Communicating your CSR - Donnchadh O’ Neill offers his views
Friday, February 04, 2011
Many clients come to us for advice around corporate social responsibility – Donnchadh O’ Neill offers his views on the importance of CSR, how it should permeate an organisation and communicating CSR activity appropriately.
The last few years have seen a sea change in the attitudes of business towards what was once a vague, stuffy and nuisance term – Corporate Social Responsibility. CSR has emerged from the shadows of marginal interest, the footnotes of Annual Reports and a life of budgetary afterthought to become a living, breathing presence at boardroom tables, a central player in strategic visions and a real contributor to the upward fortunes of many of our top companies and organisations throughout the world.
The really interesting thing about CSR though is that despite all these advances it is still truly in its infancy and not universally well understood. Its application is ad-hoc. For every Chief Executive receiving plaudits at case-study conventions worldwide for their ground-breaking CSR programme there are a hundred senior managers scratching their heads and wondering “How can we make this work for us?” and most critically “Why can’t we find out more about this?”
CSR is a highly individual pursuit. There is no centrally downloadable template for all businesses to follow and the term itself infuriatingly defies official definition. However, for those practitioners who “get it”, the eureka moment rings clear and true, and for observers who recognise a good programme in action the feeling of “That just works” is equally unmissable.
Companies have to be careful to choose the right sort of CSR pursuits for themselves. They should look at their fabric of their own business, at their local community, the skills they have to offer and find out where they can make a difference. The best programmes inevitably see a company addressing a social issue to which the solution lies within their gift.
The programme then needs to be pro-active, planned, calendarised and measurable. It is vital to have a designated person, reporting at board level within the organisation, who is responsible for the programme and to resource it like any company priority. It should not be viewed as a dispensable, discretionary item that can be switched on and off at will in light of current circumstances. It should be in the sinews of the organisation. Anything less and it will be seen for the lip service or even cynical manoeuvre it probably is.
One thing that is becoming most clear is that business needs CSR. It is required for its impact on the bottom line, brand differentiation, customer loyalty, and increasingly in a competitive labour market, for employee attraction and retention. This in turn impacts on performance and the bottom line and so on.
Recent US research in the crucial under-25 age group found that 89% are more likely to switch brands if linked positively to a cause, and 83% trust a company more if they know it to be socially responsible. 79% of these young workers said they want to be in a company that “cares about and contributes to society”, while 56% would refuse to work for an irresponsible corporation. So in these recessionary times there is an even stronger business argument for a CSR programme.
Just like choosing the right CSR programme, the manner of its communication is extremely important. It is so much more than big-cheque photo-op, old school PR. Nothing will scream “spin” more than seeking public acclaim for an isolated charitable donation. The communication of a company’s CSR credentials also has to be embedded in the DNA of the organisation and accessible at all times to the audiences that care – consumers, customers, employees, suppliers and local residents before the wider “public” is even considered.
The website should be the first port of call with clear statement of principles, objectives, points of contact and updates on progress. For brand companies, package messaging will resonate strongest with the consumer audience. “Virtual” packaging like banks’ ATM screens serve a similar purpose. Informational mailshots to local communities about resources or opportunities they can access are a million miles away from junk mail or cheap advertising.
Only once these fundamentals are in place and your credentials stand up to investigation should the general public be bothered. After that, sound communications management and the age-old journalistic rules of a compelling story, cause and effect, will ensure you can achieve the right sort of publicity without the perilous pitfalls. And if you’re wondered about whether you should be doing it, be certain of one thing – you’ll be left behind if you don’t. Welcome to frontier territory folks, it’s the battle for hearts as well as wallets and only the virtuous will survive. What an appealing prospect.