28th February 2011 | Review by Matthew Maguire of CSRinternational.org
In CSR for HR: A Necessary Partnership for Advancing Responsible Business Practices, Elaine Cohen takes a ground-up approach to CSR that focuses on corporate engagement with individual employees. As Cohen says, “This book is both a wake-up call for the human resources (HR) profession and a tool-kit written to help members of that profession to act.” Cohen develops a concept she calls corporate social human resources (CSHR) that redirects traditional HR responsibilities such as organisational development, recruitment, training and compensation toward CSR goals and practices. To build her case, Cohen tells the story of Sharon, a fictitious HR manager from a medium-sized firm, who, over the course of the book, transforms herself from a CSR novice to a powerful CSR advocate within her company.READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE >>>>
17th February 2011 | Review by Ralph Thurm on A|HEAD|ahea blog
If one looks at the development steps of CSR in the last decade it became painfully clear that the paradigm change towards sustainability needed to be implemented in all company’s functions. Overcoming the silo thinking to empower better and a more holistic awareness-building and integration of CSR was/is obviously needed if an organization will also thrive in the future. All in all we need to admit that we have been extremely busy with the technicalities part of this task, often forgetting the people part of the story. It is so easy to believe that if an organization has done its homework on management systems, data systems, governance, reporting and measurement, one could wait for the outcomes to simply come as a given. One of most often forgotten pieces in the puzzle was the Human Resources function of an organization. Finally there is help! Elaine Cohen, one of the most active bloggers in the field, living in Israel, and running Beyond Business Ltd., a small CSR consultancy there, has created an enormously useful baseline through her book ‘CSR for HR – A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices’, a must read for everybody who either works in the HR function and wants to develop a view on how to support CSR in their daily life, or for everybody outside the HR function looking for arguments why the HR function has an important role to play and needs to overcome some genuine mental stereotypes. READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE >>>>>
11th January 2011 | Review by Solitaire Townsend in People Management
Elaine Cohen has been a powerful voice in the corporate social responsibility and sustainability movement for many years. Turns out she also has a secret aptitude for fiction.
That could be a rather sarcastic start to a review of her new book, CSR for HR. Except that this is an overt work of fiction, and a rather jolly one at that. We follow the story of Sharon, a fictional HR director who sets out on a journey of CSR discovery. This is a fantastic ploy to entertain the knowledgeable, while filling in the gaps for the new entrants to CSR. READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE >>>
16th December 2010 | Review by Lalia Helmer on the Business That Cares blog
Having worked as an organizational development consultant, facilitator and trainer I have seen how the role of corporate culture change often falls on the shoulders of HR. Now CSR practitioners are also change agents banging on the doors of the traditional corporate mindset to become more aware of their responsibility to bring about the kind of social benefits that affect their companies, the employees, and now the world. An alliance of these two change agencies may be just the line of attack to bring down the some of the barriers to change that many companies still hold up. READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE >>>
12th December 2010 | Review by Frederic Page on the Aequology blog
CSR for HR is a very meaningful book by a knowledgable author whose effective storytelling provides the compelling evidence that “a partnership” – between HR and CSR – is needed to advance “responsible business practices”. Although the Author has included few fictional characters to support her point, the situations, comments and people described in the book are absolutely realistic and will sound familiar to most of the readers. Along with those fictional characters, Elaine Cohen mentions and quotes some of the most well-known experts working in the fields of HR, CSR and Sustainability such as Julie Urlaub of Taiga Company, Chris Jarvis of Realized Worth or Cathy Joseph. Finally, it’s nice to see that the Author has managed to stay away from any technical jargon and smartly uses humor and anecdotes all along the narrative. READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE >>>>
1st December 2010 | Review by Carol Sanford on her blog
What Cohen offers is a detailed execution plan on how to embed CSR into the way of managing people. And since this is contrary to the majority of business practices, she let’s us watch as a manager, Sharon, goes through the discovery process of how much more powerful and even efficient this is, than the fragmented programmatic method. She is engaged by Arena, who serves as the Socratic teacher and coach in Sharon’s discovery. This allows Cohen to unfold a little at a time, of the changes necessary to shift to the integrated approach, which we eventually will come to see as much simpler. And as a Great Lover of The Body Shop story, it is wonderful to have it used as an integrating story to follow. READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE
21st November 2010 | Review by Pawel Szadarowski of Poland on Amazon.com
Corporate Responsible Business (CSR) and Sustainability Development (SD). What does it mean? What is hidden behind these terms? Who is responsible for creating, running and control CSR strategy in company? How many time will take company to become responsible. A year? Five years? Which strategy is better? One huge project, or "slice by slice".
You will find answer here. Please read story of fictional HR director - Sharon. When we met her she knows nothing about CSR. We are witnesses of honing her skills in this subject.
It's easy to read book. Full of dialogs. (I know it's very rare in business not adventure books). Such construction helps readers to understand CSR and SD. For instance Sharon - main character asks questions which we wish to ask.
Interesting book with full of ready to use examples.
It contains facts and arguments for implementing CSR in company.
It shows how much important role have HR department in each company not only in global corporations.
15th November 2010 | Review by Aman Singh of Vault.com posted on CSRwire.com
Human capital. My career. My job.
In a game of word association, how many times would 'corporate social responsibility' elicit any of the above phrases? I'll hazard a guess and say maybe one out of 10 times.
Because not until recently has there been as much analysis and commentary on the importance of CSR and sustainability. However, most of it continues to lean toward discussing the greener aspects of sustainability: it's good for the environment, a sustainable business strategy leads to profits with performance, etc.
Until last month, when a much-awaited book arrived at my doorstep: CSR for HR: A Necessary Partnership for Advancing Responsible Business Practices. Authored by Elaine Cohen, cofounder of Beyond Business Ltd., a CSR consulting and sustainability reporting firm--and a prolific blogger on CSR reporting--the book is a persuasive argument for connecting CSR with a company's human resources function. Having spent over 20 years in senior leadership positions with companies like Procter & Gamble and Unilever, Cohen's narratives come from experience. And a strong belief that corporate social responsibility must begin internally--with your company's primary stakeholders: employees. READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE
