Advancing Sustainability: HR's Role

"Advancing Sustainability: HR's Role" is the title of a new report just published by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM),the world’s largest association devoted to human resources management, representing more than 250,000 members in over 140 countries, together with Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), a member organization whose purpose is to develop sustainable business strategies and solutions and Aurosoorya, an organization that assists people and organizations to link to patterns that matter to develop deep change. This is an impressive 108 page report, which summarizes data from a survey of 728 HR professionals employed by organizations operating in the United States. The report baselines the role that human resources is currently perceived to play in the corporate sustainability realm and is one of the few comprehensive surveys that have been published on this subject.

A key conclusion from the survey is that the top five positive outcomes from sustainability initiatives are perceived to be: 1) improved employee morale, 2) more efficient business processes, 3) stronger public image, 4) increased employee loyalty, and 5) increased brand recognition. An interesting piece of data is that nearly four out of ten businesses (39%) reported calculating an ROI for their sustainability efforts. Among organizations calculating an ROI, 47% calculated a positive return on their investment, 46% reported it was still too early to determine their ROI, 6% calculated a break-even point and, most noteworthy, no organizations calculated a negative ROI.

The report also makes an assessment of where companies are on their sustainability journey using a model called The Sustainability Maturity Model which moves from compliance, through integration to transformation. Any guesses as to how many have reached the nirvana-like state of transformation? Yep, you were right. 7%. The good news, if you believe it, is that 45% say they are integrating sustainability into the everyday operations of the business. These tend to be larger businesses, while those lagging at the compliance phase tend to be SME's.

Why don't companies do more?
The top five obstacles reported were: 1) costs of launching, 2) difficulty in measuring the return on investment, 3) lack of support from organization’s leaders, 4) costs of maintaining, and 5) lack of internal capacity or knowledge. Interesting that respondents did not include lack of HR motivation to think outside of the traditional HR box as one of the key barriers. If the HR Manager were sustainability-enabled, the top five obstacles would disappear instantaneously.

Who decides sustainability strategy?
Interestingly, when asked who determines sustainability strategy, the top responses were the senior management team (36%) or the CEO (22%) with the HR Department being down the list at 6%. However, when asked who implements sustainability strategy,  the senior management team came in tops again with 51% and the HR Department came in second with 25% of the responses. The Advancing Sustainability report calls this a "disconnect" : "The results from this survey revealed somewhat of a disconnect between HR’s involvement in creating and implementing the sustainability strategy in their organizations."

The report includes several essays with insights from several experts and case studies from SAP, Gap Inc, Alcatel-Lucent, Hitachi, Interface, Nestle and Pfizer as well as spotlights on China and India.

The bottom line?

"This research finds that the human resource function is one of the key groups responsible for implementing a sustainability strategy in organizations. This is not surprising since sustainability is a people issue that is important in shaping the organization’s behavior and culture. It is for these and other reasons that the HR profession is and will continue to be an important component in the emergence and evolution of sustainability."

That's good news, right?  This research presents an interesting reflection of what happens now, in the minds of a large group of HR Managers. Many of them state they have a responsibility to implement sustainability strategy but few say they have input to that strategy. I believe this is not such good news. It is not enough to be satisfied with HR as doers (implementers of strategy) and not as thinkers (co-creators of strategy). People policies should not be regarded as something you think about after you decide business strategy. Human Resources Managers should be full and equal partners in creating business (=sustainability)  strategy and often shaping it to meet the needs of an external reality. It goes like this:

Determine the business opportunity

Agree the strategy.

Implement the strategy.

Let's say the business opportunity is to develop a new product line marketed to women. The business strategy necessarily requires rethinking how the culture of the organization enables, empowers and advances women in the business, as women will have insights which are important to any plan to market to women (leaving aside for a second all the other compelling arguments in favour of a gender-equal workplace). The strategy, then, needs a broad range of HR input, and not just a go-and-recruit-some-women directive. Equally, the implementation of this strategy has to be a partnership between HR and other functions, and not simple an HR "initiative".

Let's say the business opportunity is to become a carbon neutral company. The business strategy necessarily requires thinking about how to engage employees in greenification of the business, which is more than just turning off the office lights at the end of the day and virtualizing data servers, but a comprehensively embedded culture of engagement with sustainability objectives. As it is stated in the report, "As organizations seek to reduce their carbon footprint, it will force HR professionals to completely rethink how work takes place." If this is not strategic, what is ? Shaping the way the company goes about this needs to be linked to culture and capability and a host of creative solutions. The business strategy therefore requires HR input. The implementation requires a partnership between HR and other functions in the business.

Scott S. Criqu, HR manager of Trinity In-Home Care, gets it right, in my view, when he is quoted in the report as saying: “From my experience, the disconnect stems from HR’s inability to form strategic partnerships within their companies. HR departments and executives are seen by other top executives as a tool and not a resource for strategic planning." I believe he is correct and that CSR for HR is a two-way street. Just as executives, including the Chief Sustainability Officer, if there is one, must invite HR to sit at the strategy table, so HR must demand to be there (and prove its worthiness for being there).

And here we get back to the chicken.. or is it the egg.... who goes first?
Should HR wait to be dragged into sustainability, alive (just about) and kicking? Or should HR be proactive in exploiting the massive opportunity that sustainability brings to develop a new position of influence for HR in the business? There is so much that HR can do without waiting to be asked. It takes enlightened, aware, motivated and very confident HR Managers to follow this course. But first, HR has to wake up to what sustainability is all about and what it means for the transformation of the HR function was well as the business, society and the environment.

The "Advancing Sustainability: HR's Role" report is a very important contribution to understanding what is holding so many companies back from reaching sustainability transformation. It provides many insights and examples, some encouraging, of how sustainability is currently perceived and what HR can and should do to make a more tangible difference. This report is indeed a baseline, because what it reflects is a limited activity and marginal strategic leadership. The only thing that this report left out was the fact that HR change for sustainability is URGENT! My mantra: It is time for HR to wake up to CSR!

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty Reporter, HR Professional, Author of CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices.   Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen  on Twitter or via my website www.b-yond.biz/en

Employer Branding : a missed opportunity

Employer branding is increasing in importance, says this article published in HR Review this week. There are nearly three times more HR professionals actively working on employer branding today than there were four years ago. Naturally, it occured to me to do a little research on just how many of these Employer Brands are leveraging the potential of CSR to attract great people for whom sustainability values are important.

My findings are that, whilst Corporate Responsibility is often mentioned in the Careers Section of most corporate websites, persuading potential recruits that the Company is responsible, committed to diversity and adheres to a set of values, they usually miss the point. The point, I believe, is not so much that a potential recruit is looking to join a responsible company, though this is important, but that the potential recruit wants the opportunity to make a difference. The potential recruit want a job that offers meaning beyond the payslip. Something that can be their own little piece of changing the world. New people want more that just to be a part of something that saves the planet, they want to BE something that saves the planet. Few of the Employer Brand messages I have seen are leveraging the full potential of this opportunity to attract the best and most sustainability-oriented people.

The Procter and Gamble career website  focuses on the way P&G hires people who are individualist-type achievers. The Employer Brand is built on the proposition : We hire the PERSON, not the position.  The site showcases 5 superhero individual achievers - a scientist -salsa dancer who works to protect children against abuse, an HR German Paralympic Wheelchair Fencing coach, a Systems Analyst who is a DJ with an "electrified ego" and similar. Wonder-Candidates who make me question how many of P&G's  130,000 employees make this grade or even want to. There is a sustainability section in the P&G careers website,  but I don't see anything which explicitly promises that new recruits will have their chance to do their bit for society and environment.   

Tesco's careers website  prominently displays the corporate commitment to sustainability, with the main focus being  Tesco's impact on communities, combining the elements of sustainability and caring for the local community as strong elements of the corporate identity. However, the focus of Tesco's career communication is "a great place to work".  Why join Tesco ? Be treated with trust and respect, work for a manager that helps you, have an interesting job and an opportunity to get on. Duh. Is that it ? Doesn't sound all that inspiring to me. Seems to me that the sustainability mesage is not truly embedded in this Employer Brand.

Verizon also gives prominent positioning to the Corporate Responsibility programs of the Company as a core part of their careers website. Verizon tell potential employees:  "At Verizon, we believe passionately in using our vast technical, financial and intellectual resources to accomplish something equally significant – making a difference in our communities. Verizon is doing some terrific work to improve people's lives, like expanding accessibility, improving online safety, and providing opportunities for better and faster broadband connectivity. That's just part of our mission to create a great place to work while giving back to the customers we are privileged to serve." This comes a little closer but still misses the mark. It's about the Company, the opportunities it offers as a great place to work and for career building, but it does not emphasize the promise to the individual new hire that s/he will have the opportunity to make a difference. It doesn't seem to me that this Employer Brand communication has truly embedded the CSR approach.

General Electric's career website doesn't offer any additional insight.  Aligned with the corporate branding message and called "GE: Imagination at work", the core proposition in Why GE? is about unparalleled opportunities to build careers and capabilities, extraordinary opportunities and enormous potential, and exciting and dynamic challenges of a lifetime. Wow. So many superlatives in such a short webpage. How about: Working at GE will give you the opportunity to make the world a better place ? Guess that one wasn't sexy enough for the copywriter.

Even Vodafone, one of the CSR-minded companies I most admire, also does not embrace the concepts of sustainability in their Employer Branding communications. Why join Vodafone ? Because you will connect with great people, have the opportunity to develop and express your ideas. Even better, your opinions will be surveyed as part of the Company's recular employee surveys. Hey, that's really something. But not something enough. Not something which embeds sustainability as part of the employer proposition. How about: Join Vodafone and make  your personal footprint count towards a sustainable future ?  (Ok, I am not a copywriter, but do you get the change in the focus of the message ?) 

Now to Intel. "If you are looking to make an impact, Intel is the perfect place...." Sounds promising. The focus is on personal  impact and not only how great the Company is. "At Intel, it's not just what you make, it's what you make possible. Here, you'll be part of developing the better, faster computing platforms the world is waiting for. From innovative processor architectures to state-of-the-art wireless technology, you can have a hand in breakthroughs that have a global impact."  This is closer to what I would be looking for in an Employer Brand that embeds CSR and Sustainability messages, through, even here, there is no direct mention of these terms or concepts. Just adding a few words would make the difference: ... breakthroughs that have a global impact and advance global sustainability... for example.

I have looked briefly at several other careers websites from the Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies and add a few more insights here : Baxter International  (the "doing work that matters" tag line gets close, but is not leveraged in the rest of the site) , Diageo  ("celebrate what you do" does refer to advancing responsible drinking programmes, but doesn't really talk sustainability) , L'Oreal careers focuses on passion for the job, but not much about sustainability, Inditex has nothing about sustainability, Nexen is focused on shareholder value and big opportunities, Roche's career site tag-line is "Make your Mark, Improve lives"  which is a nice generic concept, but doesn't really get full treatment once you dig below the surface. I could go on ....but I will spare you for now.

I will round off with the best example I have found which is SAP. Here the core concepts of personal IMPACT and global SUSTAINABILITY are blended together very effectively. Also there is a great employee feed where employees say things like : (Alexandra: "Rode my bike to work, will go home by metro. Am researching icon trends and thinking about ideas for visual trends" and FredericSales (@CarbonImpact)  "Ending Demand Generation Day talking 2 the CIO of a retail co. With 30 stores now, paper & pen is no longer an option for reporting. Agreed.") The SAP employee volunteering program also features as a part of their career proposition. Very nice. Very sensible. Very sustainable.

To sum up, I am not sure who drives the approach to the Employer Brand in most businesses - whether it is an HR role or a Marketing role, or a combination of both. It doesn't seem to me that the Sustainability Officer is doing this. The opportunity to embed and leverage sustainability messages to create a distinctive Employer Brand which is aligned with the rest of the Company's corporate CSR communications, and focuses on the individual opportunity to make a difference is one which most companies are completely missing out on. This is one of the tests of whether the  culture of Corporate Reponsibility is truly embedded at the core, or still seen as a little project you do in addition to doing your business. If you are an HR Manager, my recommendation is STOP! REVIEW NOW your Employer Brand and your careers communications. Start stalking sustainability to the thousands of potential recruits whose desire and ability to change the world can deliver for your business.

It is time for HR to wake up to CSR !

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