Gen Y's, Unilever, health

Gen Y's Green Demands for the Workplace By Leslie Guevarra, published May 2010.

Outstanding analysis of the attitudes of Gen Y's - which for your reference are those youngsters born between 1981 and 2000 - who want to "see and feel the greenness in their workplace" And this does NOT mean putting more potted plants in the office .....

Unilever gets down to business with health on HR leader , May 2010.

"Unilever has become one of the first organisations to be able to prove the relationship between health, engagement and performance. At Unilever Australia, the Lamplighter program is currently being piloted under the name ‘Ignite U’. Dean Patterson, global health and productivity manager for Unilever,  says Unilever has become one of the first organisations to be able to prove the relationship between health, engagement and performance. A study, evaluated by Lancaster University, found that employees who participated in Lamplighter felt significantly more engaged with their work and were less likely to take time off work due to health problems, able to perform better in their job, less likely to be adversely affected by pressure at work and more likely to practice healthy behaviours at work. Further, the overall number of employees classed as a “high health risk” dropped by 5 per cent and the overall number of employees classed as a “low health risk” increased by 23 per cent. “Increasing the number of employees in our low risk population ultimately means cost savings for the business, as low risk employees cost the company less money in health care costs and absenteeism,” . Read the full article. Impressive results.

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty Reporter, HR Professional. Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen  on Twitter or via my website www.b-yond.biz/en

Green HR, Top HR, Exec pay and Embedding CSR via HR

Five more interesting resources on CSR and HR and the intersection of both:

Combine your Green and HR Efforts (published in December 2008)
This article is subtitled "reducing your environmental impact one employee at a time" and was referred to me by Twitter friend @cathyj131.  The point is that HR can make a big contribution to the greening of a Company. We all agree, for sure.

Today's HR Executives : How Career paths have changed - and stayed the same
Thanks to @claytontford for referring this article.It is about the changing nature of HR career paths and HR careerists, and ends up with a quote "Human resources is a crucial point of intersection between the broader society and business." The full research paper, providing the basis for this article, on attributes of HR Leaders,  by  Dr Peter Capelli and Yang Yang can be downloaded here

More Businesses Tie Executive Compensation to Environmental Metrics, published May 2010 on Environmentalleader.com . The article says that companies are realizing the power that executive pay policies have on environmental perofrmance. Good development.

Lloyds looks to train “every manager” in sustainability, published on Greenwisebusiness.co.uk , May 2010. Thanks to Fabian Pattberg for his post on the Sustainabilityforum.com for alerting me to this article. Clearly, ensuring managers know how to advice customers is a necessary element of advancing CSR.

The most heard words at the Responsible Business Summit 2010 were "DNA" and embedding. Article posted by Pam Muckosy, chief researcher at Ethical Corporation, in May 2010,  on how CSR is embedded in the business. She quotes figures from a research paper Ethical Corporation published last year.  Actually, I reviewed this paper in a number of posts on my CSR Reporting blog:
Embedding CSR in the Human Resources function
Embedding CSR in the procurement function
Embedding CSR in the Finance function
Embedding CSR in the Operations and Logistics Function
Embedding CSR in the Corporate Communications Function

Don't forget to keep me posted of interesting things YOU come accross!

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty Reporter, HR Professional. Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen  on Twitter or via my website www.b-yond.biz/en

Employability, discrimination and talent wars

Three more interesting things of note relating to CSR and HR this week:

My editorial on CSRWire.com
I chose to raise the provocative question of how companies decide about downsizing and whether investing in "employability" is a convenient alternative to make firing people acceptable. See the full editorial here.

Novartis gets fined for discrimination against women
This is what happens when true culture of diversity, inclusion and gender equality are not comprehensively embedded in the business. The $3.4 million bill that Novartis must pay in damages is far less, in my view, than the business they have lost through discriminatory employment practices and alienation of competent women in their workforce. Read the full article here.

What people are looking for from employers
Interesting article from CSR Expert Matthew Rochte who says that real sustainability will have to take into account the aspiration of X-gens and Millennials who are looking for meaning, not just for paychecks. Read the full article here.

Dont forget to let me know of any interesting articles covering the intersection of CSR and HR. Thanks!

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty Reporter, HR Professional. Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen  on Twitter or via my website www.b-yond.biz/en

HR competencies for CSR

New post by Susan R. Meisinger on "HRE online" entitled HR's Citizenship Competencies.

Susan  says " As organizations have grappled with designing their CSR strategy, there are obvious implications for HR executives. HR needs to ensure that it is in alignment with and facilitates the company's corporate citizenship and sustainability strategy. " Of course, she couldnt be more right.

Susan goes on to list the leadership competencies published by the Boston Center for Corporate Citzenship for CR leadership, and says these are a good startpoint for HR Managers (see her post linked above) . And they are. But we must not forget that HR Managers are not in CEO or even CRO roles - they are in HR roles, both as leaders and practitioners and as such, the competencies they require may contain elements similar to those of business leaders (which could apply to most other senior functions in a business) but also specific HR-aligned competencies are necessary to ensure the complete and unique contribution of the HR function in a sustainable business.

More on this in my book :)


elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty Reporter, HR Professional. Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen on Twitter or via my website www.b-yond.biz/en

HR - Compliance - Ethics

Excellent post by Thomas Fox on the role of Human Resources in compliance and ethics programs.

"One of the key company lynch-pins in any FCPA compliance and ethics program is Human Resources. Most HR professional do not think of themselves as on the front lines for FCPA compliance and ethics. However the HR function is plays a key role in “connecting the dots” for FCPA ethics and compliance. What policy does a company take to punish those employees who may engage in unethical and non-compliant behavior in order to meet company revenue targets versus what rewards are handed out to those employees who integrate such ethical and compliant behavior into their individual work practices going forward? One of the very important functions of HR is assisting management in setting the criteria for employee bonuses and assisting management in the evaluation of employees for the bonuses. This is an equally important role in getting out a company’s message of adherence to a FCPA compliance and ethics policy".

For more insights, see the full post here

 

For those who dont know what FCPA is : it's the  Foreign Corrupt Practices Act covering anti-bribery.

What should HR do to ensure FCPA compliance? How does HR support instilling an ethics culture in the business ? More in the Autumn, with the publication of my book.

By the way, I am thinking of calling it: 

CSR and HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices. 

Unless you have any better suggestions! 

elaine cohen, CSR Consultant, Sustainabilty Reporter, HR Professional. Contact me via @elainecohen on Twitter or via my website www.b-yond.biz/en

CSHR - copy editing

Just heard from Greenleaf that CSHR the book is now into the copy-editing phase. Not quite sure how complex a process this is, but it sounds like progress. :-)

We are thinking about the title : Corporate Social Human Resources Manager doesn't really roll off the tongue that well... so if anyone has any suggestions for a book which is a definitive guide for Human Resources Managers on how to advance sustainable business practices via the HR function ... I would be happy to hear.

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty reporter, HR professional. Contact me via @elainecohen on Twitter or via my website www.b-yond.biz/en

4 good resources for Employee volunteering programs

Employee volunteering programs (EVP's) are an excellent way to engage employees and reap benefits for the business, the organization, teams and individuals, whilst having a positive impact on the community. Here are some excellent resources that help us understand the link between HR, CSR, and EVP. Some older, some newer, but all offering interesting perspectives.

Volunteering - The business case (published May 2010)
Produced by corporate Citizenship for the City of London, looking at corporate volunteering in education. Very rich document with research results and insights from several Companies.

The Benefits of Employee Volunteer Programs (published 2009)
Produced by JA - Junior Achievement - documents the different aspects of employee volunteering and provides intersting data about volunteering programs.

Deloitte IMPACT Survey Executive Summary 2008
Looks at how companies are not leveraging the value of corporate volunteering in many different ways.

Chris Jarvis's Blog
Chris is the undoubted world expert on Corporate Volunteering he writes a blog which is packed with information and insights about EVP's. Chris and partner Angela also collaborated with me on the writing of the Employee Volunteering chapter of CSHR - the forthcoming book! Watch this space!

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty reporter, HR professional. Contact me via @elainecohen on Twitter or via my website www.b-yond.biz/en

10% better business with employee wellbeing

Boosting staff wellbeing can improve financial performance. That's the conclusion of a report issued by Business in the Community in the UK. They talk of 10% increase in financial performance.

Read the article here

You can also take a look at BITC's Healthy Workplace Model.

In fact, you can download an amazing list of resources from BITC on workplace management with a CSR flavour.

Whilst these findings do not seem to be particularly startling - let's face it - it stands to reason that if you have a healthy workplace you will havve a better chance of having a healthy business - but the fact remains that so many employers, and so many HR Managers, still do not invest in doing this right. So, maybe proof of better business results will provide the incentive ! Corporate Social Human Resources wins again!

NB thanks to David Connor for posting the article  on Facebook!

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty reporter, HR professional. Contact me via @elainecohen on Twitter or via my website www.b-yond.biz/en

Accountability is important in HR Management

Interesting post summarizing findings from a Wharton Business School study about trends in Human Resources Management.

Accountability is taking on more importance with a recognition that "Human resources is a crucial point of intersection between the broader society and business"  YEAH!!!

Download the study here (PDF)

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty reporter, HR professional. Contact me via @elainecohen on Twitter or via my website www.b-yond.biz/en

Embedding Sustainability Practices in Organizational Culture

Excellent toolkit produced by the Network for Business Sustainability

Download PDF here

Uses Jay Galbraith's STAR Model and offers several best practice examples from diffrerent businesses.

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty reporter, HR professional. Contact me via @elainecohen on Twitter or via my website www.b-yond.biz/en

Driving Success - HR in sustainable development

Great paper published by U of Cambridge Prog for Industry, HRH Prince of Wales Biz and Env prog, and WBCSD on Human Resources and Sustainable Development.(PDF).
Called Driving Success, it is a briefing for HR Managers, published in 2005

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty reporter, HR professional. Contact me via @elainecohen on Twitter or via my website www.b-yond.biz/en