Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is considered as an essential part of business language and practice because it is critical to many of the theorists and is continually consistent with what the public expects of the business community today. The businessmen’s decisions and actions show a direct economic or technical impact in the society.
CSR began as a philanthropic activity where organizations contributed to social causes; but it was gaining importance and becoming an essential activity for business. Gradually, CSR become an important feature in business philosophy. The subject of CSR gained importance ever since the government rules made it mandatory. The society reacts to a company’s CSR activities in multiple ways, by not just buying more products, but by enacting other stakeholder behaviour, such as seeking employment with the company and investing in the company. The CSR activities are to be selected in such a manner that the benefits reach the smallest unit i.e., village, panchayat, block or district depending upon the operations and resource capability of the company.
The basic approach is simple: Figure out what you do best. Listen to your customers or clients. Engage your team. Measure and publish results. Let’s get started:
• Identify your company’s strengths. Any time you build a team or set a goal, you need to make sure you have the needed resources to support that team or achieve that goal, right? Your company may have a rock-solid logistics background, or a great communication team, or creative and clever engineering resources. Figure out what strengths you can lean on as you build out this new part of your organization.
Know what your customers or clients value. And if you don’t know, ask them. Since a major goal of CSR is to improve your company’s reputation with your audience, investing in things that your audience doesn’t care about is like shooting yourself in the foot. Figure out what issues matter to them — such as education, the environment, or health and wellness — and develop in that particular area.
Do kindly engage your employees. A CSR strategy will only succeed if the people executing it on a day-to-day basis believe in it, too; a bunch of corporate jargon will only get you so far. Draft mid- and low-level employees to your internal CSR engagement team, and tap into their ideas, enthusiasm and feedback to build a sound strategy. They’ll then go out and engage the rest of your team.
Also, whatever you’ve decided to focus on, set up metrics that will let you know just how well you’re doing, and incorporate the results into communications like annual reports, press conferences or your website’s “about us” section. Make sure the framework you use for metrics captures the various parts of a CSR strategy, from employee buy-in and satisfaction levels to community impact to reputation contributions.
Bottomline: Go Forth And Seek CSR
As you build your CSR strategy, keep the above four guiding principles in mind. It doesn’t matter the size of your team, the amount of money you have to work with or the industry you’re in. Find the corporate social responsibility plan that works for you and your team; execute it, and enjoy the benefits. We can help at CSR Reporters. Send us email: enquiries@csrreporters.com
