During the economic peak in 2007, it seemed that you could not pick up a newspaper, look at a corporate website, or any other communication medium without being greeted by an article on Corporate Social Responsibility. This terminology became used interchangeably in every day business language. Yet, it appears perhaps from an over simplistic view that many organisations simply paid lip service to what should be a deep rooted commitment and looked the other away when the economic climate got tough.
When the economy started to stagnate so did the number of references to CSR, just at a time when the commitment should have gained more longevity. This tells us that a number of organisations do not truly understand the concept and pin their CSR on a few short term activities that cost money but are not sustainable for the community and do not end up saving their organisation money. It appears that some companies feel they have been socially responsible if they have made a charitable donation. It is evident that as the number of references to CSR has decreased so have charitable donations. Only recently a Cause and Effect article in the Gazette highlighted that charities’ income has severely decreased whilst demand for their services has greatly increased, due to firm’s cutting their charitable donations. CSR is about more than charitable donations. When Corporate Social Responsibility is looked at comprehensively it can and will save an organisation money.
From a Marketing person’s view point CSR should be treated much in the same way as you would treat an organisation’s whole brand – it should filter through every facet of a company to achieve a consist message to stakeholders and ensure employees are working with a common purpose. It will only be successful if you can get your staff to buy in to it by involving them in the decision making. In this way you turn it from the latest buzz terminology to a concept with a translatable meaning.
At Stephensons we are following the Better Business Journey that applies CSR to four main sections People, Premises, Promotion and Purchasing. By following this journey our CSR policy has achieved sustainability in times of reduced economic prosperity that has lead to us generating positive effects in our community and saving our business money. For example, when following the ‘Premises’ part of our journey we have made substantial cost savings by introducing s ‘switch it off policy’ (a short term goal), a number of recycling policies and sourcing a supplier that can recycle a much greater proportion of our waste has been put into practice (a medium term goal). The Carbon Trust has provided us with some goals to work towards in the future that help the environment (a long term goal).
On the ‘People’ leg of our journey, we have introduced a scheme whereby our staff can apply for time in working hours to work on community projects that have long lasting effect in the community. In addition to this we also see the benefit in providing money. But we involve our staff in an activity to raise the money rather than giving money without the forged team spirit that is generated from an activity to raise money. The twilight walk our female staff have completed is a classic example.
As a result of setting a mix of short term, medium and long terms goals, Stephensons has received a morale boost from achieving the ‘quick wins’ but we have not run out of steam because we have set aspirational goals for the future.
Successful CSR is about achieving the right mix of goals and tackling it in a methodical way. The results we have seen will lead us onto the next leg of the journey Promotion.
Corporate Social Responsibility will not turn into stale buzz terminology if businesses take a whole view approach with a range of short to long term goals.