Focusing on company values, HR leaders set the tone for an organizational culture that is open to and understands CSR. HR's role as a change agent—grounded in mutual respect, open and honest communication—is essential to educate management and employees about including CSR when setting business goals and objectives.
Three practical steps to promote change regarding CSR are to 1) establish a workable stakeholder consultation process; 2) use the process to understand the local culture (e.g., internal—the workforce—or external— the community) at all stages of implementing CSR; and 3) create a sense of ownership between staff who set up a project and those who implement it.
Globally, CSR has a significant impact on HR management. For example, HR must be aware that effective CSR means respect for cultural and developmental differences and sensitivity to imposing values, ideas and beliefs when establishing global HR policies and programs. Externally, global organizations are publishing mission statements, such as the one below by Shell, to publicly announce their intentions of corporate citizenship, using terms such as "respect" and "cultural differences," and focusing on CSR priorities of diversity, health, safety and equal opportunity.
"We aim to treat everyone with respect. We strive to protect people from harm from our products and operations. We aim to respect and value personal and cultural differences and try to help people realize their potential."
Internally, HR leaders are beginning to take steps regarding CSR by developing and implementing incentives and appraisal systems that reflect citizenship vision and purpose as well as hiring personnel that reflect these traits. For example, research by The Conference Board reveals that 50% of global managers report their companies do, or plan to, include citizenship as a performance communities. Companies will increasingly adopt a comprehensive view of corporate citizenship that includes the environment and community engagement.
Not surprisingly, evidence suggests that companies have a long way to go to clearly demonstrate substantive CSR performance. For example, a global ranking report notes that the world's 100 largest companies have a poor record of accounting for their impact on society and the environment. A range of measures that include strategy, governance and stakeholder involvement show these companies scoring an average of 24 out of 100 points with only five companies scoring more than 50% and only one U.S. Company, Hewlett-Packard, placing among the 10 highest scorers. Further, the level of effort that the worldwide community is putting into the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Declaration goals is less than half the effort necessary to meet any of the goals. Consequently, since the CSR initiatives of most organizations tend to be peripheral and isolated from their core businesses and the initial momentum gained in the past few years appears too disjointed to make a significant impact in the world, the CSR movement must significantly shift gears in order to reach its full potential.
In conclusion, with the growing importance of human capital as a success factor for today's organizations, the role of HR leadership will become evermore critical in leading and educating organizations on the value of CSR and how best to strategically implement CSR policies and programs domestically and abroad.
