- Don’t skimp on fully understanding the business case
Companies adopt CR strategies for a multitude of reasons ranging from preventing tighter legislation to enhancing their employer brand, improve retention through to cost control and building customer loyalty.
It’s important to understand which of these are the most relevant for your organisation, articulating this in simple terms and obtaining senior level involvement from the outset.
It's important to note, particularly for multinationals that CR is often viewed (and even named) differently from country to country due to changes in culture, laws, customs and norms and their impact on enforcing/promoting certain responsibilities around specific issues.
- Do focus on what makes money
Historically it was acceptable to think of CR as the redistribution of a small percentage of profit to a worthwhile cause. The focus has now firmly shifted to the business end, i.e. how does the firm make its money? What resources are used to achieve this? What third party relationships (customers, suppliers, public sector bodies etc) does it depend on to do this?
- Don’t fail to engage with stakeholders
It's important not to build an issues register in isolation and it's both healthy and more credible to engage with stakeholders early on in the process. These may include industry bodies, relevant NGOs, government, staff, unions, existing and potential customer groups etc. A broad definition of a stakeholder is a group who is affected by/or can affect the organisation and/or its activities. In the case of one of our clients it is the local residents who complain about car parking issues.
Stakeholder engagement can provide excellent business insights and opportunities for business development. It's generally recommended that stakeholder engagement occurs at least once a year and some companies maintain constant stakeholder dialogue.
- Do get buy-in from the top
Obviously senior management needs to be behind any CR programme. Doing this may require both capacity building and internal lobbying but without senior endorsement, a CR programme will lack bite.
While engaging at this level it will be important to identify how a business’s overall vision, mission and strategic goals either complement or create tension when it comes to achieving CR management objectives. Key deal makers and breakers (when it comes to implementing a CR programme) will also need to be engaged with at this point.
Don’t forget to prioritise
So often, the combination of stakeholder demands and the exhaustive list of CR topics can create a somewhat daunting list of CR management tasks. In today’s turbulent economic times, it's important to prioritise those that are most important.
Commonly, risk assessment processes can be used to do this, but this may miss out those areas that may provide new business opportunities or competitive advantage. It's useful to articulate at this point what your corporate responsibilities are not and why. In short, doing a few things well is far better than doing everything badly.
- Do put in place the CR strategy
If the CR strategy is to be separate from that of the organisation’s then it will need to have its own identity and set of operating principles, and a senior team responsible for its implementation.
The CR strategy should be mapped against existing business practices and processes to identify where tactical elements can be best integrated and where additional resource will need to be found. The development of internal controls should also occur, where their absence may lead to deviation from achieving the strategy.
- Do embed
Embedding CR into the way an organisation transacts its business is probably one of the areas where companies currently struggle the most and the area where the role and understanding or HR is the most important.
CR training, integration of CR matters into relevant competency frameworks, reward and change management approaches are all required if the responsibilities are to live and breathe alongside the business on a daily basis.
- Don’t be afraid of measurements
Developing appropriate key performance indicators (both to the business and to stakeholder expectations) is essential to tracking the progress of a business against its medium and short-term CR objectives and targets.
Many clients we deal with shy away from measurements related to HR, but we are keen to advocate wherever possible a fair and equitable system that allows value added to be quantified. Typical measures we use include absence rate, staff turnover, cost per hire, time per hire and internal promotions/external hires. These can be linked to CR in terms of improving retention, attraction and employee engagement.
- Don’t skip the review stage
Secure the commitment from the internal audit team and include CR elements into the audit schedule. It's also worth doing this to a recognised standard that you may then wish to measure yourself against using a third party. In my previous career before HR I was an internal auditor-perhaps that’s where I began to love measures!
- Do communicate at all levels
It's important to provide a regular update to stakeholders of your CR performance and activities. Commonly this is done annually and in conjunction with the annual report and accounts.
The form this may take and the tone of the communication will depend or your appetite for creativity, the branding strategy you have for your CR programme and the intended audience. Many organisations are becoming more comfortable with the use of webinars and podcasts, whilst some produce DVDs in order to make this information more digestible and more accessible.
Assuring the audience that the information is both credible and relevant requires the involvement of a third party at this stage. The use of third party assurance adds credibility and transparency to the communication and reduces unwelcome criticism that the work is simply public relations by another name.
