While corporate play a vital role in any nation’s overall growth and development, human resource in any organization is a chief player in helping the company achieve its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) objectives.
If the basic fundamentals of human resource of any company are in place, it can help in fostering a high-performance CSR organization. As the human resource of an organization, the HR professionals should primarily focus on these core areas:
Promote a Culture of Social Responsibility
HR professionals are responsible for creating a culture of change and responsibility in any organization. They should create an environment fostering social responsibilities in every employee individually. As such, the younger employees who are excited about new corporate social responsibility initiatives should be selected for the purpose. A set of highly enthusiastic and committed employees would facilitate recognition programs and friendly competition.
Also, HR professionals should encourage social and community connections among the employees to help their companies in meaningful ways with the society. Through events like company matches for charitable contributions, corporate sponsorship events, and community programs, etc., employers can connect with their employees and the community.
Foster Green Practices for Corporate Social Responsibility
An organization is like an entire community with thousands of individuals associated with it. If each employee understands and abides with their responsibility towards the environment, it can play a major role in protecting the earth.
HR professionals, therefore, should implement green practices among their workforce to assist in environmental waste diminution, better corporate ethics, promoting stewardship growth and long-lasting practices aimed at improving both personal and corporate accountability.
Don’t you think that minimizing each employee’s carbon footprint can be a great way of recycling waste initiatives and getting energy conservation off the ground?
Rejoice Successes
Celebrations can play a significant role in bringing close various communities across the globe. Same applies to the corporate culture.
In order to sustain the momentum of any CSR program, celebrating success is vital. You can give real meaning to these programs by connecting company leaders, and appreciate the success of these initiatives.
In addition, by publicizing about these successes, HR professionals can create a mutual understanding of the various cultures within each region that the organization serves. This will help the local population of the area know that the company is an active participant in local issues and not only committed to providing jobs.
Key Roles Performed by an HR as a Part of Corporate Social Responsibility
In order to determine the roles performed by an HR as a part of Corporate Social Responsibility, one must first understand what Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) actually stands for. CSR is what humanizes a corporate workplace.
From being ethical to giving it back to the team members, the community and society as a whole, CSR ensures that the company operates ethically while aiming for those economic goals. Philanthropy, environmental sustainability, community engagement, and ethical labor practices all come under CSR activities.
CSR ensures that an enterprise adheres to certain practices and ethics while attaining its organizational aspirations. From taking care of stakeholders to social and environmental norms, CSR objectives ensure that an organization reaches the pinnacle of success all the while adhering to sustainability principles and social responsibilities.
An HR is expected to integrate CSR goals with strategic business decisions, work policies and official practices. This leads to long term benefits for key stakeholders, enhanced reputation, improved brand equity, risk mitigation, as well as accomplishment of important societal goals (social injustice, poverty alleviation, environmental conservation and so on).
Key Roles of an HR in CSR Initiatives
1. Focusing on collaborations and strategic partnerships
Building key partnerships is a complete non-negotiable for any enterprise. HRs play a significant role in developing external partnerships as well as strategic collaborations with major stakeholders such as NGOs, community professionals and government agencies.
HR professionals are expected to make the most out of their networks and go ahead to identify significant opportunities for strategic alliances. Also, HRs focus on joint initiatives that further align with CSR goals, thereby enhancing the social impact of the partnership.
An HR’s job is to add to the reputation as well as the credibility of the enterprise. The idea is to portray the company as a socially responsible entity that gives back to the community by working together with major stakeholders.
2. Keeping a tab on performance management
HR professionals alone cannot fulfill all CSR objectives to the fullest extent. That’s where employees step in.
A major role of the HRs is to integrate CSR metrics into performance management systems as well as evaluate and analyze employee contributions towards CSR objectives.
But how does an HR do that?
They start with setting clear expectations and also define key performance indexes or KPIs. Offering detailed feedback and recognizing significant efforts related to CSR-related activities also do the trick.
An HR is also required to work closely with other departments to assess the effect of employee performance on CSR initiatives. HRs also keep a tab on overall company success, engagement, and employee expectations, and thereby maintain a smooth balance among all the participants.
3. Engaging employees and team members
In order to encourage employees to contribute towards CSR objectives, it is important to make them feel as an integral part of the organization. Also, the HR is accountable for instilling a sense of belongingness, ownership and responsibility among all the company employees.
HRs generally organize sustainability workshops, employee-oriented CSR projects as well as volunteer opportunities to ensure maximum engagement and participation. It is also the responsibility of an HR to train and educate employees around CSR principles and objectives. HRs actively educate employees and help them with necessary skills so that they can cater to CSR objectives.
4. Building relevant CSR policies and practices
An HR plays a crucial role in developing as well as implementing CSR policies and frameworks within the company. Drafting codes of conduct, sustainability policies and ethical guidelines are direct responsibilities of HR professionals.
HR professionals also have to work together with legal teams to make sure that the CSR policies and regulations go hand in hand with the existing norms and standards of the land.
5. Recruiting and managing deserving candidates
One of the most significant roles of an HR professional is to attract the right candidates and talents to the company. While screening and hiring the candidates, the HR professionals are required to keep in mind whether or not they match up with the overall CSR objectives of the organization. The focus should be on hiring deserving candidates who have a knack for ethical business policies, eco-sustainability and social responsibility. Also, an HR department must build a team of employees that values social impact, diversity, and inclusion.
6. Employee well-being and work-life balance
CSR is intertwined closely with employee well-being and their work-life balance. HR professionals therefore must come up with flexible work arrangements, wellness programs as well as enriching support services to take care of the employees’ physical, emotional and mental wellbeing. The HR should demonstrate their commitment towards social responsibility and employee welfare, thereby enhancing employee retention, satisfaction and productivity.
7. Ethical sourcing and supplier diversity
Another key role performed by an HR professional is to ensure that all the suppliers and vendors stick to sustainable and ethical practices. This helps in establishing fair labor practices, ethical business conduct and eco-sustainability. To attain this conveniently, HR professionals can carry out regular ethical sourcing audits as well as implement supplier diversity programs.
8. Aligning organizational goals with CSR objectives
Generally, there is a huge gap between the organizational objectives and CSR goals in any company. However, it is the HR who is responsible for bridging that gap between CSR objectives and company targets. HR professionals work hard day and night to blend together organizational goals, vision and mission with CSR values. To do this, HR professionals work closely with senior leaders within the company to identify key strategies as to how CSR objectives can be aligned with company and stakeholder goals.
Difficulties Faced in Instilling CSR Objectives Through HR Professionals
Your HR may come across certain difficulties in aligning CSR goals with company targets. Instead of avoiding or running away from them, it is better for an HR person to address these challenges and work towards overcoming them proactively.
Below mentioned are some of the most common challenges faced by an HR in integrating CSR goals into daily business operations:
1. Cultural and organizational roadblocks
More often than not, traditional or hierarchical organizations pose a barrier to the effective implementation of corporate social responsibilities. In such cases, HR can tackle the situation by instilling a sense of collaboration, transparency and accountability to support CSR efforts. To facilitate this, HR can recognize as well as reward CSR-oriented efforts and offer constructive feedback as well as creative ideas to promote CSR objectives. Cross-functional engagement and active collaboration also help to blend CSR efforts with organizational operations and practices.
2. Budget constraints and inadequate resources
Budget constraints and inadequate resources often put all the CSR objectives on the back burner! Practicality takes over, and only the “prioritized” operations are completed. To combat this situation, an HR must come up with ways to maximize the effect of CSR practices by making the most out of the limited resources. This can be done by encouraging employee volunteerism as well as teaming up with external organizations. An HR can also promote the idea of dedicated budget allocation for CSR objectives. To back up this idea, HR must focus on the long-term returns of CSR initiatives.
3. Evaluation difficulties
Corporate Social Responsibility is a complicated thing and has a multifaceted nature. That’s exactly why, sometimes, it may get extremely difficult to manage the efficacy of CSR objectives. However, without apt evaluation and analysis all the CSR efforts can go in vain.
HR should start with identifying clear objectives around CSR goals. They must focus on specific metrics and key performance indicators or KPIs to evaluate the effect of CSR efforts and activities. To achieve this, HRs should set specific goals in the form of tangible outcomes. They must also eye certain benchmarks for success. HR professionals achieve this by consistent evaluation of CSR efforts and gathering relevant data. External frameworks can also prove to be quite handy in such a situation.
4. Striking the right balance between business priorities and CSR goals
Sometimes, it is the organizational operations and financial priorities that serve as the biggest roadblock to CSR objectives and efforts. To overcome such a situation, HR professionals must focus on aligning CSR goals and business targets. The HR can tactfully identify those CSR activities and objectives that successfully create a social impact without compromising the business goals of the organization. Strategic and balanced resource allocation will also help relieve the tension to some extent. HR professionals should actively promote CSR efforts while focusing on the long-term benefits to the enterprise.
5. Doubts, aversion and lack of enthusiasm
Another major hurdle to CSR efforts can be the initial aversion and skepticism from senior leaders as well as employees. They may see this as too cumbersome or altogether unnecessary. In that case, an HR will be responsible for instilling a sense of awareness as well as helping others understand the long term advantages of CSR efforts on business. A crystal clear, seamless communication system, as well as constant recognition and appreciation of employees for their CSR achievements, help to evade resistance.
Conclusion
Therefore, if CSR of any organization is tackled properly by its HR professionals, they can make a big difference to their business as well as the wider world, too.
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