Employee Engagement is not Enough

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking at a conference in Milan, Italy, organized by Lundquist, a  strategic communications consultancy, specializing in online corporate communications and the interface with CSR.  The conference was themed "New Frontiers of online corporate communications" with a focus on social media and employer branding. The conference was well attended by CSR and communications professionals, the creme de la creme of the communications world in Italy. The event was a stimulating gathering and many perspectives were shared and discussed. Othjer speakers included Andrew Thomas, publisher of Communicate Magazine, Caterina Rucci, Head of Employment at Bird And Bird Law Firm, Eric Sundstrom, editor in chief of Dagens Arena, a Swedish daily news service, as well as Joakim Lundquist, the mastermind behind the event, and James Osborne, Sara Rusconi and Cristiano Poian of the Lundquist team.

 

My piece was about, yes, you guessed it, CSR for HR, and I introduced the thought that, when it comes to CSR,
 

Employee Engagement is Not Enough! 

 

I thing we are in danger of diluting the "employee engagement" concept to one which is more passive than active. I am not sure who holds the definitive definition of employee engagement these days but generally it tends to refer to "a measurable degree of an employee's positive or negative emotional attachment to their job" on the assumption that emotional attachment will create the desired behaviors.

Kevin Kruse, who wrote a book on the subject offers his definition in a Forbes article:

 

"Definition: Employee engagement is the emotional commitment the employee has to the organization and its goals.

 

This emotional commitment means engaged employees actually care about their work and their company. They don’t work just for a paycheck, or just for the next promotion, but work on behalf of the organization’s goals. When employees care—when they are engaged—they use discretionary effort. This means the engaged computer programmer works overtime when needed, without being asked. This means the engaged retail clerk picks up the trash on the store floor, even if the boss isn’t watching. This means the TSA agent will pull a bag suspicious bag to be searched, even if it’s the last bag on their shift."

 

This is good because, in Kevin's definition, engagement leads to action.This is right. Employee engagement in CSR should be more than an emotional commitment, it needs to be proactive action. But I think that the more we talk about engagement, the more we may be focusing on emotional onboarding and less on practical action. We should stop measuring "engagement" and start measuring behaviours. If engagement is the driver, action is the output, and business improvement, employee empowerment and social and environmental benefits are the outcomes. More than understanding that employees are engaged, I would like to know how they act, and how they turn their engagement into real deliverables. Therefore, at the Lundquist conference in Milan, I talked about:

 

Employee Activation

Does the CSR-HR Partnership drive employees to action in support of a CSR-oriented business program? Are CSR and HR Managers putting in place the tools that invite, encourage and compel employees to ACT, rather than be emotionally engaged at some sort of philosophical level? Are measures in the business the responses to a survey where we ask employees about their views, or do we ask them about what they actually did to advance CSR? Are rewards processes in place to recognize action rather than engagement?  

 

I think its time for HR to wake up to CSR and for the CSR-HR partnership to work together to drive Employee Activation, and not just employee engagement. Semantics? Maybe. But our choice of words may just influence the way we behave.

 

And while we are on the subject, you may be interested in two upcoming events on CSR for HR:

 

A new webinar training series for CSR and HR Managers about "Making the CSR-HR Partnership work." In this initial 2-session series on March 13 and March 20, we will cover:

• The business case for advancing Sustainable Human Resources Management in your business, large or small.
• The key issues that form the CSR/HR agenda and ways of addressing these in different organizations.
• The employee engagement (activation!) aspects of CSR – what works, what doesn’t work and how to leverage engagement through CSR.
• The measurable business benefits of a CSR-HR approach –quantifying the financial benefit to the organization through implementing CSR-HR tools.
• The CSR for HR Roadmap and Scorecard - what you can (and should) do next, and in what order.

Check this link if you are interested in participating.

And if you are planning to be in the Barcelona area in June, you might want to register for this event on 11th June in Barcelona themed: "Boosting Employee Engagement in the Digital Era". I will be chairing this conference which will also include a case study from a great former colleague, Geoff McDonald, Global VP HR Marketing, Communications & Sustainability, Water at Unilever, on the role of HR in embedding sustainability in organizations.

 

Check this link if you would like to see the full programme





As you can see, my mission is about Activating the CSR-HR Partnership. Hopefully, more CSR and HR Managers will engage in activation too!

 

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  Check out my new book! Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage through Transparency

Engouraging HR to wake up to CSR

Today I had a wonderful opportunity to talk to a group of global and regional Chief Sustainability Officers representing nine globally-active companies, all are names that you would all recognize, most of them report on sustainability and have well-developed sustainability programs and a string of achievements to date.

I presented on one of my favorite subjects - CSR for HR - but with a specific slant towards CSR and Employee Engagement and how Human Resources Management can contribute to a culture of sustainability, how CSR can drive employee engagement and how CSR can be leveraged for competency and leadership development. Interesting questions which are crucial for companies interested in making CSR and Sustainability a true part of the business rather than just a set of afterthought projects. I will elaborate on the perspectives and solutions I presented in a future post.

After my presentation, we had some discussion which centered around, primarily, how to get HR people engaged in the objective of creating a sustainable organizational culture. Before the discussion drew to a close, the group host invited me to ask them some questions.

I responded something like this: You are all leading, highly-reputable companies in your respective fields, you all have sustainability programs and achievements, you all communicate on sustainability in some way and many of you have sustainability targets which are quite ambitious. It would seem that employee engagement in sustainability should already be on your radar. Therefore, I was wondering what prompted the discussion about employee engagement and why this is an important area for discussion at this time.

The collective reply went something like this: We are all frustrated with the lack of response from the HR function. They are not getting on board. Instead of embracing a sustainability approach, they don't see it as their job, they are too busy, they are not interested and they are impenetrable. We want to work out how we get HR to the table and have HR become a partner and even leader in sustainability and employee engagement.

So there you have it. Even in the best of companies with the best of programs, the HR function is holding the organization back, instead of realizing that CSR is the key to making a much fuller and more sustainable contribution. Guess what I replied? It is time for HR to wake up to CSR!

But I also said that it takes two to tango. I advised this group of accomplished Sustainability Leaders to treat HR as customers, as valued stakeholders, as a group without whom they will not be able to deliver optimal results. This means that if CSR wants HR to wake up, it has to do the waking. As CSO, one of the first partnerships you should be working to develop is with your HR counterpart. If you wait for HR to come to you, you will wait a long time. If you wait for HR to see the light, it may not happen. As CSO, you can both help HR to understand the context and the need, while driving HR to step up to the mark by offering them an opportunity to be involved in developing solutions to sustainable business problems. This is as much a part of the CSO job as pursuing a low-carbon strategy. If, as CSO, you believe your HR function is not on the sustainability track, then make it your job to bring them around. It's a win-win. If you treat them as (equal) partners, maybe they will become (equal) partners. 

Enter Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe who said:  “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability 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

CSR for HR: Getting the message through

It's easy to assume things. It's easy to assume that, if you have a policy in place, and you have communicated it, or even posted it on an employee portal somewhere, that employees will notice it. Such assumptions rarely turn out to be true, and in the case of Human Resources, it's rather a lazy and irresponsible basis for performing the HRM role. As employees are core stakeholders in any business, HR should not underestimate the need for a proactive process to ensure employees are aware of their rights, entitlements, the policies which affect their working lives and also, of course, their duties and obligations. This is simply good HR. But it's also good CSR.

It is not enough to get the message across.
You have to get the message THROUGH.

A recent article in People Management reports that:  "Nearly half of all employees are not aware of their company’s HR policy ... In a poll of 1,000 workers, only 53 per cent claimed to have knowledge of their employer’s HR guidelines and even fewer (43 per cent) were aware of their company’s structure. Less than a quarter (23 per cent) of those canvassed understood their firm’s corporate social responsibility policy and only 27 per cent knew of their employer’s service guidelines...."

This is squarely in the Human Resources professional camp and should be regarded as a core HR-CSR responsibility of HR Managers.

This responsibility is two-fold:

first, deliver a process in which HR Managers proactively ensure employees are provided with the relevant information and have the opportunity to ask questions

second, design a process for ensuring that HR gets positive confirmation that this is implemented in practice.

Pushing out policies is not the value that HR adds. Getting the message through and engaging the minds and hearts of employees to deliver outcomes which support the business, is the value.

HR Managers: Wake up to CSR!
Wake up to your unique role in your business and to your responsibilities. 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability 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

Employee engagement in CSR- it's gone viral!

Wherever you look these days and whatever you read, getting employees on board with sustainability efforts is one of the key areas that everyone seems to be (yawn! at long last) acknowledging is the key to making it all come right. No list of top sustainability trends for 2012 was complete without employee engagement taking a star role. In a world of work where only 31% of employees are actively engaged in their jobs, we can only hope that we are in the range of rock-bottom and that things will get better. Sustainability is not only an outcome of employee engagement, it is a driver. HR Managers around the world, this is your time to wake up to CSR!

James Epstein Reeves' recent post on Forbes.com - Six Reasons Companies Should Embrace CSR - features employee engagement (albeit in sixth place - ahem - but who's counting), saying: "..... if your own employees don’t know what’s going on within your organization, you’re missing an opportunity. Companies like Sara Lee created a cross-functional, global Sustainability Working Team to help create a strategy for sustainability. At a more grass roots level, the Solo Cup Company created the Sustainability Action Network to activate employees in community service focused on the company’s CSR priorities."

Mother Nature Network  reports that "Employees are a top corporate social responsibility trend for 2012".

Addison's Six Sustainability Trends to Watch in 2012 includes employee engagement in sustainability, saying that "an increasing number of companies are realizing that introducing innovative employee volunteer programs as part of an integrated environmental, social and governance (ESG) platform can enhance their “employment brand.”

Tim Mohin of AMD included employee engagement in his top ten CSR trends of 2012, explaining "The connection between CSR and engaged employees continues to grow. A Hewitt & Associates study looked at 230 workplaces with more than 100,000 employees and found that the more a company actively pursues worthy environmental and social efforts, the more engaged its employees are. The Society for Human Resources Management compared companies that have strong sustainability programs with companies that have poor ones and found that in the former morale was 55% better, business process were 43% more efficient, public image was 43% stronger, and employee loyalty was 38% better."

Susan McPherson, the CSR Dynamo at Fenton, also ranked employee engagement highly in her list of 12 predictions for CSR in 2012. And there are more. How can all these expert professionals be wrong? Of course they can't.

And here is some proof.

Trend 3 in a new report hot-off-the-press-just-published by Ernst and Young in cooperation with Greenbiz Group, creatively entitled "Six Growing trends in Corporate Sustainability" is guess what, employee engagement. Employees are seen as a key audience for Sustainability Reports. The story E&Y tells about this trend goes like this:  "While the tools and techniques for employee engagement vary widely, the benefits are consistently described by these companies. Most importantly, they enhance employee attraction and retention, improve operational efficiencies, strengthen customer relations, increase innovation and strengthen community ties. Moreover, companies that distribute their sustainability reports broadly among employees find that they often share this information with their families, friends and neighbors, as well as with customers and suppliers. Employees can become a powerful voice in support of company sustainability messages."

Powerful stuff, right? Employee engagement in CSR has gone viral!

Who is going to tell HR?

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability 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

CSR for HR can prevent employees getting a fat ass!

Almost a week after returning from the World HRD Congress and World CSR Day in Mumbai, I am still smiling at the wonderful experience of  three days of great discussion, interaction with fascinating people from all over the world, insights about Human Resources practices and advances in CSR, and, occasionally, the link between the two. This was a congress like no other congress. It was more fun than most other conferences I have attended. Ever. Close to 1,000 visitors each day, it still felt like a family gathering. Global, inspiring speakers shared interesting perspectives and got us drumming with DrumCafe, exercising with Marcel Daane, thinking about trust with the Reinas and leadership with Cy Wakeman, and applauding wildly at the evening Awards sessions. I was presented with the Strategic Leadership Award, and was proud to receive this honor.

Proudly displaying my trophy - yes, it weighs a ton - I had to ask for excess baggage allowance on my flight home!

Conference themes circled around engagement and talent, two of the most acute pressure points on HR leadership in every country these days, and there were also some interesting references to the need for greater workforce diversity and inclusive culture and practice.  I was therefore pleased to present my views on Sustainable HRM: A strategic imperative, and despite winning the lottery for the session immediately after lunch, I found that there were a few people who stayed awake and were interested in this new approach to HR, which fits very well with the challenges facing the function.

I shared my session with Ashanthi Fernando, the Head of Group HR Operations at Brandix Lanka, Sri Lanka's largest apparel exporter, working for companies such as Gap Inc, Victoria's Secret and more. Ashanthi talked about the context of the War for Talent, referencing "Talentism as the new Capitalism" and the "Rise of the Human Age",  an approach presented by Manpower at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2010, and other influences on the job market - recession, employee disengagement, work-life balance issues and research that places non-financial benefits higher than financial benefits for employees,  concluding that each company should ask itself : Why would a talented person want to work in our organization? and that we as employees should ask ourselves: What makes us come to work today?

Great questions. Truly relevant to the CSHR discussion. Ashanthi went on to describe the entire "ecosystem" that Brandix tries to create for its people, referencing the Google culture as the Gold Standard, and the fact that even in large companies, maintaining that small-company feel is all important. The Brandix culture is based on creating a "journey in learning for life", strong team working, entrepreneurial spirit, humility and transparency. Line Managers are the pivot in making the connection between employees and the company. Importance is placed on engagement at a personal level with family celebrations and a treasure hunt on Fun Fridays. The Brandix People Agenda is designed to support this approach.

Another fascinating and entertaining talk was given by Marcel Daane - a fitness freak who has made the connection between employee vitality and productivity in the workplace. His explanation of the neuroscience of performance was not too technical - even I was able to understand the role of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in impacting our ability to perform (!) - and Marcel introduced some great data around why HR Managers should understand this as well. Absenteeism costs the economy $120 billion per year, Presenteeism costs $180 billion per year,  Obesity $120 million, Stress, $300 million and Sleep Deprivation has a price tag of $1,967 in productivity loss per employee per year.  By improving employees' understanding  and practice of good health habits, organizations can reap massive benefits. Marcel showed some MRI shots of a fat person and a thin person. Fat accumulation in the brain, for example, causes the brain to shrink. As Marcel put it: "Obesity does more than give you a fat ass" (Note to self: Get back on that diet). HR Managers would do well to consider the whole body and mind health of employees and develop programs to assist improved wellbeing. This is not about being nice to employees. It's about making a real economic return on investment. And being nice to employees :).

Marcel finished up with this highly inspirational video showing the power of determination and stamina, supported by good diet, exercise, drinking water and the right amount of sleep. Just think what your employees could do with even half the amount of that which is demonstrated by Dick Hoyt in this video. Watch it. It is truly inspiring!

The other outstanding speaker I want to highlight (I attended both of her sessions) is Cy Wakeman. Cy is a trainer of people in organizations, and helps them achieve great results and build leaders and teams. She has developed both a language and an approach to leading people that is all her own, pulled together in her recent book, Reality-Based Leadership (watch out for a review coming soon on CSR-Books).

The key to Cy's proposition is that "holding people accountable is the best process for producing sustainable outcomes." Now, this may not sound all that revolutionary, but the insight I gained while listening to Cy Wakeman (twice!) is that the ability to hold people accountable, truly hold people accountable, is lacking in so many organizations. Cy maintains that, in the U.S., people in organizations spend more time managing than leading, and many leaders seek to sympathize rather than empathize, which leads to the assumption that buy-in is optional. Leaders should pay less attention to trying to be liked and more attention to building teamwork, because it is through effective teams that loyalty is created. Instead of letting people drive their BMW's to work (which in Cy jargon means: belly-aching, moaning and whining), leaders should seek to stop the drama, focus on results, favor employees who are flexible, adaptable and have a can-do attitude, and deal promptly with those who don't. Engagement without accountability creates entitlement. Research about engagement, says Cy, is that it has not delivered results. It has created entitlement.  

Actually, Cy says, helping human beings to get to healthy independence in organizations was actually the opposite of what she was asked to do by the HR Function as a leader in organizations she worked for. Cy believes in turning up the volume of the more highly accountable people in the organization and helping them see that reality is not the stories they tell themselves about what they are entitled to or otherwise, but the facts as they stand. By facing reality, people can eliminate the excuses and entitlement-based attitudes and become truly accountable for their own performance in organizations. Leaders who build the capabilities of their teams are the ones who create sustainable organizations. Like all great theories, this sounds a lot like common sense - but think about it - think about the organizations you know and the people who lead and are led. Couldn't they do with a little more accountability? And a lot more reality? Cy Wakeman articulates this skillfully and I am enjoying reading Reality-Based Leadership, the book. This is CSR for HR at its crux.

There were many more wonderful presentations at the World HRD Congress but this is probably enough for one post. However, I cannot finish up without a major vote of thanks and expression of my admiration for the mastermind behind it all, Dr. R. L. Bhatia. Leading an organization called "Fun and Joy at Work" probably gives you an insight into this guy's mindset. We certainly saw evidence of fun and joy in the way he artfully directed this 20th Anniversary World HRD Congress and brought the entire place to life for a full three days. Kudos in buckets is what he deserves for a memorable event.

And now, time for ice cream (which, by the way, in Mumbai, tasted delicious!).


elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability 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

CSR and HR in the business of trust

I have been doing a little homework in preparation for the CR for HR professionals Conference that I have now been asked to chair, to take place on 7th February in London. As far as I know, and I may have mentioned this before, this is the first focused conference on CSR for HR, so I am very happy to be a part of this and kudos to the CIPD for organizing it.



Photo credit: BITC

Part of my homework has been talking to some of the movers and shakers in this space, who will be speaking at the conference. Cathy Lewis, for example, has been the HR Director of Prudential for UK and Europe since November 2009, and responsible for CSR since March 2010. She says: "Sustainability for me means 'continuity' of 'life'. Haven't we all realised that the things in life that last and endure are the things that we've given constant and steady attention to? In business it's the same, and the most corporately conscious organisations are those that have made a commitment and build on it every day through lots of little things that add up to real commitment."

That's a great approach, and one which I suspect most readers of this blog can subscribe to. 

The business of Prudential, an international financial services group and in the UK, a leading life insurance and pensions provider with seven million customers and 25,000 employees worldwide (>2500 in the UK), has much to gain from the adoption of a CR approach. "When people buy financial services products they buy TRUST, our products are a promise for the future. It's not like retail, where you walk out of the shop with your shiny new 'item' in a bag. CSR is one of the ways that we can demonstrate our core values. We aim to 'do the right thing' in all our relationships, whether that is customers, colleagues, stakeholders, partners or communities in which we work."

Prudential's 2010 Corporate Responsibility Report provides information about the Group's people practices and includes:

Prudential's Group-wide development programme, Momentum, which is designed to build a cadre of globally-minded high-potential individuals, externally or internally recruited early in their careers for fast-track progression. Momentum places a strong emphasis on diversity. There are currently 60 individuals on the programme, of which approximately a third are women.

Prudential's reward system is based on both individual performance and behaviors – both what people achieve and how they achieve it. This is, we believe, fundamental to building a high performing culture.

More than two-thirds of employees in the UK now own, or have an interest in, Prudential shares through employee share plans.

Prudential won a national award in 2010 for the ‘Best Learning and Development Strategy’, sponsored by the market-leading UK industry publication, HR Magazine.

Prudential UK is one of only 38 companies to achieve the BITC CommunityMark since it was launched in 2007.

(Moving off-topic for a second, humor me, I was happy to add some new words to my vocabulary, upon reading the Prudential CR Report: "Retirementology" is a new way of looking at retirement management, which unmasks life-long financial patterns and examines how, if left unchecked, these behaviors could harm prospects for retirement. "Equimortis", apparently, is the dangerous condition of relying on home equity to fund retirement, "Bingefy" is justifying a big-ticket purchase because you were previously frugal and "Kinphobia" is the fear of having to tap into retirement savings to support the extended family. And after reading the CR Report, you can also visit the website and buy the Retirementology book! in which you will find some additional new words to add to your daily vocabulary. This is all the creation of Dr Greg Salsbury, Executive Vice President of Jackson, Prudential's U.S. business. So now we know. I wonder if these will soon appear in the Oxford English Dictionary? I will never think about retirement in the same way again :)) 

Getting back to Prudential UK, there are 10 People Principles that guide everything the Prudential people do - the principles are the DNA of the organization. The principles have been around and governed the actions of employees for many years, but recently, HR supported a process in which Prudential articulated them by working with the whole company to capture what the business is all about. One of these principles explains Prudential's commitment to sustainable business. 

When I asked Cathy what aspects of the HRM contribution to CR at Prudential she was most proud of, she replied like this: "Most proud" makes me think of special moments when you are reminded of what we all do together. So I'd probably pick out our Employee Volunteering Awards (EVAs). Once a year we celebrate the individuals and the teams that are making a real difference. I get the privilege each year of presenting at the EVAs and this is a most humbling and inspiring experience. Inspiring because you get to see the great things that people have made happen and humbling because you realise that everyone of us, has it in our power to make a difference..... and yet we don't always take the time."

Interestingly, Prudential UK does not actively leverage the company's CR agenda and positive reputation for recruitment, which is often seen as one of the significant benefits of a CR program. Cathy explains: "Our CR agenda and activities have been established for a long time and whilst we don't explicitly use what we do to promote ourselves as an employer, more often than not, candidates tell us that our reputation is what attracted them in the first place."

I will leave the last word to Cathy Lewis, as it expresses well what I believe more HR and CR Managers should wake up to. "CR is an integral part of our People Strategy at Prudential UK and Europe, so for us the link is seamless. How we treat and value our colleagues, and how we support the communities we work in, come together as part of how we do business every day."

And after the last word, I will just add another last word to say that I am very looking forward to hearing more of Cathy's insights, along with others, at the CR for HR Professionals Conference on 7th February.



elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability 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

Keeping up with CSR for HR

So much is happening in CSR for HR these days. This post is to help you (and me) keep up.

First, two forthcoming events on different sides of the world which I am immensely looking forward to:

7th February in London: The CIPD, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Europe's largest HR and development professional body, is hosting a conference on CR for HR Professionals. I don't recall seeing a dedicated conference on this subject ever, so this is a very welcome development. The conference opens with the brilliant Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director of Forum for the Future, who will talk about the business case for sustainability and then an impressive array of Sustainability and HR Professionals from IBM, KPMG, Prudential, Aviva, Nationwide and more, will lead presentations and discussions on employee engagement, employer branding, aligning CR and business strategies and communication of CSR to employees, and other fascinating CSR-HR topics. I am looking forward to attending, and also holding a raffle for 5 free signed copies of CSR for HR during the course of the day.

16-18th February in Mumbai, India: The 20th Anniversary event of the World HRD Congress will take place in Mumbai at the Taj Lands' End Hotel. It's been over 10 years since I visited Mumbai, so I am especially pleased to be returning to address this congress. My session, entitled: "Sustainable HRM: A strategic imperative" will be from 11:15 - 12:00 on 17th February. I am looking forward to hearing perspectives on CSR/HR Management from many local professionals and am honored to join an impressive list of speakers from all over the globe.

And another event which I unfortunately cannot attend but which is worth noticing. It has been put together by a friend and colleague who contributed to my book, CSR for HR, Cathy Joseph. It is in New York next week, January 10th at 5:30pm and is all about Organizational Development and the Sustainable Business, and features great speakers. I would be there if I could!

In the meantime, even the Carbon Trust has published a tool to help empower employees reduce carbon emissions in the office.  After registering on the website, you can launch the Empower tool, explore your office, take a trip to the bathroom, kitchen or server room, all the while checking out opportunities to save on lighting, water, packaging waste, use stairs instead of elevators, bicycles instead of cars, unplug your mobile phone chargers and more, as your responses to intended behavioral change clock up kg of carbon emissions saved and new policies to suggest to your manager. It's rather simplistic, but any HR Manager intent on having employees understand where they can make a basic difference, could incorporate this into broader environmental training, if supported by policy and some form of measurement of achievement. I already saved 547 kg of carbon in half a dozen pledges to do things differently. Oops, but that's just on the computer screen. Let's see what happens on Monday morning.

 

Also, a couple of very interesting publications you might have missed:

 

Towards Employee Engagement 2.0: A report by Greenbiz.com and the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF), the third report on this subject produced by NEEF’s Business & Environment Program, examining how leading companies are moving toward a more strategic approach to employee engagement in corporate sustainability activities by creating a culture of sustainability throughout their firms. This one has examples from Baxter, JC Penney, Stonyfield Farm and Walmart and more and is a useful and interesting read.

 

Brighter Planet's Greening the Workplace Survey 2011: A total of 972 individuals from 51 countries and 47 US states completed the survey. Key conclusions:

• Organizations are increasingly engaging employees on sustainability. More than half now promote sustainability frequently or very frequently.
• Although engagement efforts are spreading, their effectiveness has dropped. The most successful organizations have official policies with upper-level leadership.
• The role of investor pressure and corporate accountability as a driver of sustainability strategies increased dramatically—it was a factor at 23% of organizations, up from 13% in 2009. Sales and marketing, while the foremost motivator, was unchanged at 30%.
• The most effective programs promote sustainability in emerging areas like business travel, purchasing, water use, and food at much higher rates than their ineffective counterparts. That said, the most common areas of sustainability engagement are still waste and recycling, energy use, and commuting.
• Organizations with a method for employees to share ideas were more than six times as likely to have a very effective program. 41% of employers support these communication channels.
• Organizations that collected data on their footprint, the impact of staff travel and commuting, and employee sustainability efforts were roughly three times as likely to have a very effective program. The number of employers collecting these data increased 15% since 2009, to three in ten.

HR Managers need to think about these findings. What processes to HR Managers need to put in place to support environmental practices? Helping employees share ideas and collecting data (highlighted in red above) seem to have big multiplier effects. Makes absolute sense to me.

So, while all this is positive, I don't quite think it is time yet to abandon my mantra:  "It is time for HR to wake up to CSR".  More HR Managers need to get engaged and make use of all these fabulous opportunities to drive improved sustainability through leverage of core HR tools and new processes. Here's looking forward to a great 2012 in which more HR Managers take the bait.

 

 

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability 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

CSR for HR: Romania rocks!

I am delighted to announce the first foreign edition of CSR for HR in Romanian which is now available for purchase online and called "Responsabilitatea socială corporatistă în sprijinul resurselor umane". It was translated by Daniela-Giorgiana Arşinel şi Marius Chitoşcă, who had a mammoth task, as my language is often not very conventional (I confess to often making up words as I go along!)

I am grateful to the Post-Privatization Foundation for their idea and willingness to translate and publish this edition. The Post-Privatization Foundation (FPP) is the first Romanian foundation devoted solely to entrepreneurship. Created in 1996 by the European Commission, FPP is a private organization that promotes entrepreneurial education and supports initiatives aimed at the sustainable development of the Romanian business environment – with a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises. I had the pleasure of meeting the Executive Director, Péter Barta and hearing about the outstanding work the foundation is doing.

"Responsabilitatea socială corporatistă în sprijinul resurselor umane" was launched at the LBG Annual Conference on 12th September, organized by the LBG Representatives in Romania, ARC Romania. LBG is a model that evaluates and enhances community project performance that was mainly designed for companies. ARC, the Association for Community Relations, is an organization which matches corporate philanthropy and capacity building activities with non-profit causes and has been doing magnificent work in Romania for the past ten years. The LBG has six members in Romania including BDR Societe Generale, Lafarge, Orange, Danone, Ursus Breweries and Raiffeisen Bank whose total corporate community investment is equivalent to 14.5 million Euros with a beneficiary group of 720,000 individuals in 2010. Member companies reach an average of 28% employee volunteering which is high by any standards.

During the conference, I was honored to share the stage with a range of impressive individuals such as Toby Webb, Ethical Corporation founder, John Scade, LBG representative in Spain, Adela Jansen, Executive Director of Human Resources at BRD Societe Generale, Ramona Gotteszman, Community Impact Manager at United Way Foundation Romania,  Suzana Gras, CSR Manager at Raiffeisen Bank and more. Catalin Gheorghe, ARC's Communication Director facilitated the conference, and Ioana Satzmari, LBG Program Manager  presented LBG's annual results for 2010.

The conference content was most interesting, ranging from a discussion of the impacts of corporate community investment, to an overview of CSR and regulatory developments, to the way the CSR - HR partnership is practiced in leading Romanian companies and a view of tax developments and corporate tax relief considerations for local companies. I was interested to learn from Toby Webb, who now uses the term "smarter business" instead of CSR, about the forthcoming regulation in the EU which is likely to be law by end 2013, requiring EU countries to regulate locally for CSR disclosure by companies. You can find his presentation here. Adela Jansen and Suzana Gras both made excellent presentations showing that CSR (and HR) can really make a difference in the ways companies work and lead to more sustainable results.

I presented on the subject of my regular mantra, focusing on the partnership that CSR and HR needs to forge in order for both to deliver optimum results.  Here is my presentation:

CSR for HR - why partnership is necessary

View more presentations from elaine cohen.

Finally, the conference ended with great excitement with the launch of CSR for HR in Romanian and a book giveaway by lottery! I am grateful to ARC and FPP for their generous support.

I didn't manage to get see much of the city of Bucharest, though I do think this is probably my most favorite sight:

Tasted pretty good, too. But don't tell anyone .......

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability 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

Employees should be more than engaged. They should be engaging.

For any of you who are still not convinced that HR Managers can help increase profits, just take a look at this data from the US Postal Service, which I happened to pick up as I was doing a little research for an executive lecture class gave on CSR for HR. I noticed this in an article on 2Sustain.

In 2010, the US Postal Service gained a $27.1 million cost saving benefit as a result of work done by Green Employees (i.e. employees who get involved in the organization's "Lean Green Team" activity). This is made up of the following:

$5 million in reduced resources consumption - energy, electricity etc

$13 million in revenue generation from sale of recycled materials

$9.1 million in landfill fee avoidance

That's a whopping sum of money saved in one year. A real HR contribution to the bottom line.

Emil Dzuray, acting Chief Sustainability Officer of the US Postal Service, said. “Our employee green teams are an important part of building a conservation culture and reducing our carbon footprint.”

This is an example of what I mean when I talk about moving from engaged employees to engaging employees i.e. employees who are engaging. Every single employee has tens of opportunities every single day to interact with internal and external stakeholders. Every single one of these interactions is an opportunity to champion the CSR cause through behavior and words and both. Just think, in a business of 5,000 employees, each of whom has at least 50 interactions a day either face-to-face or online, that's a minimum of 250,000 interaction possibilities EACH DAY.

The role of the CSHR Manager is to create a culture, supported by processes and frameworks, in which the maximum percentage of this total number of daily interactions (I call these touchpoints. Love jargon) with all stakeholders can become sustainability interactions. Each touchpoint is an opportunity to reinforce CSR messages, values, principles. The more employees have CSR as top-of-mind, the greater the number of touchpoints the organization will be able to rely upon to advance its sustainability agenda.

So what we need is engaging employees who leverage sustainability touchpoints.
Great phrase, no?
And who needs to create the conditions for this to happen in organizations?
Yes, you got it. The HR Managers.
But first, they have to wake up.
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

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

ConAgra, Employee Engagement and Christmas

Here is an interesting article about the way ConAgra engages employees, concluding that employee engagement improves safety levels. This is reported in ConAgra's  2010 Sustainability Report. ConAgra has also implemented a wellness programme for employees, offering employees financial incentives to stay healthy. Employees who undergo a Personal Health Assessment and a preventive health screening can save up to $780 on medical health premiums. This is in addition to other employee wellness measures such as a programme called  "Choose to Lose"  (weight) and also maintaining a tobacco free campus.

These are good intiiatives and reflect best CSR practice. In making external CSR platforms relevant and available to all employees, a company helps employees become more aware of sustainability issues and more motivated to talk about these in an informed way with external contact points. In addition, the company benefits through reduced healthcare costs and society benefits by gaining a more vibrant community. What I miss in the ConAgra report is some sense of tangible outcomes for the business as a result of their wellness programms. Did people stop smoking? Did health attirbutes of employees improve? Did people who chose to lose weight manage to keep it off? How many employees saved medical premiums through participating in the wellness program? As this started in 2008, there should be some useful data on employee participation and specific outcomes by now. 

The ConAgra report doesnt mention the role of the Human Resources team in their business in supporting these wellness (and safety) change programmes. This is key to CSR for HR and I hope that their plans were implemented in full partnership with the HR function.  

This is all fine, but what does it have to do with Christmas?

Well, today, a global company ordered a personal copy of CSH for HR (the book) for each member of their HR team as a Christmas gift. As you can imagine, I think this is a WONDERFUL idea. In fact, I would be pleased if ConAgra would do this - I am sure that the CSR/HR team there would gain some new insights about how to drive further responsible and sustainable business practices through close partnership with the HR team. In the meantime, if  YOU might consider ordering a large number of copies of CSR for HR for YOUR teams, do let me know and I am sure we will be able to offer a nice discount. Remember, Christmas is a time for generosity and sharing :)) CSR for HR could help you do this, as well as provide an opportunity for professional development of your in-house teams. Please  write to me at info@b-yond.biz if you are interested.

Yes, that was a plug for the book. I am going to do that occasionally. Be warned.

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

Is it April 1st already ?

I took a few minutes to read this post which had an intriguing title. "The Social Responsibility to Generate Employee Happiness." , on the Forbes CSR blog. The article puts forward the premise that "creativity, happiness and performance enable a positive feedback loop....(Shawn) Achor calls this idea the “Pygmalion Effect,” meaning that people act how we expect them to act. Expect them to succeed, encourage and praise them accordingly, and studies show that they will. Similarly, provide them with a creative, “happy” environment, and people will find greater meaning in their jobs , regardless of what the job is .."

Stop.  Sounds a bit far-fetched to me.

How many incompetent people have been promoted to the level of their incompetence because we expected them to succeed and praised them a helluva lot? How many people have we praised even through they don't really deserve it, only to find that it doesn't make them better performers after all? And creating a "happy" environment so that people will find meaning in their jobs ... I am not convinced. Sounds like something a business scool professor might dream up. haha.

People don't perform because they are happy. People perform because they are motivated by a worthwhile purpose, have freedom to operate in the organization they work for, are shown respect and listened to by their bosses and peers, and  have the tools to do what they need to do.

Happiness is a subjective thing. I don't believe you can train happiness (though there are some well-paid happiness gurus who might claim otherwise). You can train positive attitude, which can be a developed habit, but you cannot train people to be "happy". You cannot truly measure "happiness" which is an ephemeral thing and dependent upon circumstances of the day. So the thought that companies have a social responsibility to make employees "happy" is both a non-sequitur and an abuse of the term social responsibility. And frankly, any employee who comes to work looking to be made happy is probably not an employee I would want to hire. I would hire people who want to feel fulfilled, satisfied, positive, collegiate, challenged, supported, included, belonging even. In fact, I would hire happy people. But I wouldn't hire people who expect me to make them happy.

How do you determine what makes people happy? How can you create a workplace that caters for everyones happiness needs? For some, happiness might be free coffee in the breaks. For others, it might be a promotion opportunity. Others might pefer a swimming pool in the workplace, or more pay, or a new challenging project to work on. For me, utter bliss would be free Chunky Monkey every day. Haha.

I think we have to be careful with the semantics of Corporate Social Responsibility. I believe the above article does hold some basic element of truth. People who are more positive in the workplace will certainly support better results delivery and will help create an environment in which everyone can do their best. This makes sense to me, and I can speak from experience. The opposite is also true. People who are generally negative are harder to manage, drain energy and reduce productivity. But let's not confuse this with trying to make people happy in the workplace. To the extent that it can be measured, happiness is an outcome and not an input. And I do not believe making people happy should be a serious element of any CSR strategy. Except on April 1st.

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

CSR and employee engagement in Peru

I am always happy to hear from readers of my blogs and this time, I received a very positive story of CSR and employee engagement from Elliot Carmean of AMGlobal Consulting and Sarah Hahn of Waggoner Edstrom Worldwide.

This is what they wrote:

"Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) often overlook Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), assuming that a program of social outreach falls solely in the realm of large organizations and is therefore beyond their reach. However, SMEs have much to gain from CSR initiatives, and in some ways can benefit more directly and in less time than larger organizations. The key lies in connecting a company’s core business with its core target markets and its most important ambassadors – its own employees.

Results show that CSR efforts are most successful when they are aligned with the core business of a company. However, often the most organic way to make CSR effective, efficient, business-driven is to use a participatory approach in which employees of all levels take part in the design and implementation of a firm’s CSR initiatives.

Employee engagement is an untapped resource that adds authenticity to CSR, is a very cost effective way of creating change, and can lead to new and creative solutions. Small companies in particular can easily find ways to leverage their relationship with their employees to positively impact their communities. After all, relationships at a small company – between management and employees, between employees and the markets they serve – are more intimate. Employees can function as ambassadors to the streets outside the factory gate, as they know what their communities need and want.

Employee engagement was at the center of a forward-thinking CSR program designed by AMGlobal Consulting for Comercia, a medium-sized distribution company based in Peru, privately owned, with less than 500 employees. Comercia was emerging from a period of change, with new management, ambitious goals for increasing sales and reducing employee turnover, and little budget for marketing its products. The company needed to connect more with its customers and employees.

AMGlobal designed a program that, over the course of just a few months, reached out to Comercia’s workers, clients, managers, and suppliers to create an inclusive CSR initiative that covered all of these pain points at the same time. The key to this process was communication, beginning with soliciting suggestions and feedback from employees and rewarding them for ideas used, practices that are still not common in Latin America. Simple, inexpensive, non-traditional channels of communication like internal surveys, suggestion boxes, an online company newsletter allowed management to work more closely with employees to create an appropriate CSR program for Comercia’s needs.The program was designed with ongoing employee feedback and included volunteer opportunities based on the nutrition of the company’s own products. The program quickly became a source of pride and a cause of enthusiasm for employees, creating real improvements in morale and employee satisfaction.

Employee engagement continued through subsequent stages. With the close of phase one of the program, management of the initiative was transferred to a new team that included fewer managers and more workers from different levels of the company, leading to greater sustainability. The process provided new leadership opportunities within the firm while raising the profile of Comercia and its sales team in their communities. In areas where these programs have taken place, sales are up more than 30%, workers are happier and more engaged, and the company is poised for future growth. Read more about this project here .

To date, hundreds of families have been reached with nutrition education and have received food donations and nutrition information from the company. New people continue to rotate into the team so that it becomes yet more dynamic and increasingly sustainable, as well as reaching more people within the company. Employees are participating in the program at high rates and have had the ability to be involved in decision making, including employees not traditionally in management positions. The program also developed more two-way internal communication  including an internal company website, suggestion boxes, a company newsletter, and concrete inclusion of comments and suggestions from the employees about business and social practices, all of which have become an integral part of internal and external relations.

The employee engagement model of CSR is highly replicable and is of huge value to SMEs, especially in emerging markets where CSR is still relatively new and must demonstrate quick returns in order to justify funding. Integral to that success is an ongoing dialogue with all levels of employees and the community. By connecting to the bottom line and to employees from the start, soliciting feedback and using the information to design a meaningful CSR program, SME’s like Comercia can create a positive, sustainable impact.

I asked Elliot about how they measured outcomes of this project i.e. given all of this investment in nutrition education, was there any evidence that people were improving their nutritional intake and health ? Elliot replied as follows:

In order to teach the people about nutrition and provide real expertise in this area, the program brought in a local nutrition institute as a partner. They track health and nutrition levels across the city, but these are long-term issues that involve ongoing measurement and it is too early to have long-term data. We did both pre- and post-program surveys measuring the participants knowledge of nutrition issues, and these surveys showed real improvement as a result of the seminars they attended. The program is too new to be able to evaluate longer-term effects on nutritional behavior, but it was clear that the messages of the programs were being received."

I liked this story. It is probably representative of many initiatives to engage employees through the prism of CSR and I am convinced that there is benefit here. In the case of Comercia, it was much more than a necessity. It was about survival, or sustainability, of the company.

Thanks to Elliot and Sarah for contributing this case study.



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