Why Social Responsibility Matters for Today’s Business

How Businesses Should Embrace Social Responsibility: The Tipping Point for Clear Future

Businesses should realize that #CSR?or corporate social responsibility is not about hype. In fact, being socially responsible across your company channels and activities is a subject of great responsibility by itself. CSR is way more than just inundating your social media profiles with post of empty rhetoric. Let's walk the talk instead, making a long-lasting social impact for future generations with CSR-driven employees and top management.

Why CSR matters in today’s ever-changing world

Sad but true, the social and environmental issues are indeed numerous and great and can’t be overcome at once. For businesses, I think there is no better step to start with than?employee well-being. Here is where all the essential CSR initiatives may commence.

With unprecedented rates of employee unfulfillment, mental health issues, there is something company owners need to do for their teams. It’s not all about money or extra bonuses only, but rather about moral support, encouragement, and appreciation. Feeling bored and unfulfilled at work among employees is a real pressing problem for any industry.

Even before the pandemic, increasing societal issues led to nervous breakdowns as people felt desperate, lost, and disengaged in their working places. As?Dr. Ichak Adizes?once elegantly put it: “To be functionally effective, one must serve the purpose of serving something or someone else.” By analogy to their lifestyle, people can scratch their heads with a pen instead of writing with it. In this case, however, the pen doesn’t serve its purpose at its best.

When we speak about the things that bring people some sort of fulfillment, we usually think of such moments like winning the race, signing a deal, changing a place of work, or receiving a new salary. But all these examples are literally the moments passing by in the blink of an eye. True fulfillment is when you get the balanced reward and support and help others in return. This really holds true as I am sure all your good friends and colleagues are those who you always help greatly and genuinely. And vice versa, they are always ready to help you out with any problems you might have at work or in everyday life. These somewhat simplified examples give us stark insights into the very essence of corporate social responsibility. Now, let the facts speak for themselves to realize how important it is to help and support each other at work.

Latest facts and leader opinions on CSR issues

If you take a quick sneak peek at the most recent reports and research papers, you will see that businesses have understood the importance of CSR initiatives. Along with ESG (environmental, social, and government) programs and sustainability efforts, CSR is what most B2C and B2B companies start focusing on nowadays.

According to?McKinsey Global Survey, 56% of business-to-business and 66% of business-to-customer companies are confident that social programs create shared value for their organizations and investors. Most respondents are sure that the strategies for improving corporate social responsibility are here to stay as they have the long-term value that keeps growing.

Statista?reveals that robust CSR programs meet customer expectations with a brand or a product. This said, around 70% of customers in France have a positive attitude towards the corporate social responsibility approach. The mere fact that businesses start thinking and caring about the people they hire and serve can greatly affect their customer loyalty.

Deloitte?has recently shared the most insightful interview on corporate social responsibility with Lord Stephen Green, UK Minister for Trade and Investment. In the article, the honorable guest highlighted the importance of CSR strategies and emphasized the proactive role of CEOs and business leaders in raising awareness for social causes among employees, customers and communities.

“Corporate social responsibility is not some kind of appendage that has to do with the philanthropic budget. It is the very essence of what the business is about and needs to be thought of as such in terms of the governance and the culture that the leaders are responsible for maintaining within the company.” -?Lord Stephen Green

In its turn, the team of?Rocket Social Impact?took a deep dive into the consequences of COViD-19 for social responsibility initiatives in organizations. The facts unveiled are quite impressive as on contrast of the pandemic It has had a positive impact on the CSR plan development. Over 60% of respondents report that they are identifying a whole new range of social issues to tackle over the next few years.

With what being said above, there is a growing number of companies that push the adoption of corporate social responsibility models forward, and it’s still counting in 2022.

Driving CSR commitment that benefits all

We should keep in mind that corporate social responsibility is a common cause for all stakeholders. Integrating CSR practices across business operations requires extensive involvement of top management, various company departments, and individual employees.

How companies can contribute to CSR

CEOs can make a great deal of social impact by leveraging their influence to spread and propel CSR ideas and projects. A forward-thinking business leader is just the right person who defines and initiates environmental and social activities within their organization. There is also a CSR engagement team needed to support the cause. For a quick and easy start, the CSR team might comprise volunteers with a proactive mindset and lots of enthusiasm to turn all the ideas into reality.

Much like in business development, the importance of social responsibility must be clearly explained across employees. Your internal CSR awareness campaign can be realized through a number of topical webinars, online & offline talks and discussions with visiting business visionaries, interactive presentations of CSR use cases, just to name a few. Here, the analogy with a classic marketing funnel is quite plausible, I believe.

When done right, the CSR strategy guides your employees through all the stages, namely awareness, consideration, conversion (not purchase in our case, but rather self-confidence), and finally, loyalty and advocacy. Speaking in terms of building a solid CSR strategy, employees become aware of global social and environmental trends. They realize why it is important to introduce best CSR practices inside and outside their organization and how they actually can contribute to creating the overall social impact.

How employees can contribute to CSR

In their own turn, employees should play an active role in promoting and establishing the ideas of social and environmental responsibility. In today’s unprecedented times, a bottom-up initiative is viable option to push forward the CSR ideas within companies to do smarter decisions and progressive flows. To begin with, employees can start engaging their teammates to create a passionate group of like-minded people ready to take socially driven action.

The next great step is to engage your top management through a series of joint panel discussions and meetings, and in-person communication. However, it should not be all about demanding your social rights and privileges as one might think. Employees should rather persuade their C-suite with vibrant opportunities the CSR approach could give to the entire company reputation, customer loyalty, and investment attractiveness. The odds are, a word to the wise is enough. Tell them about the CSR benefits, and I’m sure you can easily build up a sound plan together with your boss to usher in a new era of social responsibility.

Creating long-lasting social impact: Final thoughts

We are set to live in a modern digitalized world, continuously scrolling and scanning a massive amount of information and breaking news. However, it could bring us just a spur-of-the-moment excitement as true fulfillment doesn’t come easily. This is why it is high time for every company, every leader of the company, and every employee to open up for possibilities of social responsibility and help others. All of us have everything required to do so—time and energy. From more simple matters, such as sharing what you learned while reading a book— to more important things like helping poor communities, orphans, and the unprivileged. Start out with small steps, connect your friends and teammates to make a significant social or environmental impact together!