Becoming Socially Responsible: A Guide
- Peter and the team at O3e
- Feb 6, 2018
- 6 min read
Becoming Socially responsible in an authentic way, which genuinely benefits your chosen cause or charity, and is naturally supported by your business model, is the key to success......
What is Social Responsibility?
Social responsibility is an ethical framework a business chooses to operate within, whereby it has an obligation as a company and at an individual level, to maintain a balance between profit and activities that benefit society.
Social responsibility within companies, is now well known as Corporate Social Responsibility 'CSR' and is present in almost every business you will encounter, but to varying degrees, with varying levels of impact and authenticity.
From companies holding cake sales to support that year's chosen charity, to companies selecting causes with values inline with their own business goals and purpose, building their support into their business, HR and marketing plans. This level of CSR integration offers the most authentic approach and the most benefits for both business and cause.
There are some fantastic examples of CSR being fully incorporated into a business model and with huge success. One such case study, is TOMS.
Alternatively, skip below, straight to our "Advice on how to get your own kick-arse CSR strategy and successfully launch it".
Case Study: TOMS
TOMS has a 'one for one' commitment, whereby for every pair of shoes you buy, they will donate a pair to a child in need. So successful was their approach, that it has now rolled out across glasses, bags/maternity projects, and coffee/clean water.
While this is a fantastic marketing tool (and obviously a great social initiative), it goes much further than that. The very essence of supporting these communities stretches beyond marketing and shoes, with a commitment to produce at least 1/3rd of the 'giving shoes' in the country they are being donated.
There is a genuine CSR business model, to engage the communities at every point of the TOMS business model.
Their product development approach is key to their CSR initiatives offering genuine and authentic support to communities. By referring to UN Statistics and Sustainable development goals, they identify problems and then set about creating a product to address the problem.
For example, the launch of their TOMS Bags was in response to this identified problem:
"Infection is a leading cause of death for mothers and newborns worldwide. By providing clean birth conditions and skilled attendants, nearly half a million of lives can be saved"
(SOURCE: UNFPA & EVERY NEWBORN ACTION PLAN, 2014)
So, sales of TOMS bags provide financial support to their 'Giving Partners' in delivering the vital materials and training needed to help provide a safer birth, regardless of the facility.
TOMS isn't perfect however, and its mistakes offer us valuable insight too. Employee satisfaction and retention is usually statistically much higher in fully engage CSR organisations, with greater levels of staff retention and advocacy, which obviously is great news. Unfortunately for TOMS, their rapid growth appears to have had a damaging effect on staff loyalty, with comments on a disjoin between upper management and 'workers'. 'Workers' love the ethos and social goals but feel ignored, unvalued and unengaged directly with the social impact. There are however 'giving' weeks awarded to employees at various stages of their employment, so TOMS is on to something there, but there is more to be done. Employees after all, can be your best advocates.
What makes a kick-arse CSR Strategy?
So what have we learned?
That the best, most successful and authentic CSR programmes are:
- authentic and embedded throughout your business model, across production, marketing, business development and HR
- that your employees are purposefully engaged with your CSR programme, with the opportunity to input and feedback
- that you meet a genuine need in an authentic way
What makes an terrible CSR Strategy?
CSR programmes should never be:
- lip service
- one hit wonders
- only about promotion
We have a Charity but I wouldn't say we have a CSR 'Strategy'!
Don't worry, you're not alone. The great bit is that you are already supporting a good cause in some way. Now you just need to get better at it!
So how to launch your new or enhanced CSR Programme
1. Get Creative to find the right solution
Talk to your charity and spend time with them - both at management and employee levels. Understand how your charity works, the people it supports and what type of support they most need. Then get creative with your employees, in coming up with ideas on how you can support your charity. If you're really creative, you'll find ways in which your business model can naturally adapt to support your charity, in a way that genuinely works for you both.
For example, can you offer work experience or apprenticeships to teenagers and young adults with learning disabilities or who are part of social inclusion projects. Alternatively, if your charity needs cash for a project, could you sponsor and host a fundraising event for them, to build awareness in the local community and to facilitate access to suppliers who can help to deliver their project. Perhaps you can offer some pro-bono services to your chosen charity, such as free legal advice.
"But we don't have a charity yet!" - No fear - read our handy guide on how to choose the right charity for you!
2. Clear and engaging communications
Once you are agreed on the most appropriate type of support, you need some awesome communications drawn up to educate and engage your organisation from bottom to top. Think about how you communicate - not just what you communicate. Another 'circular' is not going to cut it, and you may end up just paying 'lip service'.
Don't be afraid to spend some money on third party support, if you do not have an internal communications department.
3. Launch!
Launching your new CSR approach effectively, is key to genuine employee engagement and interest level. Unless you're a very small company, it would have been impossible to have involved all of your employees at stage 1, so an exciting launch event is key to engaging with the rest of your workforce, and making the best use of the awesome communications you have prepared at stage 2.
To justify business costs, combine this CSR launch event with other key business objectives and results etc that need to be communicated.
Depending on the charity you are supporting and the type of support you wish to provide, you may find a CSR team building event is the perfect way to engage your team in both the charity and business objectives.
For example, if you are supporting a grassroots disability sports charity, then a Sports Wheelchair Challenge would be a fantastic and fun way to engage your employees directly with your charity and the people it supports. You get hands on with the wheelchairs while building them and then taking on challenges in the wheelchairs, such as boccia, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair racing. Creating genuine empathy and connection with the people you are supporting, whilst having fun.
This level of engagement creates the best results and triggers further creative ideas for how your business can work in synergy to support your charity.
This is just one example of a CSR team event, offering an exciting launch approach to your CSR strategy. If you want more ideas, you might like to take a look at these case studies:
I don't know where to start!
If you have read all this and would like a helping hand, then there are lots of companies who can help. At O3e our skills lie in years of experience of effective CSR team engagement events, plus we have long standing and active relationships with many many charities across the UK and beyond. This means we can offer great advice and insight on matching you to a suitable charity. In fact, all of our CSR team building events are created to meet a specifically identified need of one or more charities.
Email or call us on 0330 113 7170 for a chat, and to see if we can help.
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