Module 7: Corporate Social Responsibility

• Overview
• Getting Started
• Options for Action
• Advancing Your CSR Program
• Resources and Case Studies

Advancing Your CSR Program

Educate and engage employees

• Involve employees in the process. Get employee input on which CSR areas and projects are important to them. Initial employee input will increase employee interest throughout the project and make implementation less difficult.
• Provide employees with information on goals. Make the goals for the project clear and available to employees. Post information in the office and put it in any office publications. Update progress towards goals regularly to motivate continued interest in the program.
• Educate employees on their roles and benefits from the CSR project. Along with information on the project goals, make it clear to the employees why the project is important and what parts they are to play in its successful implementation.

Monitor and track progress

• Track measurements regularly. Check the indicators you have chosen for reporting regularly against your predicted progress. Regular measurements will help determine if there is any need to modify plans and make the implementation of those modifications more effective.
• Compare measurements to goals. Compare your measurements periodically to goals and determine if your goals are either too ambitious or not ambitious enough. Use these comparisons to decide if you should make more progressive goals or lower goals to make sure you are able to meet them in a timely manner.

Communicate results

• Update employees, management, shareholders, and stakeholders regularly of your progress. Mention progress and goals achieved in meetings on all levels of the company and also in regular financial publications to gain support for continued CSR strategies. Also, be sure to communicate your accomplishments to the community and potential customers.
• Publish a CSR report. Treat your sustainability report as you would a financial report. It should be published at regular intervals and openly discuss the progress and objectives of the company’s sustainability initiatives.

Maintain the program

• Assign program tasks to personnel. Assigning specific responsibilities for maintaining the program will prevent the CSR program from being overlooked and maintain continuity of the project elements.
• Keep a long-term commitment to CSR. Make CSR a part of your corporate strategy and culture. This commitment will ensure the program does not get pushed aside, but will continue to be a priority for continual improvement.

Modify the program

• Adjust goals to capabilities. Keep your goals challenging but not impossible. Make changes to your goals if you find the effort expended will be disproportionate to the expected results and outcomes.
• Change the project as needs and opportunities arise. Look for new areas or possibilities as you carry out your program, and be wiling to act on those opportunities.

Expand the program

• Continue to add new elements. Corporate social responsibility is more than a one-time project—it is an ongoing process that will take on new elements over time as you become more comfortable with the program and it becomes part of the corporate culture.
• Follow successful projects with more ambitious projects. Use the success of projects to help launch the next set of projects. Continue to increase the scale of projects as you succeed with smaller projects and build the confidence of your employees.
• Plan for long-term projects after initial successes. Your successful initial projects should provide a good example for how future success can be achieved. Use these cases to convince management and employees that longer-range projects are worthwhile, and begin to implement these new plans.