Five new-ish things about CSR for HR

Here are some interesting things that have caught my eye (don't worry, I caught it back) in recent times regarding CSR for HR.

First, an article which I wrote (haha, THAT was bound to catch my eye) which was published in the German HR Professional Magazine Personalfuehrung, and which I referred to in my last post.  You can download the full artcicle (PDF) here.

Second, something FREE!!! A special issue of Green HRM published in the Zeitschrift fur Personalforschung (German Journal of Research in Human Resource Management)(see how my German is improving these days?!). The Special Issue includes 6 articles which are very interesting for those who want to get some great insights into CSHR with a focus on environment:

1. State-of-the-Art and Future Directions for Green Human Resource Management: Introduction to the Special Issue
2. The Dynamics of Green HRM Behaviors: A Cognitive Social Information Processing Approach
3. Green Work-Life Balance: A New Perspective for Green HRM
4. Environmental Management Activities and Sustainable HRM in German Manufacturing Firms – Incidence, Determinants, and Outcomes
5. Management Learning and the Greening of SMEs: Moving beyond Problem-solving

This is all pretty fascinating stuff and is free on line until end September. So, click quick!

A big thanks for the heads-up to my distinguished colleague Professor Michael Muller Camen (with whom I am co-writing a best-practice paper on CSR for HR to be published next year).

Third, an excellent article by Derek Wong appearing in the Sustainable Business Forum which starts like this:  "Talents are key to success in today’s business. How much would a company pay to lower staff turnover rate by 12%? Best Employers in Canada winner LoyaltyOne achieved this through going green.?" The article includes an interview with the Chief Sustainability Officer of LoyaltyOne (note: Not the HR Director!) who describes several programs in place to support a CSHR-enabled culture. None of these are particularly mindblowing (leadership commitment, internal communications, environmental education, engagement surveys etc) but when you put them all together in a continuous stream of culture consistent interventions, you can see how it delivers a cumulative effect which I am sure supports the Company's sustainability objectives. I think the key is to get everything aligned and do it consistently.

Fourth, an article posted by my friend Chris Jarvis of Realized Worth, entitled "Social Media Policies for Your Employees and Your Employee Volunteer Program"  from the Volunteermatch.org blog, which quotes a report from Manpower that only one in five companies have a social media policy in place for their employees. If you're one of the four, you had better start thinking about becoming one of the one. EIther that, or your employees will be out there doing it anyway in a way which might not always be to your best advantage.

Fifth, an interesting paper by the Doughty Center for Corporate Responsibility  called "Engaging Engaging Employees in Corporate Responsibility". This is an interesting approach covering various "tactics" and their relative merits in engaging employees in CR. The issue I have is that the role of HR is somewhat bypassed and not presented as critical to success. The only real mention that the HR function earns is in these paragraphs relating to Barriers to Cooperation:

"Some organisations work in silos, whether because of geographical locations or because the business function of one branch is different to the function of another. This can make working across internal borders and building commitment difficult, as cooperation is not the expected norm. However, central services such as HR, IT and Legal tend to work across the business and have experience in building crossdepartment cooperation for their initiatives in ways that CR professionals can learn from.

Cooperation cannot occur if trust does not exist – the CR department specifically needs to have a reputation built around delivering, understanding the business, and being integral to business success. You need access to the knowledge of, for example, HR and Internal Communications for presenting an integrated approach to employee engagement and communications. Often, the placement (if positioned on the periphery) or influence of the CR team itself can themselves be barriers to building cooperation for CR initiatives when motivation or commitment is not present. In these instances, work is needed to build the legitimacy of the CR team and strategy."

This grossly underplays the important role of HR in CR strategy development and core organizational processes. Another mention of HR is in a case study of an (unnamed) company in which is stated: "The HR team is distrusted, being seen as supporting leaders and not employees".

If this sorry state is a reflection of reality, then the situation is even more urgent than my mantra. You know what that is.

It is time for HR to wake up to CSR!

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

7 Ways to get started with CSR for HR

It's always nice to be published in a language other than my own, even if I can't understand it :). Today, my article called 7 Ways To Get Started With CSR for HR was published in a newsletter called HRM Scope, which is published in Dutch for the Netherlands and Dutch-speaking Human Resources community.

It starts like this:

HR-beleid in 7 stappen duurzaam

Duurzaamheid is al lang geen hype meer en groeit wereldwijd gestaag uit tot standaardnorm, ook voor HR, zegt HR-auteur Elaine Cohen. 'Steeds meer organisaties kiezen ervoor de verantwoordelijkheid te nemen voor de gevolgen van hun handelen voor de samenleving, de planeet en volgende generaties. In die keuze voor duurzaamheid kan het HR-beleid een grote rol spelen,' zegt Elaine Cohen, auteur van het boek 'CSR for HR, A Necessary Partnership for Advancing Responsible Business Practices'. Read the full version here.

For all those of you for whom English is preferable, or even essential, here is the original article I submitted, as, despite being a polyglot, Dutch is not part of my repertoire.

7 Ways To Get Started With CSR for HR

All over the world, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) movement has been mainstreaming as a business approach which goes beyond the letter of the law and accepts responsibility for impacts on stakeholders. Every business impacts on people, society and the environment through the way it employs people, serves customers, erects buildings, inhabits offices, uses transportation, manufactures products, develops new product ranges, launches marketing campaigns and more. In determining business strategy to generate growth and profit, CSR thinking demands consideration of society and environment alongside financial considerations. It has been proven that businesses who do this well deliver improved financial performance over time and contribute not only to the sustainability of the planet, but also to their own sustainability as businesses. CSR is changing the way companies develop strategy, take decisions, execute processes, engage with employees, consumers, external pressure groups and communities and respond to the diverse expectations of all these groups in this fast-moving, transparent age of business. It is demanding a different sort of contribution from the HR function.

The key partnership role of HR in this context is embedding a culture of CSR because the business performance is only as good as the decisions its people make and the way they perform. As the guardian of corporate culture, HR's role in embedding a CSR mindset in any business is critical.

I propose that the Human Resources function has a responsibility to be proactive in leading the establishment of a CSR-enabled culture within any business. This includes adapting recruitment and retention processes, training and development programmes, remuneration and reward programmes, new tools for employee engagement based on platforms of community involvement and more. HR Managers should lead processes to engage employees with sustainability strategy at each stage of their life-cycle and create employee ambassadors for responsible business. HR Managers should develop a CSR-mindset, whether or not there is a corporate CSR strategy which directs them to do so and whether or not their next career move depends on it. Why? Because CSR for HR is an imperative. It's a route to better business, more engaged employees, improved impacts on society and environment and ultimately a stronger, more influential and more effective HR Function.

The following are 7 examples of how HR can adapt its approach:

Create a culture built on a social mission: All companies have a social mission, even though they might not have articulated it. Walmart has "Save Money, Live Better" to indicate a business which improves people's quality of life; Nokia is "Connecting People" highlighting that access to mobile and digital technology is an important driver of social and economic development; Campbell's Soup has "Nourishing People's Lives", which indicates a much broader social contribution than making a profit on selling cans of soup. Employees today are looking for meaning in their work; they are less motivated by pay-checks alone. The HR Manager should ensure that each and every employee understands and identifies with the company's social mission, and leverage this to attract and engage employees in both an emotional and professional context. Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsico, said recently that the Pepsico's "Performance with Purpose" agenda is the single biggest recruiting tool they have at Pepsico.

Take a Stakeholder perspective: HR Managers all too often are inward looking and tend to work in the space between management on the one hand and employees on the other. However, by considering and engaging with all stakeholders, which include employees' families, local communities, environmental groups etc., HR can understand the broader implications of HR decisions on these stakeholders and adopt policies and processes which ensure maximum positive impact. This is good for the business as well as good for stakeholders.

Advance Diversity: At Intel, for example, diversity is a way of life. HR processes can be leveraged to create an inclusive culture where the entire workforce can contribute to greater innovation, improved customer relationships, reduced workplace conflict and enjoy higher motivation, productivity and workplace loyalty. This means designing HR processes which actively seek out candidates from diverse backgrounds, proactively training managers to hire with an inclusive mindset, purposefully creating a workplace which respects the needs of different employees, especially minority groups, and sensitively promoting diversity in internal communications.

Go Green: Reducing environmental impacts is one of the most serious business challenges of the day. Businesses can gain advantage only when the entire workforce is engaged. HR support for employee-driven Green Teams to enhance employee contribution to improved environmental impacts including lower electricity consumption, reduced use of paper for printing, recycling, waste reduction and more delivers benefits of reduced operating costs, improved environmental protection, and employees who derive satisfaction from becoming ambassadors for a more sustainable planet.

Care for employee well-being: Investment in employee well-being delivers big returns. In a program  implemented in Unilever, employee well-being programmes for managing stress, nutrition and exercise delivered a return of $6.59 on every $1.64 invested. HR policies which help employees to manage their own well-being deliver an ROI in reduced absenteeism, reduced health care costs, higher productivity and longer job tenure. If HR does not drive this, no one else in the business will.

Protect Human Rights: There are over 200 million children illegally employed in businesses around the world, over 12 million people in forced labour and millions of employees who do not enjoy the basic right to freedom of association. HR managers need to help identify the human rights risks in their operations and supply chains and ensure robust HR policies to uphold human rights. Creating a culture in which these issues can be openly addressed requires a new skill on the part of HR Managers. Doing it well protects and advances the business, employees, and communities.

Skills-based volunteering: Employee volunteering programs help build motivation, team-work, sense of belonging and help retain employees while making communities stronger. What most HR Managers do not realize is that volunteering is also a platform to provide unique skill-building opportunities which can be valuable in the workplace. GlaxoSmithKline's CEO Andrew Witty says that their "Pulse" volunteering program causes employees to "come back with a different world-view of a corporation and help change the company from the inside-out." Given that CSR is also about creating change, community volunteering programs can be a superb tool for HR Managers.

These 7 ways to get started with CSR from an HR perspective will help the HR Manager contribute to long-term sustainable growth and a sustainable planet. It is time for HR to rise to the challenge of preparing themselves and their organizations for a sustainable future.

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 for HR contributing consultants

WOW! CSR for HR is now in print, and I was actually able to hold a real copy for the first time yesterday. That's a good feeling! Greenleaf Publishing have done a wonderful job with the design and content editing. I truly hope the book will be widely read by HR and CSR professionals and that it will make a diference by changing the way some of them think about their roles. In the meantime, time has come to pay tribute to the many contributing consultants , each experts in their own fields, without whose collaboration I would not have been able to produce such a comprehensive piece of work. I will mention them in order of the appearance of their contribution in the book (like in Hollywood movies) but all were equally important. I have already listed the companies that appear in the book and why.

Ellen Resnick and Carol Casazza Herman

Sustainability Employee Engagement/Resnick Consulting (Chapter 3)

Ellen and Carol are seasoned professionals in sustainability communication and learning, and help organizations engage employees in their sustainability goals and initiatives to drive long-lasting change. Ellen has worked with several Fortune 500 Companies and Carol was a formerly VP, EHS at Pfizer. Both got their heads together to contribute a very informative article on sustainability and employee engagement for Chapter 3. Oops! no Twitter account, but don't let that fool you, they are very much in the frame.

Ellen Weinreb, Sustainability Recruiting (Chapter 7)

Ellen founded sustainability recruiting to fulful the needs of socially responsibile businesses, bringing more than a decade of experience as a consultant with organizations including large multinationals, start-ups and SME's . She runs sustainabilty jobs research and her reports are a leading authority on the state of the sustainability job market. Ellen contributed data and perspectives for the chapter on Recruitment, Diversity and Inclusion. She tweets at @SustainabilityJobs.

Chris Jarvis and Angela Parker of Realized Worth (Chapter 10)

Chris and Angela are the experts on corporate employee volunteering. They run a consulting firm called Realized Worth. Chris and Angela provide training and hands-on involvement in the design and implementation of outstanding and sustainable employee volunteer programs for businesses. We all collaborated in writing the entire 30+ page chapter on Employee Volunteering Programs. The concepts and models contributed by Chris and Angela were invaluable. They tweet at @Realizedworth.   

Deborah Fleischer,  President of Green Impact (Chapter 11)

Deborah is president of Green Impact, a strategic environmental consulting practice that helps companies engage employees, strengthen their relationships with stakeholders, develop profitable green initiatives and commuunicate their successes and challenges. She tweets at @greenimpact. Deborah is also a prolific writer, often on Triple Pundit, on related topics, specifically Green Teams and their contribution to the business. In CSR for HR, Deborah is featured with  two fascinating articles on the subject of Green Teams.

Julie Urlaub, Taiga Company (Chapter 11)

Who doesnt know Julie ? She is the most ubiquitous and talented green writer on the web. Taiga Company is "oxygen for your business" and as founder and managing partner,  Julie consults, blogs, and speaks with businesses leaders to help them address the green/sustainability interest and pressures in a way that makes sense and strengthens the organization by capitalizing on opportunities and mitigating the risk. Julie contributed a piece on employee commuting and bike-friendly offices. Julie tweets at @TaigaCompany.

Cathy Joseph,  organizational change and strategy professional (Chapter 19) 

Cathy is a consultative professional who uses a strrengths-based approach to driving enterprise-wide workforce strategies and programmes that have positively impacted both performance and the bottom line. She has worked with, amongst others, Cengage Learning, Warner, Gartner and GE Capital. Cathy contributed perspectives on organizational cullture and CSR. Cathy was also amazingly helpful in the final stages of the book preparation, reading my draft manuscript (under time pressure) and offering many useful comments and pieces of advice. I owe Cathy a particularly deep debt of gratitude. Cathy tweets at @Cathyj131.

 
Thank you to all the contributing consultants!!! I hope potential readers of CSR for HR will gain as much from their insights as I did.
 

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

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