Tag Archives: HR

Careers in CSR: Networking Your Way To Success

17 Thursday Jul 2014

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I met PwC Canada’s James Temple at a roundtable of CSR and sustainability leaders brought together by Edelman in Minneapolis in 2011 to discuss how they planned on moving forward on their commitments and what roadblocks they saw ahead.

I was the chosen facilitator for the hour and luckily for me, I got to ask all the questions!

The conversation was busy, high level and revealed a lot about the challenges these practitioners were facing as they worked to change the systems within their multinational corporations. While the roundtable was operated under Chatham House rules, the relationships that were formed that day continue to flourish.

Longevity is a true asset in this sector – and James has continued to be a wonderful resource and a much-needed mentor for those looking to pursue a career in the CSR field – critical as generations turnover across our workforce and expectations and mindsets on corporate social responsibility shift globally. He recently also facilitated a webinar to explore some of the latest trends in building a career in CSR. I asked him to pen some highlights and top tips for readers and here’s what he had to say:

 

I recently hosted a webinar focused on exploring trends and insights about building a career in corporate responsibility as part of what’s become a semi-annual conversation between hundreds of prospective practitioners and sector trailblazers.

As practitioners in a field that continues to transform, the conversation was dominated by the importance of networking and how to best leverage relationships toward pursuing a meaningful career. Joining me for the discussion were Paul Klein, president and founder of Impakt; Jerilynn Daniels, senior manager of community investment and marketing at RBC; Alex Daprato, partnership marketing associate at TrojanOne; and PwC Canada’s Sustainability Manager Klaudia Olejnik.

After a quick review of the CSR industry, we switched to discussing our panelists’ respective careers. Specifically, how they got there, if they would recommend breaking into the field today or if integrating a CSR mindset into any role is the way to go – and what they felt some of the key capabilities were that would help set an emerging leader up for success.

We also ran a live Twitter stream to help with on-the-spot responses from across the globe. Most of the questions focused on how to transcend the passion behind the industry to a sustainable career focused on embedding and implementing a complex change management strategy.

And how do we do this in a way that facilitates breaking into an increasingly complex field?

What struck me most was a single word: enough.

Too many times we focus on trying to be everything to everyone, but how can we understand corporate cultures in a way that doesn’t become overwhelming and can be communicated effectively? Could this be a building block to create the foundation for a career in CSR?

The panelists suggested that when thinking about who to talk to and what to ask, great networkers should remember that the CSR field is broad and diverse, and that practitioner experiences will be dependent on a variety of factors, including age, maturity of the organization that they are working for, geographic location, cultural norms and industry, just to name just a few. And framing good questions will be key to helping uncover the right information to inform decisions about a career in CSR and the tools needed to succeed.

From the hour-long conversation that featured numerous questions from an active audience, here are three recommendations to help enhance the networking experience:

  1. Brainstorm CSR related scenarios through open-ended questions

Great networkers focus on asking strong, open-ended questions during an informational interview and look for ways to create a knowledge exchange that’s mutually beneficial. When meeting with established CSR professionals, panelists recommended spending time working through scenarios or situational examples to compare diverse perspectives and ideas.

  1. Build a rapport that highlights genuine authenticity

Use networking time to build a rapport. Try to highlight a deep understanding about social issues, examples of continuous adaptation, or the ability to synthesize complex information in a way that can be re-communicated across diverse arrays of stakeholder groups.

  1. Use a shared language and keep the conversation focused around value creation for both people

In CSR, business language can be technical and complex.

Get back to basics, keep things clear and concise and remember to talk within the confines of a person’s role. Don’t overwhelm your mentor with general questions about how to change the world – they probably don’t know how (none of us do)! Instead, share complementary ideas that allow you to learn from each other.

Remember that curiosity is the name of the game, and you’ve got to check your ego at the door: CSR is a profession, not a persona. Let good communication skills guide your networking conversations, don’t let your passion to be a change-maker get in the way, and follow-up with those you’ve met to thank them for their time.

Combined, this might sound pretty basic but it’s the art of synthesizing complexity that will set you apart – and will make sure people remember you for your tact and talent.

About James Temple:

James Temple is the Director of Corporate Responsibility for PwC Canada and has a dual role leading the PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada Foundation. In this capacity, James provides oversight to the Canadian Firm’s internal Corporate Responsibility strategy, representing the ways PwC integrates good social, environmental and economic values into its business operations.

Stakeholder vs. Shareholder Value: Connecting the Sustainability Dots With Philips, Drexel University & Profits4Purpose

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Is there a connection between employee engagement and shareholder value?

Several similar questions came up in a recent webinar I facilitated, held in partnership with Profits 4 Purpose with guests Philips and Drexel University. While the question doesn’t have a linear answer – as is often the case with sustainability – it did take us through quite a conversation on connecting engagement with value, how CSR strategies affect business performance, the whole conundrum of measurement as well as what the latest research suggests.

Daniel Korschun, Assistant Professor and Fellow at the Center for Corporate Reputation Management at Drexel University, led the conversation by sharing some of his research with our audience.

“We’re moving into a new phase …since the 1950s we have had a debate about whether more CSR is better than less. While I don’t think this debate has been completely settled, there is general agreement among most practitioners that the core issue today is how we do it, not the quantity. That means we need to concentrate on effectiveness, which is where I have focused my research,” he started.

Employee Engagement: All About Signals

Employees are paying attention to CSR, he said.

And they notice when managers or customers support the company’s CSR initiatives.  When they notice this support, they are more likely to develop CSR and business performance“feelings of membership with a company.” In its most powerful form, we may begin to hear things like “I am an IBMer or a UPSer.” This feeling of membership then translates into a whole host of measurable outcomes like job performance, intent to stay in the job, or intent to volunteer.

For example, Korschun said he finds that people who feel this sense of membership are 87 percent more likely than others to be among the top performers of their company. And these effects hold even after controlling for pay satisfaction, personality traits, tenure, and work experience. The big lesson then?

  • Make CSR an open secret! “The more people who are discussing your behavior, the better.”
  • Have upper management act as champions: “If people don’t feel that management is aligned with your CSR strategy, impact will be muted. Executives don’t need to dictate CSR from the ivory tower but employees must know definitively that their leaders are on the same page, and are committed to social responsibility.”
  • Encourage contagion across stakeholders: “Engage customers in the same CSR programs as employees? Programs that get customers and employees to join forces (especially on volunteering sites) can create a bond…and that sort of contagion can lead to both happy employees and happy customers.”

Philip Cares: Formalizing Responsibility

Melanie Michaud, Senior Manager for Internal Communications with Philips North America took the baton from Daniel to evidence his data and research with how the practice and implementation of employee engagement maps out across a corporation. Emphasizing that Philips USA did not have a process in place till 2010 to vet requests and manage engagement across the company. “It was sporadic and led by employees who cared about various causes,” she said.

After several acquisitions, the company realized they needed a more formal process to align all its community development work with its business and employee base. That led to Philips Cares, through which, the company focuses on environment, education and health.

With tremendous uptick in the number of volunteers [over 8,000 volunteers] and donations in the 15 months since the program launched, Michaud highlighted the following keys to the success of Philips Philips caresCares – crucial for those managing relatively new programs or on the verge of launching one:

  • Do your research
  • Have a clear vision
  • Engage leadership
  • Have a volunteer tracking mechanism
  • Align with nonprofit partners
  • Emphasize local champions
  • Have consistent program branding
  • Engage in storytelling
  • Give employees a voice
  • Walk the talk

Setting a Global Strategy With Local Impact

So how does Philips ensure its CSR strategy is global in scope while local enough to support its communities?

That’s something we’re continually challenged with. We’re always tying everything back to our vision and mission of improving lives through innovation. We’re also doing some research now about rolling out a program like Philip Cares globally. In some areas there is greater interest than others and we’re currently working out how that will all work out,” Michaud responded.

One of the questions that came up during the webinar was around the survey Philips uses to seek feedback and make changes to its program. Emphasizing that the survey was a work in progress, Michaud said questions revolved around identifying causes, target audiences, types of volunteering activities as well as a bunch of open-ended questions for more elaborate feedback.

Practice vs. Software: Connecting Volunteerism With Impact

For Jason Burns, CEO of Profits 4 Purpose, the task was to connect Korschun’s research and Michaud’s practical perspective to how companies can best measure and track CSR and employee engagement activities. “We’re focused on helping companies make employee engagement simple, innovative and relational,” he started.

What are the key components to capture their attention? Burns summarized his comments in three neat categories:

  • Inspiring vision with easy execution: “We see a lot of companies starting with the end goal in mind, asking employees to focus on tracking…that’s less than inspiring. As human beings, we desire to be part of something bigger than ourselves so its important we start with a vision.”
  • Measuring impact: “Excel kills impact…how can we launch a strategy and review it for impact in real time and in alignment with employee engagement, mission and partners? Can we solve a specific problem that fits within the mission of a business? Can we cast a ‘what if’ scenario for employees to be motivated, to make a difference and get involved in a real easy and seamless way?”
  • Sharing a compelling story: “You’ve executed the strategy, and achieved great impact but why is it important? The most powerful piece for an employee when they volunteer is being part of that impact firsthand. The next powerful piece for those who might not be on the ground is communication, the story. It goes beyond the numbers.”

While the P4P platform helps companies do all of the above in one centralized place, what stood out was the fact that it also leverages the data into meaningful stories, disclosure commitments and  p4p_webinar_5filings. As Burns explained, “We saw companies that had the vision but were having difficulty making the management seamless with vendors, contractors and excel sheets. Things were duct taped and often a nightmare and we wanted to open that up to make the process productive and inspiring for all involved.”

Connecting The Dots Between Engagement & Shareholder Value…

But Jason’s iteration of execution versus measurement and reporting brought us back to a core question we began the panel with: how are companies like Phillips connecting the dots between volunteerism, engagement, retention and business growth?

“In terms of definitive links all the way to shareholder value, we have research connecting the steps of a CSR program all the way through. There is, however, no one study out there that links the end point with any one of the steps along the way. My research connects job performance with CSR and others have linked that to shareholder value. So while the connections are there, there is no one study that we can point to,” offered Korschun.

For Philips, it’s still to be determined, said Michaud.

“It is still a bit fragmented but we have moved from a theory to a practical emphasis on measurement and tracking. And the research being conducted is definitely encouraging, albeit complex,” added Burns, highlighting a trend we’ve been seeing on CSRwire as well where researchers are now, finally, being able to grab data on voluntary disclosures and link the connections between measurement, the various threads of sustainability and the question of value.

…Regardless of the Economic Climate…

What does the research then say about the impact of CSR programs on shareholder perspective and behavior irrespective of the economic climate? [Audience question]

While Korschun said he wasn’t aware of any studies that have looked at the influence of economic climate on how CSR drives value, “we generally find that for customers, the effects are clearest when CSR and employee engagementmost other product features are at parity. This suggests that CSR might become a little less important for consumers during a recession, when price becomes more critical.”

He added: “However, for employees, the company is a big part of their identity. So as long as a person feels fairly secure in their job, CSR should still have a similar effect. Putting this together, I would conjecture that ROI might drop a bit overall during a recession, but the drop would be uneven across stakeholders.”

…And Company Performance

“The weight of the evidence in academic studies suggests that there is a small positive effect of overall CSR on overall company performance. In my view, each company will have programs that are more and less effective. Since employees can express their commitment to the company in many ways, it is very difficult to put an ROI figure on any single program. The best way to measure it is usually to choose a couple of outcomes that are critical to shareholder value and then examine the link between CSR program(s) and these outcomes,” Korschun offered.

Final word on the erstwhile ROI of social contributions and impact?

For Michaud, this is a toss-up.

“We have some of the basics in place about measurement but I think qualitative measures are as significant. They’re really the next level of ROI. Of course, media stories help as well but we’re this is a discussion that is really ongoing for us.”

“A lot of companies are surveying employees and getting positive results. Now we need to work on finding the stories of impact,” added Burns while Korschun recommended systemic thinking:

I ‘d like to recommend [to companies] that they start with the goals. If one of your business challenges is employee retention, start with that and work backwards. Ask yourselves what is the right program that can have social/environmental impact and create business value at the same time?

Download the slides.

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary sectionTalkback on June 25, 2013.

Examining The Sustainability of the Royal Bank of Scotland: Facing Your Demons

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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The finance sector continues to ride on the coattails of what started as a severe decline in trust, market performance and profits in 2008. And Royal Bank of Scotland [RBS] was no exception, facing its own share of customer distrust and instability as well as a government bailout.

However, in its most recent CSR Report, the bank – as compared to its contemporaries – makes a marked effort to address these concerns and makes a public promise to examine its “financial stability, our customers, the way we use the resources around and the practices that we have.”

What really piqued my interest was the press release issued by the bank, which right from the headline – Royal Bank of Scotland Extends Meetings with Biggest Critics – told me change was afoot.

I caught up with Duncan Young, Deputy Head of Sustainability who is also in charge of producing the bank’s annual CSR Report. We began with an obvious question – I couldn’t hesitate – about a specific statement in CEO Stephen Hester’s quote that highlighted the Report’s very first page: What will it take to “build a really good bank”?

Aspirational Goals: “Building a Really Good Bank”

“There’s been debate about how aspirational that statement is…and a recognition that the sector has had a difficult time in recent years. We want to regain the trust of our customers and wider stakeholders – and we’re not going to become a really good bank till we do that,” he explained, adding: “We’ve spent the last few years working to make the bank secure and stable again. And made fairly significant progress. But as we go through the process of regaining trust with wider society, we think we need to deliver the kind of solutions that equate with us being a good bank.”

Fair enough. But what does an overarching statement of “becoming good” involve for an organization that serves a cross sector of business and consumer populations?

“We have significantly enhanced the remit of our Group Sustainability Committee this year. They will now cover wider reputational issues, impact on customers as well as U.K. industry practices, where too often, in the past customers were taken for granted. Today, we want to put customers at the heart of what we do to make sure we don’t make those mistakes again,” he said.

As for the committee’s expanded remit, “The committee will operate at the board level with full  RBS_Report_Cover_Alternativesupport from our leadership. Members will meet six times a year to review its larger mandate, which now includes conduct, culture and reputation, a very current issue for the industry.”

Underlining this is of course a sense of loss. As Young put it, “We are well aware that we have suffered heavily since the financial crisis and need to rethink how we work with our customers.”

“After the crisis, we were bailed out by the taxpayer. Our fundamental goal since has been to make the bank safe and secure. We’re getting there. Our loan to deposit ratio – traditionally held as a good measure of a bank – was at 140 percent at one point. Now we’re down to 100 percent, which is deemed to be a measurable sign of a stable bank,” he said.

“We’ve also repaid key aspects of government support. But it’s important that we focus on maintaining a culture now that ensures past mistakes do not recur. We have a much stronger focus on conduct risk and our engagement efforts are making sure the bank’s leadership are much better placed to pick up on issues of market behavior, reputation risk and have an understanding of what customers’ expectations are from us. That’s another reason why we have significantly increased our disclosures,” Young emphasized.

Transparent Leadership: Engaging With Critics

So how does the company plan to address and interact with its critics?

“We have had a program where the sustainability committee meets with our biggest external critics where they can make the case about their interests in how we operate directly to the executive team. Last year, we held three engagement sessions with 14-15 separate groups attending. This year, we transparency at RBSwill have six more. In fact, even as we talk, committee members are meeting with a few organizations to discuss cyber security and its impact on the bank and our customers,” offered Young.

The leverage and stature of the committee has proven an important approach in increasing the bank’s stakeholder engagement, according to Young, because of the members’ ability to represent critical points of view and risks directly to the leadership. “This ensures that our top leadership does not lose sight of our key stakeholders and the dialogue informs their decision-making and specific business-related outcomes,” he added.

The CEO Speaks

Another first for the bank: Publishing a Q&A with its CEO that makes a mighty honest effort at addressing issues like trust, stability, its lending practices as well as the 2012 LIBOR rate-fixing scandal. Highlights:

On sustainability:

“Our long-term success will be determined by how well we understand our customers and communities, and how well we can service their needs in a responsible way. 2012 was a very challenging year for the sector, but it certainly served to underline that point.”

Lending to small businesses:

“It’s a difficult environment at the moment. Ongoing economic uncertainty has unsurprisingly driven down demand from businesses. SME loan applications were down 19% from 2011. Nonetheless, we continue to provide significant support to customers. RBS advanced more than £74 billion to UK businesses and homeowners in 2012. We’re approving a higher proportion of loan applications than ever – 93% in the last quarter of 2012.”

Royal Bank of Scotland CSR Report

The impact of the LIBOR rate-fixing scandal:

“There is no place at RBS for such behavior. That’s why we’re determined to correct the control and risk management failures that originated in RBS during the financial boom years, of which attempted LIBOR manipulation is an example. This is a painstaking task, that’s been undertaken over several years and we can’t detect and solve every problem as fast as we would like. The aim is to create a safe and secure RBS that serves customers well and that, in the right way, creates value for those who rely on us.”

On customer trust:

“Staff don’t set out to serve customers poorly, but banks too often had other priorities before the crisis. They saw customers as a means of making money.”

On executive pay:

“The investment banking bonus pool has gone down by 20% on last year, despite operating profits in the markets division being up by nearly 70%. In fact, since 2009 our investment banking bonus pool has shrunk by more than 70%. We’ve also increased transparency around pay. But there’s a balance – we need high quality people if we are to achieve the goals we set out in 2008. So we must deliver reform, while not making the business unmanageable.”

Regaining Trust with External Stakeholders…

The report’s materiality map, worth a look by anyone interested in disclosure and how it can increase shareholder value and business performance, shows customer trust as the bank’s number one material risk. I asked Young how his team was planning to address this:

“Stakeholder engagement is one piece. We make our senior leaders available to the media, release quarterly disclosure and take advantage of public forums to explain where we’re taking the company, how we’re working on renewing customer trust and engaging with enterprise,” he said.

Other efforts include programs like “Working with You” where relationship managers spend a minimum of two days a year working with their clients to get a real understanding of those businesses, an accreditation scheme to ensure our bankers are suitably skilled and qualified, and simplifying our product range to make life easier for our High Street customers.

“It’s not just about the products but also how we offer them. We have to acknowledge that we’re operating against the backdrop of a tough regulatory landscape and immense pressure. The repercussions of offering the wrong products in the past continue to be felt across the organization and we have to get this right,” he added.

…And Employees

What about the bank’s internal culture? With massive layoffs having made headlines not too long ago, Employee retention at RBSwhat is Young’s team doing to retain and attract top talent? “Despite all the changes and the restructuring, our employee engagement measurements stack up very well. We’re quite pleased, for example, with our ongoing commitment to demo gender diversity at the executive level. We’re not at the optimum point but we’re getting much better at employing more women,” said Young.

Take a look at the report and you see Young’s sentiments reflected right from Page 1. It is commendable that the bank, despite its difficult regulatory environment and consumer marketplace, is facing up to its critics, shifting its cultural rotunda and putting programs in place that can ensure 2008 does not repeat itself. As Young put it, the report manages to “strike a realistic tone and successfully acknowledges that we did have a difficult year.”

After all, we’ve gone hoarse advocating to reporters that they mustn’t view CSR/sustainability Reports as yet another marketing document but as a piece of disclosure that is tied to materiality, engagement and business performance.

Final words? “If people read nothing more than the first 15 pages, they would get a good oversight of our challenges and how we’re responding. That’s mission accomplished for us,” offered Young.

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on May 15, 2013.

The Power of Hiring Right: A Value Proposition that Most Recruiters Continue to Ignore

03 Thursday Jul 2014

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Sustainability isn’t the most favorable of topics with recruiters. But ask them about the sustainability of their hires and you’ll instantly hear a litany of complaints and frustrations.

Yesterday, Vault kicked off a series of seminars on this very important, if not the most popular, topic for the recruitment sector: The increasing role of CSR and sustainability in recruitment.

Sponsored by Madrid’s IE Business School, these seminars have been planned exclusively for recruiters and HR managers and align well with the School’s overarching commitment to sustainability (they have a master’s program dedicated to environmental change), social entrepreneurship, and CSR.

But what makes sense on college campuses doesn’t necessarily align with recruiters whose objective is much more linear: To hire the best talent based on a specific list of behavioral and technical skills, with the hope that they will stick around for at least a few years.

Retention? That’s an HR function.

This disconnect became the focus of my planning when I was approached by Vault to design the seminars. I came up with three distinct objectives:

  • Demonstrate how a growing consciousness about corporate social responsibility is changing expectations among prospective job candidates and employees;
  • Question whether recruitment teams are responding to this change in CSR awareness by modifying their outreach and strategy; and
  • Offer examples – and best practices – of how recruiters can best illustrate their company’s corporate citizenship before the candidate comes aboard.

In all my years at Vault (I left in July to start Singh Solutions, a research and advisory firm offering CSR communications and social media strategy services – and continue to write for CSRwire and Forbes), I have always put a premium on the efficacy of a responsible and innovative culture in attracting candidates. But when you bring in terms like CSR, sustainability, inclusion, things begin to get murky.

While no one can argue that a business’ corporate and social behavior is a POWERFUL tool in attracting talent, especially in the current recession, how do you convey as much in a job interview?

This is where the real disconnect then emerges, indicated amply by a series of interviews I conducted last year with four MBA candidates committed to pursuing work that aligned with their sense of corporate social responsibility: Boston University MBA Candidate Ashley Jablow, Geet Singh, Whit Tice and Larry Furman.

Jablow told me then:

“I have chosen to go to business school so that I can create change and be an ethical and responsible contributor to business.”

But who’s responding? Not a lot of companies, I found. As Tice put it:

“Without awareness, there is no sense of urgency.”

This lack of urgency became the underlying theme of session number one on Tuesday. Joined by PwC’s HR and Administrative Leader for Florida Kimberly Jones and Guillermo Montes, Managing Director for South US, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean region for IE Business School, I offered the audience an alternative view: A reality where recruiters are not only responsible for hiring the most skilled talent but also the best fit based on their values.

“Retention after all is half the battle. Getting the candidate in is hard but retention becomes equally challenging if we don’t invest in aligning the candidate’s personality to the company’s core values,” said Jones. For PwC, this has meant organizing initiatives like Project Belize and Project New Orleans, where summer interns get to participate in community building exercises, and the team hopes, get a real close look at the firm’s culture.

“The average age of a PwC employee is 26 years old. So demands and expectations are quite different from older generations,” she emphasized, adding that a brand that not only commits to CSR but also makes it a priority becomes an increasingly valuable ally in attracting candidates.

In a globalized economy where work can be outsourced at a click of a button and entrepreneurship is emerging as a serious alternative for many graduates, organizations have it tough, even if they don’t recognize it just yet. While recruiters might erroneously believe that the market is to their advantage, the fight for top talent remains fierce. This is where your organization’s culture, values, and social and environmental commitments can emerge as key differentiators for a generation that is demanding fairness, ethical behavior and responsibility from business.

While the debate was spirited and the conversation heated at times, it was clear that the panel had been well received. We ran over time with questions pouring in. Examples include the impact of globalization on recruitment, how companies are dealing with an increasingly age diverse candidate pool, and whether we should expect reformulation of job profiles and descriptions in coming years.

Suffice it to say, we together – the panel and the audience – shared something powerful this Tuesday: We experienced a crowd-sourced change in mentality. We made a commitment. Together. To bring back some of the equilibrium lost in recent years between business, society and the environment by focusing on a company’s most powerful assets: It’s human resources.

Are you ready to have a real conversation?

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on September 29, 2011.

The Makings of a CSR Program: In Conversation with Avon, LinkedIn & Jones Lang LaSalle

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

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That was the focus of one of the panels at Net Impact 2011 featuring Avon’s VP of Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility, Tod Arbogast; LinkedIn’s Head of Employment, Branding and Community, Meg Garlinghouse; and Jones Lang LaSalle’s SVP of Sustainability Strategy, Michael Jordan.

Representing companies that are often called out for their out of the box thinking on social responsibility and sustainability, the speakers discussed a range of topics including the always debatable definition of corporate social responsiblity, measuring employee engagement as well as the skill sets that go into the makings of a CSR director.

Main highlights:

CSR: Burden or Boon?

“CSR should die as a term. CSR departments tend to take away from possible impact. Just like ‘global’ is part of everything we do at LinkedIn, so is CSR,” Garlinghouse emphasized, noting, “Employee engagement is key for CSR, not separate departments.”

Jordan picked up where Garlinghouse left off adding that businesses must leverage engaged employees and identify champions early on for successful CSR programs.

“CSR has a direct tie-in with our business. After you’ve built the business case and identified regional champions, work together on identifying and building in efficiencies,” he advised.

“Build friendships, be seen as pragmatic and capture early wins. Then leverage those to go further and faster,” Arbogast said.

Measuring Employee Engagement

But how do you measure the efficacy of employee engagement?

A survey I conducted a few months ago with Smartbrief on Sustainability asked whether companies were measuring employee engagement on CSR. With over 70 percent of respondents saying they did not measure employee engagement, how were these panelists identifying wins and scale?

Once again, there was a healthy difference of opinion across the panel. While Garlinghouse emphasized company mission, the other two focused on operational procedures and policies.

“We recruit on the notion of social impact. These conversations happen during the interview process,” Garlinghouse alluded, noting LinkedIn’s entire modus operandi is based on “creating economic opportunities.” LinkedIn also offers employees the opportunity to do whatever they feel passionate about one Friday a month. “They have to come to work but they can pursue whatever they are interested in,” she said.

“For us, measuring the progress of your platform from awareness to implementation to operational strategy has always been key,” added Jordan.

Defining CSR With Strong Stakeholders

Responding to an audience question about resourcing for CSR initiatives, Jordan emphasized that most of Jones Lang LaSalle’s sustainability activities have been client-driven. “There is a clear business case because our clients are demanding sustainability strategies,” he said.

For Garlinghouse, employees have been the most forthcoming about corporate social responsibility initiatives. “Our CEO is very involved. Also, our employees are really committed to our company mission,” she said.

Skill Sets for a CSR Officer

Arbogast, who joined Avon in late 2009 after successfully leading Dell’s Giving program for a number of years, is a well-sought after speaker at the Net Impact conference each year. This year too, he was asked what aspiring professionals could do to become effective CSR officers. He laid out three crucial skills sets:

  1. People’s Person: Know how to communicate with people from all kinds of backgrounds and perspectives.
  2. Conflict Resolution: You must be a skilled mediator. Know that business cases will vary from group to group and you must be willing and diplomatic enough to finesse the tension lines and bring about resolution.
  3. Business Pragmatism: You must be a realist and know the business inside out. For CSR and sustainability programs to be effective, you need to understand what drives decisions and action.

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on November 9, 2011.

Think CSR is None of Your Business?

29 Thursday Sep 2011

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Think again, especially if you work in recruitment or human resources.

My latest editorial on CSRWire: The Power of Hiring Right: A Value Proposition that Most Recruiters Continue to Ignore

Where Does CSR Fit in with the Recruitment Process?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marsh & McLennan’s 2010 CSR Report: Holistic, Aspirational, But Lean on Data

07 Wednesday Sep 2011

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“Our corporate social responsibility is our best kept secret.”

What compels a company with 52,000 employees and with over 140 years of systems in place to publish a CSR report?

For professional services giant Marsh & McLennan, as CSR Director Christine Salerno put it, there was an urgency “to put a stake in the ground.” The company, following shortly on the footsteps of a rebranding initiative [from Marsh to Marsh & McLennan], released its first CSR report, complete with a press briefing at its New York headquarters, late last month.

At first — and second — glance, the Marsh CSR report is 21 pages of text and very little data. What the executives present at the briefing, however, had to say, was far more enlightening and worth noting.

After Silvia Davi, head of corporate communications and brand introduced the panel — an all-women team of Chief Sustainability Officer Elizabeth Barry, Chief Diversity Officer Kathryn Komsa and Salerno — Barry started off with some forward-looking statements.

1. Sustainability

“We were doing a lot [in sustainability] but we needed structure. Now we can gain much more from the same efforts by implementing them as part of a long term strategy,” she said, adding that, “This is not about today, this is about tomorrow.”

Our work in CSR is our best kept secret. Now we have decided to collaborate and communicate our successes and challenges because colleague education and engagement are key to the success of our sustainability strategy.

Pointing to a slide that charted key accomplishments since 2010, Barry noted that a majority of the data points were yet to occur. For example, the company is set to launch an internal “Green Traveler” program aimed at helping employees’ cut down their carbon footprint by educating them on telecommunication alternatives, etc. Also to follow later in the year: A “Paper Reduction Campaign” as well as a “Sustainability 101 Training Program.”

“I want everyone in the company to know that they are committing to a longterm strategy,” she emphasized. “Sustainability starts with people and our behavior and if every colleague made one tiny change, the impact collectively can be huge. It’s not a quick process but it is truly more sustainable.”

2. Diversity & Inclusion

The mission for CDO Komsa, who started in her current role in 2009, was “to create an enterprise-wide diversity and inclusion strategy.” “Our challenges are finding the right talent, resources, and the right market share in a multicultural world,” she said, adding a common refrain among the B2B sector, “Our raw material is our people and a diversity platform becomes a great way of creating shared value.”

Komsa also touched on an issue that has had insurance companies scratching their heads in recent years: How do you make a career in insurance sexy and attractive?

Noting that this is a big challenge and opportunity for Marsh, Komsa emphasized that her, “Team’s leading initiatives in coming months will be to tie in the four companies [Oliver Wyman, Marsh, Guy Carpenter and Mercer] and rebrand the insurance industry by emphasizing how we source our talent.”

3. Community Relations, Volunteerism, Philanthropy

Marsh and McLennan's 2010 CSR ReportSalerno who is an ex-investment banker chose to begin with a review of past challenges: “This is something that has always been done. What has been missing is the communications piece. There has been no cross collaboration internally within the units.”

“Our business case is to make sure that our CSR activities are creating impact in the communities we operate in and for our employees,” she added, noting that, “An engaged employee wants to stay. We want to make sure we are attracting the right people.”

The connection between CSR and recruitment is an increasingly acute problem for recruiters, especially in the B2B sector, where the commodity for sale isn’t so much a physical unit but organizational culture, intellectual growth and innovation. How do you leverage CSR as a recruitment strategy? [Join me at one of eight breakfast sessions on analyzing this very question starting next month.]

“Students coming out of college want to work for companies that are doing the right thing. Our strength is our people. So how do we use our biggest assets to create maximum impact?” Salerno responded.

4: Climate Change

In response to Business Ethics Publisher and veteran journalist Michael Connor’s question about setting goals on climate change, Barry pointed to the unique challenges of operating in cities like New York, where most companies don’t own their real estate. “Goals are hard for a professional services company. And when you add a lease to the equation, it becomes even harder. In most cases, we are in the middle of 10-year leases so in the interim, we are finding other ways to set goals, like how to reduce our real estate portfolio altogether.”

5: What Does Successful CSR Look Like for a Fortune 250 Company?

Employee engagement has always been a huge component of my blogs in the past because I truly believe that getting your employees on your side is half the battle for most companies struggling with reputation issues. They can be your best brand ambassadors and I asked the Marsh team what success looked like for all their CSR and sustainability efforts: A significant decrease in air travel, a certain number of LEED certifications, an internally set women and minority retention rate, or something else?

Repeating that they launched the CSR report as a way of putting a stake in the ground, Salerno emphasized that, “Employee engagement is a crucial piece and trying to quantify our efforts and rolling out a system to measure our activities has them talking.”

“We’re getting the information out there and they are discussing it,” she said, to which Komsa added that, “piles of resumes have been pouring in because the work we do aligns with someone’s values. That means our employees are talking, which is a huge win for us.”

Barry, however, might have put it best:

“This report doesn’t have as many foundations but it is an important story to tell. We don’t have all the answers but we do want to get started on finding them.”

At the end of the day, Marsh isn’t looking to solve the water crisis or achieve a zero carbon footprint. Their goals are moderate and their CSR report reflects a forward-looking attitude that is encouraging.

That they have a team in place approaching CSR strategically — and a lot more holistically than many other companies — is the right start.

VIDEO: A Test in Corporate Transparency: Winning One for the Blue Shirts

29 Friday Jul 2011

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Last week I was at Best Buy headquarters in Minneapolis to moderate a live webinar with its CSR and sustainability executives. Joining me: Mary Capozzi, senior director of CSR, Leo Raudys, senior director of environmental sustainability and services compliance, and Hamlin Metzger, senior manager of corporate responsibility.

The agenda: To discuss Best Buy’s annual Sustainability Report and offer a live audience on Livestream and Twitter the opportunity to ask questions in real-time.

My job: To question, dig and examine, while moderating questions between the panel and the audience. About 20 minutes into the webinar, which is archived below — well worth a listen whether you are a sustainability nut, a tree hugger, a nonprofit exec, a job seeker or simply an electronics user — questions started streaming in.

From conflict minerals to employee education, every question was fair game.  While @Gchesman asked whether being a well-known company affects the level and degree of time and money spent on CSR and sustainability, @Davidcoethica wanted to know how Best Buy can better balance its role as a promoter of consumption of products against a sustainability ethos, and Robin Cangie wondered how Best Buy can help us all become more responsible consumers?

The conversation, thanks in part to an active and engaged audience, and wonderfully diverse questions, was invigorating, informative and challenging.

Barring the repeated mentions of their recycling efforts — sorry Leo, its a pet peeve — which to be fair is a huge and important undertaking for the global electronics retailer, the panelists were clear, comprehensive in their responses and unapologetically honest about their challenges: That there is a ton of work ahead and that they hadn’t figured it all out yet.

But as David Connor wrote earlier this week, when you’re a global player like Best Buy, expectations are higher as well. Did Best Buy live up to the expectations of CSR activists? Perhaps not.

Flip the coin though for a second.

Did they go on the defensive when I asked them why their retention rates were remarkable (74%) but the diversity of their recruits (12% African-American, 14% Hispanic; 180,000 employees) was quite underwhelming? No.

Did they dodge repeated questions about educating their supply chain, influencing consumer decisions, or the recently drafted UN Guiding Principals on Human Rights? No.

Bottom-line: Capozzi and team did not have all the answers but they didn’t pretend to either.

And that’s where, as an independent journalist, they get points from me for an attempt, however small, at open transparency, willingness to be accountable, and daring to do something new.

Remember the 11 Challenges for Corporate Sustainability? Well, a significant number of those relate to fear. For the Best Buy team, this webinar was a successful exercise in effectively addressing their own fears.

And that is where they just won one for their team of blue shirts.

Introducing Singh on CSR: A Journalist With a Purpose..and an Opinion

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*Updated July, 2014

Most recently the Editorial Director at CSRwire, a digital media platform for the latest news, views and research on CSR and sustainability. Along with leading content distribution, social media strategy and CSR/sustainability reporting services for CSRwire members, I also led Talkback, CSRwire’s aman singh, csrwireCommentary section, with over 250 contributors and increased traffic 35% – 50% year to year.

The channel featured several influencers and thought leaders – John Elkington, Hazel Henderson, Wayne Visser – as well as authors – Frances Moore  Lappé, Bob Willard, Carol Sanford – researchers, activists and CSR/sustainability professionals – AMD’s Tim Mohin, Campbell Soup’s Dave Stangis, Sustainability leader Peter Graf, John Edelman – and served as a platform to push the needle on critical topics, learn from each other and constantly crowdsource new ideas, partnerships and best practices.

While at CSRwire, I’ve had the pleasure of working with numerous Fortune 500 companies as well as the country’s leading nonprofits and academic institutions on creating and implementing communication strategies focused on stakeholder engagement and behavior change, including Unilever, Verizon, Aramark, SAP, Campbell Soup, Nestle Waters North America, McDonald’s, General Mills, HP, Mars, Avon, Sodexo, EarthShare, Points of Light and others.

Our Stakeholder Engagement Campaigns – including live Twitter chats and webinars as well as content series and multimedia – generated millions of impressions, hundreds of participants and provided our members with critical feedback, important partnerships and a pulse of their stakeholders’ concerns.

I’ve also been an active journalist for almost 15 years, including stints at The Wall Street Journal, The Villager, Tehelka.com and Vault.com, where I created, designed and managed the recruitment industry’s first CSR channel aimed exclusively at engaging, debating and discussing corporate social responsibility, sustainable (and unsustainable) business practices, responsible (and irresponsible) leadership, diversity and the lack of it, the role of workplace culture in our lives, social entrepreneurship, the newly-minted term ‘intrapreneurship’ and much, much more.

Careers in CSR and Sustainability

Vault’s CSR Channel

Skepticism is second nature to me and I’m most comfortable asking [mostly the right] questions, facilitating dialogues, editing copious pages of text, refining even the most academic articles into easy-to-read blogs and thrive on the opportunities extended by a new world of social media and access to organizations and change makers.

This is my space – to question, analyze and discuss.

I’ll examine the latest CSR report and debate how we’re faring in our pursuit of materiality and creating a new economy built on wellbeing and shared value. No question is small enough, no development unrelated. And no topic unworthy.

From careers in CSR to the future of GRI reporting, from analyzing the do(s) and don’t(s) of sustainability to the latest in impact investing and our search for materiality; from social media etiquette to transparency in this new hyper-connected world, from work/life balance to gender and age discrimination, from effective communication strategies to the immensely irritating term “greenwashing”; and much much, more, join me for a promising and thought-provoking ride.

-Aman
@AmanSinghCSR