HR & Corporate Social Responsibility: Using CSR to Enhance Employee Engagement and Deliver HR Objectives.

Jane Fiona Cumming, Director of Article 13 – the specialists in business responsibility – chaired the recent conference on HR & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) run by Symposium Events in London.

The conference, “HR & Corporate Social Responsibility: Using CSR to Enhance Employee Engagement and Deliver HR Objectives”, brought together HR professionals from a broad range. There is a growing overlap between human resource management and CSR and it is becoming increasingly important for HR professionals to take a leading role in both planning and implementing CSR strategies and in turn using CSR to deliver their own HRM objectives.

Jane Fiona opened the conference by putting forward the proposition that people are the ‘DNA’ of an organisation and a key source of competitive edge in today’s knowledge-based environment. When CSR is embedded in mainstream business strategy, therefore, it becomes a mechanism for unlocking human potential. By helping to enhance corporate reputation and build pride and shared values, CSR contributes to an organisation’s ability to attract and retain the best people. By promoting new ways of looking at risk and opportunity, CSR can develop better knowledge sharing across all levels of an organisation.

Other speakers throughout the day added to the debate. Representatives of Accenture, BSkyB, Citigroup and Royal Mail Group presented case studies of their companies’ CSR activities and how they deliver benefits and the key role of HR in enabling their success. Accenture, for example, has found that its two staff volunteering programmes – Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP) and Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) – bring core business benefits in terms of recruitment (differentiator on campuses), retention of high performers (employee satisfaction), skills development (stretch roles) and improved brand/image (enhanced brand, press coverage and awards). Nicholas J Higgins, Dean of The International School of Human Capital, then challenged his listeners to ask themselves whether CSR and HR could really mix.

When asked about her impressions of the conference and what participants would take away with them, Jane Fiona said, “The link between HR - an increasingly business critical function – and successful CSR programmes lies in absolute clarify. Clarity of roles, objectives, what’s in it for the employees and what’s in it for the business. The two roles are different, but increasingly linked and, where successful, linked to organisational impacts and objectives.”
To find out more about how you can benefit by integrating CSR into your business strategy, visit www.article13.com.
Copyright Article 13 – July 2007
Article 13 are specialist advisors in governance, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable development. We develop policy and strategy through the use of research and engagement to deliver innovation, governance and organisational responsibility. We typically help companies, governments and academic institutions to meet the growing pressure for better performance, whether it is social, environmental, ethical or economic.