In today’s world, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a lot more than just a nice-to-have. It has become an integral part of doing any business. The customers are likely to get involved with any brand with the organizational CSR activity as one of the major deciding factors. Hence, it is crucial to create a corporate social responsibility driven culture, and none other than the Human Resource (HR) department should play the central role here.
If HR drives CSR within the organization, every employee will come forward to take it upon themselves and uphold the company values consistently. Ultimately, this would create an automatic environment, staying true to the business vision.
Corporate Social Responsibility should Reflect in All the Company Decisions
CSR is all about considering the benefit that your company and its decisions can have on society. Even the smallest decision at the initial stage can have an impact. It is the reason why corporate social responsibility should be placed on the radar of every employee.
The role of the HR manager is to figure out a link between the issues that your employees care about and what the company can do to support them. It encourages more individual responsibility, make employees a part of the decision, and cuts down the likelihood of mavericks hampering your brand’s reputation.
When corporate social responsibility becomes a part of your company culture, it triggers the element of authenticity. People like to see businesses committed to CSR through several actions that are taken regularly; it’s just not about the public statements that happen once or twice a year.
However, CSR is not the sole responsibility of HR. Everyone who is working in an organization should uphold this aspect. But, HR has the highest impact on recruitment, people, management, or learning and development, and it’s these activities that can make sure the CSR permeates your entire business.
How can HR Integrate CSR into the Company Culture?
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Employees should be a part of Any Decision Taken
Your company can focus on different social causes to extend the helping hand: inequality, education, the environment, and much more. It is HR’s responsibility to split the resources between all of them and create a significant impact.
It should be not only HR’s viewpoint to decide the right cause for the organization. Instead, the role of human resource management is to survey the entire company, which lets the employees feel that they are part of the decision-making process.
Employees are an excellent source of new CSR initiatives. It is HR’s role and responsibility to create a few easy ways for them to share their ideas and encourage the same behavior across the company. Once this becomes an integral part of the company culture, you will never fall short of ideas for new Corporate Social Responsibility activities.
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Let Corporate Social Responsibility be a Part of the Brand
Millennials are the largest generation in the US workforce, and they are expected to represent 50% of the global workforce by 2020. If your business wants to attract them, CSR should be at the heart of your brand, as the statistics reveal that 76% of millennials consider a company’s social and environmental commitments while deciding their workplace.
HRs should talk about the CSR initiatives in interviews and mention them in the job descriptions as well. There should be time off for volunteer work in your company, or it is even smart to introduce a policy that exactly matches employee contributions to charity.
What’s more, it is recommended to have a page on your website about Corporate Social Responsibility. Still, potential employees will look for policies and internal behaviors that reflect your brand’s values once they join. If not, the employees will feel disillusioned, leading engagement issues in the future.
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Go for CSR Driven Manager Training and Development
Managers should demonstrate a commitment to corporate social responsibility. It helps them encourage the employees to make use of the company’s CSR policies like volunteering and matched contribution ideas.
If HR conducts the right training for managers, they can explore varied ways to align particular work-based goals with company-wide Corporate Social Responsibility goals. It can be anything from creating marketing campaigns that promote your products and also raise the awareness for sustainability to hosting various customer events that address the issue of gender inequality too.
Managers should be trained more about team-building activities. It can help them approach their teams to participate in any CSR activity, whether it is collecting plastic at the beach or volunteering at a food bank.
Summing Up
There are infinite ways a company can contribute to society, but they all require the contribution of HR to encourage the people that work in an organization. CSR is a people-driven approach that creates authenticity, and this process encourages your employees to stay loyal to your company. If the HR department considers CSR to be a part of the company’s recruiting process, it will create a self-sustaining cycle of corporate social responsibility.
The world can now easily differentiate between a company that genuinely believes in giving back and one that issues a nicely crafted public statement. CSR has to be in your employees’ DNA to have it in the company’s DNA. And that is only possible when HR takes it as a priority to integrate CSR into the company’s culture and values.
