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: not yet at the tipping point

Jonathon Porritt, CBE,  is an impressive figure. Some of you may know him as the co-founder of  the not-for-profit Forum for the Future which has been at the forefront of the sustainability debate, working on such game-changing programs as the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan and Marks and Spencer's Plan A and many others. Others may know him as the Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, until last year when the commission ceased its activity. Others may know him as a proliferate speaker and writer and may even have read the powerful Capitalism as if the World Matters.  

I had the opportunity to meet Jonathon and hear him deliver an opening keynote at the CIPD CR for HR Professionals Conference which I chaired in London last week. Being familiar with much of Jonathon's work, I was looking forward to hear him talk. What was interesting for me was how in tune Jonathon is regarding the need for embedding of corporate responsibility practices at all levels of the workforce and the importance of the CR-HR partnership in making this happen. Although he has not yet read CSR for HR :)), he promised he would!

Johathon Porritt's keynote opened with a review of global sustainability and some of the key themes that many of us are familiar with. He reminded us that the planet will have to hold (and feed) nine billion people in 2050, and that the "hedonic treadmill" we are all trapped in is unlikely to stop driving consumer aspirations and consumption levels. But, Jonathon said, "We are not going to achieve a better world by keeping half of the global population in poverty". Instead, we have to continue to create wealth and value by remaining within certain defined ecological boundaries which determine the sustainability of our future. Apparently, we have until the year 2016 to achieve this transformation. After then, the damage to the global ecosystem will be irreversible and .. well... as Jonathon says... "we are facing some unbelievable horror stories!".

But all is not doom and gloom. Jonathon gave examples of some companies which are starting to change the game in decoupling economic growth from environmental impacts and incorporate sustainable practice into everything they do. But he also said that of all the companies he and Forum for the Future have been working with over the past few years, it is noticeable that the aspect of employee engagement in sustainability and sustainable Human Resources practices are not really moving forward. "There are not really that many brilliant examples of HR advancing sustainability". He said that HR has a critical strategic role because HR owns organizational culture and people management functions and HR works horizontally across any company. He said that CSR for HR, or Sustainable Human Resources Management (HRM), which we agree is a more appropriate term, is both a strategic challenge and a strategic opportunity for the function. And of course, we agree, don't we ?!

After Jonathon's both scary and moderately optimistic opening, we heard a fascinating collection of presentations from a range of companies who gave examples of how they are engaging employees in sustainability, community programs, sustainability communications and a whole lot more... far too much for one blog post, though I will be picking up on some of the key messages in future posts.

In the meantime, I was highly pleased to learn about encouraging work being done in a range of leading companies, and to welcome an interested audience, seeking to learn more.

You can also read a nice summary of the conference posted in People Management dot com.

Are we at the tipping point ? ahem.... not quite... but let's keep plugging away.

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

Executive Briefing :HR's role in CSR

Just published!! The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) Foundation Executive Briefing on HR's Role in Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability. Produced in partnership with the World Federation of People Management Associations (WFPMA) and the North American Human Resource Management Association (NAHRMA), this report explores the important role HR can play in both developing and implementing sustainability strategy.

Download this briefing here!

The Executive Briefing is authored by :

Sully Taylor : Professor of International Management and former associate dean for graduate programs at the School of Business Administration, Portland State University. She has published extensively in international HRM, global mindset, leadership and corporate cultures, and also teaches sustainable HRM and leadership. She is currently a guest editor of Human Resource Management Journal for a special issue on sustainable HRM.

Michael Muller-Camen : Professor of International HRM at Middlesex University Business School in London and has a chair in HRM at Vienna University of Economics and Business. He has published extensively in international HRM, green HRM and age management, and is the co-editor of a special issue of Zeitschrift fur Personalforschung (German Journal for Research in Human Resource Management) on green HRM.

and myself.

It has been a privilege to work with two such distinguished academics on this Briefing. Our work continues as we collaborate on a more extensive report for publication next year covering Best Practice Guidelines for HR Managers. Watch this space!

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

17 DJSI super sector leaders fail at CSR Employer Branding

So many companies claim to have embedded CSR into their core strategies. So many companies issue Sustainability Reports about their sustainability performance. So many students claim that they would like to join a company with a good social responsibility record. So why is the HR function not leveraging this valuable platform in their employer branding and offering to potential new recruits?

This week, the new Dow Jones Sustainability Leaders list was published. The list of Super Sector leaders, the most sustainable companies in the world, according to the DJSI, looks like this:

How many of these companies are exploiting this sustainability-super-sector-leadership in their Employer Brand? Let's take a quick look:

Air France KLM - Working at KLM

While the Air France KLM corporate website does have a section on Corporate Responsibility, a visit to the corporate job site won't inspire your sustainability sensitivities, even though, there too, there is a short summary of why KLM tops the DJSI list every year. "Passion, energy, drive and brainpower are common traits of KLM team members".  Social responsibility, apparently, isn't worth a mention. 

BMW AG Careers website invites you to be part of the success. The focus here is on performance orientation, flexible working hours, family and career and pay and benefits. While the website navigation bar includes CSR, so the prospective candidate searching the careers site may be tempted to have a look, the careers page itself gives no hint that new hires at BMW will be doing anything more fulfilling than selling more cars.

I couldn't find a careers section on the Enagas SA website though you can find a short Human Resources policy, committing the company to fair and decent labor practices, but not necessarily to provide jobs with meaning.

The Hyundai Engineering and Construction Company Ltd also does not have a careers section, through the company has a lot of sustainability messaging on the website. Maybe they are not hiring? Similarly, the Brazilian Itausa-Investimentos Itau S/A does nothing to attract grads other than the presence of a Sustainability Report on the website, while Koninklijke DSM N.V. gets closer to making the company sound attractive to the sustainably minded  grads, asking them:  "Do you see your work in the context of society and the planet at large?"

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.(or Philips to most of us) doesn't go the extra mile on its careers website, stressing  a diverse choice of ways that grads can use their talents. Is that it?

The Japanese KT Corp has no careers information on their website, nor does the Lotte Shopping Company, but Pearson plc does make the case for "getting excited about job opportunities", though, regrettably, not because of sustainability.

And then we get to Pepsico. Given Indra Nooyi's claims about the attractions of working for a company which puts Performance with Purpose first, you might expect the company's website to be attractive for students interested in sustainability. You would be right.  Why work at Pepsico? Culture, diversty, benefits, development. And what's culture? Performance with Purpose, of course. Pepsico is the first company I come across as I run down the Super Sector leaderboard which aligns its employer branding with its corporate branding and with a sustainability theme. Hurrah!

The people of Pepsico are an inspiring bunch, and all have something to say about both Performance and Purpose.

PostNL NV is the Dutch postal service with over 77,000 employees. Those interested in sustainability apparently didn't get inspired by the PostNL website which does not have a careers section, while Repsol YPF SA does list the ten reasons you might want to work for Repsol and number three (following "worldwide energy company" and working on a "solid business project") is  that Repsol is "committed to society". 

Roche Holding AG on the other hand, has the most compelling sustainability related careers proposition on the company's global careers portal.

This is a clear link between the employer brand and the company's business purpose. It promises a career which is about personal growth AND a contribution to society.

Samsung Electronics careers website runs with the theme of working for a world-class company which is passionate about its people (how original!). Nothing related to sustainability. Stockland in Australia has a careers section on their website. The company lists two days of paid personal volunteering leave as one of the benefits employees can expect to receive though the company values do not relate to sustainability. Swiss Re Ltd, global insurer, also has a website careers section which lists some of the company's do-gooding projects.

Westpac Banking Corp, a company whose approach to CSR and sustainability I have long admired (and featured in my book, CSR for HR), has a surprisingly drab careers section and the "Westpac as an employer" page is about as boring as you can get, with no connection to the corporate sustainability strategy, except for a section about values. The People Policies page starts out with a section entitled "Harassment and Discrimination"  which maybe specifically material in Westpac's business but it's hardly a reflection of how corporate polices advance corporate sustainability strategy.

Finally, Xstrata, a global mining group, tells students why they should choose an Xtrata career. Why? Because you can embrace your entrepreneurial spirit. Sustainability? Who knows?

So there we have it. 19 leaders of the leaders of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide are barely making the connection between their leadership in sustainability and their potential to attract employees who are interested in working for sustainability-leading companies. Of these 19 companies, 6 (32%) do not have a careers section on their website and only two (10%)  link their Employer Brand in a credible and inspiring way with their sustainability-driven corporate purpose. Well done Pepsico and Roche!

As for the other 17 companies, what a wasted opportunity! Where is the HR function in these companies and why hasn't the HR function woken up to the fact that the corporate website is probably the most relevant and important place to showcase the corporate Employer Brand which should be aligned with the corporate sustainability strategy?  While it's been a  l-o----n-----g  time since I graduated, and things were different back then (people talked security, not opportunity), I feel sure that today, especially if I were graduating from a Green MBA program or similar, that I would be interested in knowing not only whether the company has a sustainability strategy (and learning about it though the corporate Sustainability Report) but also I would like to know what opportunities there would be for ME to contribute to creating a better, more sustainable world. Only Pepsico and Roche make this connection. If I were HR Manager of all the other 17 companies in this list, I would be getting my act together and using the corporate website as my most prominent mouthpiece, in a way which aligns with both sustainability and recruitment needs.

HR Managers, wake up!!! CSR Managers and Chief Sustainability Officers, why are you not insisting that your hard work in driving sustainable practices in your company is not leveraged as a tool to help your company win the war for talent? Employer Branding is a key tool in the arsenal of the CSO to showcase your company's sustainability culture, to appeal to the new pool of sustainability-aware green-minded, human-rights-supporting, social-justice-oriented, exceptionally intelligent young graduates of today. Sustainability is a key differentiator. With the exception of Pepsico and Roche, nothing else sets these DJSI leaders apart from the bunch. And if I read one more careers website that says "we are passionate about people" I will probably have to go drown myself in a vat of ice cream.  

It is time for HR Managers to wake up to CSR. It is time for CSR Managers to wake up to 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

Pioneering CSR for HR

Following my post about CSR for HR in Ukraine, I can now report back after having returned from a wonderful visit to a lovely country, a fabulous city and a hub of activity in CSR in general and CSR for HR in particular. The Center for CSR Development in Kyiv, Ukraine, led by the energetic and inspiring Maryna Saprykina has been leading a CSR for HR laboratory with sponsorship from Japan Tobacco International and participation of a range of leading companies in Ukraine. This has been a breakthrough process and the event in Kyiv yesterday was the culmination of  a year of work, which also included the publication of a survey of CSR for HR practices in Ukraine. At the conference, a guide for CSR and HR Managers on how to implement CSR for HR in an organization was launched. At present, the guide is only available in Russian, but I am informed that an English version will be published within a month or so. I am really looking forward to seeing it, as it promises to be a highly practical and useful tool for embedding a CSR-mindset and practices in business.

Maryna (second from left) and conference panelists holding the new CSR for HR guide

I was honored and privileged to be able to speak at the conference organized by the CSR Centre. But not before I had done a little sightseeing. Kyiv is renowned for the largest number of churches in any East European city and is often known as the Jerusalem of Eastern Europe. I was able to get a look at two of them - the Cathedral of Saint Sophia (two pics below) which was built after two decades of effort by Prince Yaroslav the Wise in 1037, and the Cathedral of St Michael (third pic, in the distance) which was destroyed in 1934 and completely reconstructed in 2000 and is the second largest cathedral in the city.

Anyway, back to CSR (which I discovered is KOC in Russian), the conference opened up with a panel of four speakers from companies who had participated in the development of the CSR for HR guide. These were:

Alexandr Rudnitsky, HR Director of JTI Ukraine

Denis Brodakiy , HR Director of the Platinum Bank

Ruslan Skyba, Head of Corporate Affairs, Vanco Prykerchenska Ltd

Marina Zaharina, HR Manager at Ernst and Young, Ukraine

Thanks to my outstanding interpreter, Mikhael, I was able to follow their discussion on the importance of CSR in HR practices and on the value of collaboration between the CSR and HR functions in any company.  One comment was made that many companies have values posted on the wall but you need to ensure that they are not just part of the wallpaper! How true. The collaboration between CSR and HR is what it takes to make these values come alive. The panel spent some time discussing metrics, what and how. This is always one of the most difficult areas of the HR function, though there are many aspects of CSHR which can be measured effectively, both in terms of results and in terms of business outcomes. In my presentation, I offered a Sustainable Human Resources Management scorecard which covers a set of basic CSHR metrics which all CSR-HR Managers should, with a little effort, be able to track. In doing so, the HR function creates a CSR-HR Management tool, benchmarking baseline and also, a strong platform for driving transformational change within the business. This is what the Sustainable HRM Scorecard might look like (it's not comprehensive but it's a good start)

 

You probably won't be able to read this, so I have posted my entire presentation to Slideshare here.

CSR for HR (presentation in Kyiv, Ukraine) April 2011

View more presentations from elaine cohen

I couldn't have hoped to have more hospitable hosts - many thanks indeed to Maryna Saprynkina and to JTI.  More importantly, I couldn't have hoped to see a better example of inspired, pioneering work in advancing CSR for 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

People Matter Engage

The World Businesss Council for Sustainable Development (WDCSD) has just published a very interesting paper as part of a project called People Matter on how to engage employees in sustainability and why it is important that you should. Maya Forstater (@MForstater) collaborated on the writing of this paper and alerted me to the publication. Thanks Maya!

The paper can be downloaded here.

"People Matter is a project to explore the link between talent skills and sustainability.Through this project, leading companies are sharing experience and developing thought leadership on how to prepare, engage, train, motivate, reward employees around sustainable development. This first in a series of issue briefs focuses on the links between employee engagement and sustainability. It is an introduction to the topic, presenting the business case and highlighting best practice. It is designed for sustainability experts as well as human resources leaders in their quest to understand what sustainability challenges and opportunities mean for their work."

The report stresses the need for creating a "sustainability culture" which I agree is an imperative for all businesses and writes: "Creating a culture of sustainability means ensuring that everyone in the company, from the expert to the shop floor worker, understands what sustainability means to the business, has a voice, feels involved and proud of his own contribution."

The report highlights 5 key elements in the business case for engaging employees in sustainability:

**Behaviour change by employees in all they do in the business

**Innovation motivated by an understnding of sustainability and concerns of employees

**Attraction and retention of sustainability minded employees

**Motivation and productivity - "when business has a purpose, employeees are motivated"

**Reputation - "employees can strenghten or damage brand reputation"

The evidence for engagement  (>> engaged organizations make more profit >> sustainability themes positively influence engagement)  are listed in the report. However, intiutively correct though this may seem, I always look at these survey results and wonder if the practice matches the theory. I am still waiting for one piece of research that shows that employees in a sustainable business actually are more productive, that employees actually join a business due to sustainability factors, that innovation actually is enhanced though a sustainable culture. Where is the evidence that, of all those people who say they want to work for a sustainable company, a certain percentage of them actually DO and that they also stick around ? This WBCSD report doesn't address this, despite the report being produced as a collaboration between 60 WBSCD member companies who are to a greater or lesser degree, sustainability practitioners and should have evidence of this in their own back yard. 

The report goes on to outline the ways in which companies can engage employees in sustainability - some good ideas are presented. Points I would add to the list which is mainly around communications and training tools  include sustainability themes in workplans or target setting or performance reviews  - these are some of the most fundamental ways of ensuring engagement.

The report includes three case studies from TNT, Nokia and Unilever.  The case studies offer some sense of positive outcomes such as at TNT: " Managers now report they are winning tenders because of the company’s environmental performance. They also say sustainability has become an important factor in securing employee loyalty and attracting high potentials." . Tangible or quantitative outcomes were not included in the other two case studies. I would have liked to see a report of this nature that is based on the actual practices of companies include some real hard numbers business outcomes as a result of inspiring employees in sustainability. Perhaps the following papers in this series will touch on this.

However, as the report concludes " Starting the conversation is the most important first step" and I agree that more companies should be having more conversations with their employees about sustainability and more importantly, how employees as stakeholders convert the impacts of the business ON employees into positive sustainability impacts OF employees on all stakeholders. In the light of this, this report is a good addition to the body of knowledge on this subject.

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, HR, Ukraine : It all fits together

Would you have guessed that CSR for HR in the Ukraine was all the rage ? Well,  I wouldn't , until  a wonderful email from Maryna Saprykina, Executive Director of the   Centre for CSR Development plopped into my inbox, inviting me to take a look at the outstanding work that has been done and is being done by this forward thinking CSR organization. It plopped, I looked. 

The Centre has embarked on a programme to advance CSR in HR in two stages, in a programme supported by Japan Co. Tobacco Ukraine International  (JTI).   It has been supported by leading CSR and HR people in a range of companies operating in Ukraine. The objective of the programme is to rethink the role of the HR Department in building and implementing a strategy of CSR in Ukraine and providing practical guidance. This is happening in two stages:  

Stage One: a review of current practice (complete)

Stage Two: The production of a Guidance Tool to assist development and implementation (in progress).

The output of Stage One is a very impressive report which reviews the HR role in all of its subfunctions and the interface with CSR. You can download it here. The core of this is a survey in which several local companies and MNE's operating in Ukraine took part including Danone, Ernst and Young, Foxtrot, KPMG, Microsoft, DTEK, Nemiroff, Mary Kay and Metro Cash and Carry.

The report reviews the benefits of CSR to business and the financial ROI of effective CSR-HR management.

Some highlights from the Ukraine-based companies in the survey:

61% of HR Managers surveyed are not involved in the determination of the businesses key stakeholders

71% of HR Managers surveyed are not members of the company's CSR committees

only 22% of HR Managers took part in developing the corporate vision, mission and values statement

only in 28% of companies did HR people take part in the development of the CSR strategy

in 35% of companies the HR people were not involved in the development of a code of conduct

only 44% of companies include CSR issues in their annual planning

A key conclusion from the work done here is that, where the CSR work was progressed with the leadership or active involvement of HR, it was successful. However, the data presented above shows that there is a long way to go before HR people in Ukraine really equal footing when it comes to partnering CSR in the business. This is as much about business leadership as it is about HR, but in the meantime, well, you know, it is time for HR to wake up to CSR!!!

I am looking forward to seeing the next piece of work by the Centre for CSR in Ukraine. I am sure it will be a game changer for business in their country.

 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

Aman Singh Das recommends CSR for HR

Aman Singh Das is the Corporate Responsibility Editor at Vault.com. She is a New York University alum and previously wrote for The Wall Street Journal. Her area of work includes corporate diversity practices and sustainability, and how they translate into recruitment and strategic development at Fortune 1000 companies.

Aman is one of the most influential bloggers on CSR today, and is widely read. Her works sits at a very important pinnacle of how future business leaders are created, and how sustainability themes are integrated into attraction, hiring, selection, and all people process within business. He reach covers both corporates who seek forward-thinking , talented people who will add business advantage,  and people who seek challenging, meaningful roles in responsible workplaces.  In her most recent post on Innovation, Diversity and Sustainable Leadership , she makes the case once again for the connection between personal values and professional priorities.  

This is what Aman says about CSR for HR:

"Our professional journey begins the day we go for that first job interview. When the HR professional matches candidates with employers, she is not only contributing to the company’s sustainable growth, she is also directing an individual’s career path. For corporate responsibility to be contextual and effective, it is undeniable then that human resources inculcate this mindset from day one. With this book by Elaine Cohen now, we can finally stop spending hours espousing why CSR must begin with the HR team and just turn to her poignant stories and candid examples for an acute realization: A new corporate consciousness is redefining the way we conduct business, and a company’s HR department must embrace this and lead the change by ensuring that they continue to attract the right talent. Whether you work in HR, talent management, diversity, leadership development, or have any role in business strategy, this book is a must-read!"

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

Wake up SHRM

So this is what I mean when I talk about a wake-up call for the Human Resources function. I just happened to notice that the SHRM, agruably the largest and most influential HR professional body around, is holding its annual conference next week in San Diego.(This amused me as the protagonists of my book, CSR for HR, also attend a conference in San Diego). I looked through the 96 page brochure of the conference. Of the 150 concurrent sessions, there is not one single session which covers the role of the HR Manager in partnering and advancing Corporate Social Responsibility or Sustainability. There is all the same old stuff we have come to expect from HR conferences - how to engage your employees, how to manage mergers and acquisitions, how to train better, how to communicate better, familiarity with employment law, attracting and retaining talent, carrots, sticks, leadership and the whole HR mantra ... more and more  and more of the same old boring stuff that I can't imagine sitting listening to that  for three days. (Good job I won't be, haha). About the only thing that comes marginally close is a session by Dave and Wendy Ulrich called " The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Deliver Value To Employees, Customers, Investors, And Communities." The Why of Work is the title of the Ulrich couple's new book which I have almost finished reading and will review in due course. This session at least shows evidence of a certain level of stakeholder thinking. There is one other session called Ethical Leadership, by a former Wal-Mart exec, which talks about "how vision, culture, dedication, commitment, passion, excellence, execution, and leadership all converged to build one of the largest, fastest growing businesses in history, and how these values can align, direct and sustain organizations of any size. " That's a lot to cover in 75 minutes - hope he doesn't forget the ethics part.

This agenda of the SHRM conference is a big disappointment. It says to me that HR is remaining in its inferiority-complex-driven themes of professional legitimization, fixing employees, and never letting them go. Dear HR colleagues:

WAKE UP

or there will not be a sustainable world for you to wake up in, when you eventually decide to.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Embedding Sustainability Practices in Organizational Culture

Excellent toolkit produced by the Network for Business Sustainability

Download PDF here

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

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