take responsibility for CSR by linking it to performance management, in order to make workforces think about CSR in everything that they do. One example is Anglian Water, who now refer to themselves as a “campaigning organisation” and aim to engage employees and customers in valuing their product. According to Phil Brown, head of people development: “we are asking people to think slightly differently, and that means managing them in a different way.”

This will require business leaders who have powerful, personal first-hand experience, and understand the importance of sustainability, market diversity and customer needs. This will enable the alignment and integration of CSR into the business strategy, as well as to make the business value obvious to all its stakeholders.

Ben Brown, responsibility manager at Sky: “If we can help address these issues, it makes society more resilient, which makes our business more resilient.”

Successful CSR that reaps business benefits does not always have to involve high costs – for example, volunteering and mentoring programs can be a good way to put learning into practice, and other forms of giving back help to deliver more to the community when the business is fully invested and is measuring benefits. The link between HR and CSR is slightly blurry at the moment, but it can be cost-effective, and deliver benefits to both – HR are increasingly interested in "stretching their people’s skills in the community”.

Additionally, CSR can be a useful competitive advantage when it comes to recruitment: 70% of Millennials surveyed by Deloitte in 2011 said that their decision to work at companies is affected by the companies’ commitment to the community.

Four key ingredients to achieve real shifts in mindset and new sustainable behaviours:

1.      First-hand experiential learning of today’s global and societal challenges is crucial.

2.      People need to realize and understand the business relevance of their experience in addition to the experience.

3.      Senior leadership must provide clear sponsorship and involvement.

4.      After the experience, active support must be provided once back in the organisation to make the mindset and behaviour more habitual.