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

Work Life Balance pays off

One of my favorite pieces of reading is HR Magazine, which plops into my postbox each month. I find this is always choc-a-bloc with relevant and insightful, informative and entertaining articles which I both enjoy and learn from. The website is pretty good too, and HR Magazine is one of the few publications which always includes a CSR-HR perspective. Some of you may recall that I was a guest speaker at an HR Magazine event last year. Since then, I keep a keen eye on what they are publishing.

A recent article caught my eye (the same eye!). It's called: Work/life balance ranks higher than stress as the biggest health concern for employers, says GRiD. GRiD is Group Risk Development, and they advise as follows:

"After enduring a difficult year where many businesses were obliged to reduce headcount, the survey of 500 employers with 5-1000 employees from the trade body for the group risk industry, found maintaining a good work/life balance for staff remaining in the business ranked as the top health issue for more than one in five employers (21%). This is ahead of stress and mental health issues (19%) - currently cited as the most common cause for workplace absence."

This is a fascinating finding and should make HR Managers sit up. Work/life balance has been one of those amorphous subjects that doesn't quite seem important enough to address in a detailed, formal, structured way.  It's sort of about how people feel and not really a hard numbers easy-to-grasp issue. It's also very easy to ignore. And yet, an uncaring and inflexible work culture can be one of the biggest hidden costs of any business budget and can, to a large degree, be quantified in cost terms related to productivity, absenteeism, health costs, workplace conflict and customer service. 

Volkswagen made news recently when they took a step to force employees to observe work/life balance rules by introducing a ban on work emails outside work hours on employee's cellphones by blocking Blackberry servers. This is an interesting development and may go some way to limit employees' exposure to unreasonable work demands outside hours. However, releasing employees from commitments outside work hours is only one part of a holistic approach to work/life balance issues. A lot of what affects work/life balance relates to how many hours people work and the kind of programs that are in place while they are at work. In 2011, the Quebec Government thought this whole subject was so important that they launched a program for rewarding employers who provide work-life balance benefits to employees.

In my book, CSR for HR, I address this subject. First, I say that there is no such thing as work/life balance - balance is something that we can almost never achieve and sometimes don't want to achieve. Basically, we need to achieve a harmonious stressless approach to managing out total life responsibilities which derive from all our activities in work and outside work. These can be multiple. It's not just about work and family. Here are just some (definitely not an exhaustive list) of the aspects of being at work that can affect the way we manage our total life responsibilities:

And here are some of the overall types of programs and policies that HR Managers can consider in order to assist employees in addressing the way work can fit into their overall harmonious life planning.

We have seen that overall wellness programs in business, which often include elements which affect work/life balance, can deliver a 10% increase in financial performance. So, HR Managers, it is time to wake up to CSR!

And back to HR Magazine, you might enjoy this article which quotes research that found by giving employees input into the development of their workspace, productivity can improve by as much as 32%.

Or this article, which refers to research that found almost two thirds (64%), of employers do not expect female employees to return to work after their maternity leave; of which 47%, say they believe this because of 'previous experience.' Now that's a whole other issue which is of major significance both for women and for businesses. But we should leave that for another post.

In the meantime, I think an ice cream just about right now would significantly improve my work/life balance!

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  

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

Well, Well, Well... It pays off!

A press release on 29th December 2010 announced that Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) of the Phillipines won an Excellence Award at Asia’s premier awards program on corporate social responsibility, the 9th Asian CSR Awards, for its holistic employee wellness program, Live Smart: Healthy U, Wealthy U, Happy U.  Live Smart! promotes physical, financial, social, spiritual and community wellness of employees. Employees are given the rudiments of managing finances wisely under the Wealthy U! pillar. Through this, employees get entrepreneurship opportunities, attend seminars on managing finances, and enjoy discounts and promos. Happy U!, on the one hand, serves as employees’ outlet for fun and meaningful activities. Under Happy You! is Happy to Help, the community service program wherein employees get to choose a partner organization for their volunteer activity.

This wellness programme is fairly unique, as far as I can tell, amongst the spectrum of employee wellness activities in many companies not least because it includes the aspect of financial health and wellness, not just physical and spiritual aspects. Helping employees manage their personal finances can be a massive contribution to empowering them with far-reaching implications for the strength of local communities. Most people have never received any formal education or training in the complexities of managing household economics, in selecting insurance, in setting up savings progammes, in providing for the cost of education or possible sickness in the family,  in making significant purchases including home-buying and mortgage, in aspects of banking costs and much more. Helping employees to live within their means, provide for their own future and enjoy a life of managing money in a stress-free way is part of the triple bottom line of CSR applied to individiuals. This is an area in which corporations can do much more, I believe, and gain added value through improved employee wellbeing and engagement.

I am pleased to see the recognition for such a program at the Asia Awards.  This is of course is at the heart of a CSR for HR approach. In fact, I recently wrote an Editorial for CSRwire.com on the subject of employee wellness programmes, quoting a Harvard Business Review article  in which conclusive proof is provided to show that investment in employee wellness, beyond the minimum requirements of the law, delivers a Return on Investment beyond the reasonable expectation of most. Johnson & Johnson report a $2.71 saving for every $1 spent, saving the company $250 million in healthcare costs over the past decade. In many cases, the return is even greater, as HBR reports "The ROI on comprehensive, well-run employee wellness programs can be as high as 6 to 1."  The authors of the HBR study point out that "passes to fitness clubs and nutrition information in the cafeteria are not enough".

I believe this aspect of CSR and HR has been long underestimated. It is now an approach whose time has come. The investment in employee wellness has to be considered one of the most fundamental tenets of a CSR approach, and I have not come accross a single company that has implemented such an approach and not reaped significant benefits. There is a clear business case, with measurable financial benefits, unlike some other areas of CSR which are header to measure.

Whether your company is in it for the money, or simply because you value your employees, it seems that an employee wellness programme should be an imperative for any Company serious about sustainability in 2011.  This is why I will be repeating, also in 2011, 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

10% better business with employee wellbeing

Boosting staff wellbeing can improve financial performance. That's the conclusion of a report issued by Business in the Community in the UK. They talk of 10% increase in financial performance.

Read the article here

You can also take a look at BITC's Healthy Workplace Model.

In fact, you can download an amazing list of resources from BITC on workplace management with a CSR flavour.

Whilst these findings do not seem to be particularly startling - let's face it - it stands to reason that if you have a healthy workplace you will havve a better chance of having a healthy business - but the fact remains that so many employers, and so many HR Managers, still do not invest in doing this right. So, maybe proof of better business results will provide the incentive ! Corporate Social Human Resources wins again!

NB thanks to David Connor for posting the article  on Facebook!

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