3 Ways To Grow Productivity through CSR
- Claire Cook
- Apr 26, 2016
- 3 min read
Using CSR to grow your team's productivity - benefit your business, your team and your community.
Since joining O3e almost a year ago, I have seen first hand, the incredible impact that socially responsible team building has on all those involved.
Firstly, let's be clear what Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) isn't.
CSR isn’t about just giving money to charity, neither is it about asking your staff to print less emails for the sake of the trees.
Secondly, what is CSR often considered to be?
The most obvious effort made by businesses to meet CSR goals, is the annual volunteering day. While this may be helpful for the charity and may result in your employees feeling good about the day, is it really going far enough for the charity, your business or your employees?
So, what could (& arguably should) CSR look like for your business?
First and foremost, your business exists to make profit. CSR doesn't need to just be a cost to your business - or purely a tick box exercise.
What if, you could exceed your current CSR commitments AND boost your team's productivity, efficiency, communication, satisfaction and retention, as well as learn new skills - All at the same time? You would be interested, right?
Team building that works with Charities is a perfect example of taking CSR to the next level. It also fits nicely into your L&D budget.
The magic combination of the team building activity and the altruistic feelings gained from supporting a charity in a truly useful way, result in extremely impressive levels of employee engagement, retention, satisfaction, and ultimately productivity.
Win, win, win.
Below are our Top 3 suggestions for Charity Inspired Team Building:
1. Charity Bike Build Team Building
Through clear communication and cooperation, your team works together to build bikes, disability trikes and wheelchairs for your chosen charity.
This is a great way to improve on communication, team bonding, planning and collaboration, as team members share the bike building knowledge they each acquire (as part of the event) in order to quickly and effectively build quality assured bikes for charities such as NSPCC, Home-Start, Great Ormond Street Hospital, Teens Unite Fighting Cancer and many more.
2. Get 'On Board' Team Building
Working with Barnardo's NEET's youngsters (Not in Education, Employment or Training), your team get creative and practical, with the task of assembling and art working a skateboard. A young person from the Neet's programme, will have been trained to build the deck for the skateboard - using resin, adhereing the different layers and using a machine to shape and cut the deck.
These decks then get used at the team building event, where your employees finish the build and get creative on the design - working from a brief set by the deck builder. Your young deck builder may even join you at the event. The finished Boards are then donated to the Deck Builder or other children supported by Barnardos.
3. Treasure Quest Team Building
Teams are briefed and set the challenge of solving clues to find the most valuable of treasures. A challenge that is teamed with the NSPCC's Sure Safe project, which supports vulnerable young Care Leavers who are pregnant. The treasure your teams find, are valuable parts of the NSPCC social worker support kits.
And Finally
Aside from the rather amazing benefits already listed above, you'll also earn great PR opportunities, earn super kudos points with employees, remove the 'cringe factor' associated with more traditional team building, and get the opportunity to create a lasting legacy between your business and the charity.
What examples have you got of CSR working really well for both your business, your employees and your community? We would love to hear them via the comments field below.
To find out more about using Team Building and CSR to boost your team's performance and productivity, drop us an email or give us a call now.
Author
Claire Cook, Marketing and Proposition Manager at O3e.
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