Corporate Social Responsibility and Human Resource Management

Introduction

Picture 1: Corporate Social Responsibility
Source: (Visual Factories, 2020)

As a result of globalization companies are expanding overseas, when companies are global, an important challenge in bringing success is to respect other cultures and workforce environments, and start forming a global profile or social consciousness. Identifying these differences with a good Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) plan can enhance shareholder value, improve employee engagement and increase employer brand recognition (Lokhadwala, 2019). CSR is an integrated approach that encompasses social and environmental concerns in their business operations and their relationship with internal and external stakeholders voluntarily (Hopkins, 2006).

In today’s competitive environment organizations increasingly engage in addressing social, environmental or, green issues to build their reputation as responsible corporate citizens. HR departments engage in managing the CSR plan implementation and monitoring, and communicating its success throughout the company (Lokhadwala, 2019).

HR technologies can help CSR programs in the following ways.

• Encourage green practices

Implementing green practices has become increasingly important in today’s context in the means of making our planet healthier.

HR Department can host practices to enhance the environment waste reduction in the workplace such as promote brown-bagging to reduce packaging waste, recycle paper, cans, and bottles in the office, collect donations for victims of disasters around the globe, and inspire reduced energy consumption (Lokhadwala, 2019).

• Adapt a Culture of Corporate Social Responsibility

The responsibility of creating a cultural change starts with HR. Recruiting a committed set of employees who are environmentally conscious,  and who infuse enthusiasm about initiatives of CSR is a great way to begin with.

In the recent past unethical behavior of financial institutions that took an unacceptably high risk, contributed to the global financial crisis. These organizations have failed employees, and the public who have kept on trusting them, and the failures enhanced the culture of mistrust around the corporate world (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2019).

CSR can rehabilitate the employer brand by defeating the image that corporates are solely profit focus. Furthermore, good CSR practices can enhance trust within the existing employees by providing stable income, lifelong jobs without focusing on performance-based remunerations (Lokhadwala, 2019).

• Celebrate the Successes of Corporate Social Responsibility

Celebrating the success of CSR accomplishments is vital to sustaining the momentum of any CSR program. Through proper publicity on these successes may let the local public know, in addition to providing jobs, the company actively participates in society-related issues. Share and communicate the importance of corporate social responsibility to employees and the community is another important thing to do.

Focusing on the following three key areas will provide value addition through a cohesive map for the future.

• Encouraging Community Relations

The HR team can implement reward programs, make charitable contributions and encourage community involvement as a part of their CSR program. By communicating those to staff members by highlighting employees' and managers' involvement in community relations or creating monthly reward programs to recognize their efforts can encourage their participation in future activities.

• CSR Training and Development

The HR team can organize training and development programs to clarify the connection between the company’s products or services and the society at large and their value to the local public. They also need to be recognized the areas in which employees can get involved in CSR projects that would sustain and direct these initiatives.

• A Consistent Global CSR Platform

Now it has become more important for all organizations to create a single multi-functional platform that provides access to the entire workforce as it helps to maintain work-life balance and to flourish the success of CSR plan through effective planning, controlling, and managing goals through proper communication between the employees and managers.

Global Context

In today’s context most organizations trying to perform in ethical and socially responsible ways. Any violation can quickly expose through social media and can damage organizations reputation. Companies with poor corporate social responsibility records may have problems in recruiting and retaining staff. In the modern world Investors and consumers have also started to adopt socially responsible views and behaviors, not only about concerning operations, working practices but also with regard to social and political issues that organizations support. As an example In 2017 United States withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, the chief executive of Disney and Tesla resigned from the US President’s business advisory council, because they did not want to be associated with an environment damaging policy (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2019). 

Conclusion

In today’s turbulent environment even a well-performing company will not be sustained in the long run, if they are not aware of or engage in Corporate Social Responsibility. Human Resource Management plays a critical role in promoting CSR programs within the company. It is an increasingly important concept, as it helps companies, societies, and people by providing an economically efficient, socially equitable, and environmentally sustainable development while ensuring its' profitability and growth.

                                                                                                

Video 1: Corporate Social Responsibility
Source: (Servier International, 2019)

References

Buchanan, D. A. & Huczynski, A. A., 2019. In: Organizational Behaviour. s.l.:Pearson, p. 61.

Daft, R. L., 2016. Corporate Social Responsibity. In: Management. s.l.:Cengage Learning.

Hopkins, M., 2006. What is corporate social responsibility all about?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/246912286_What_is_corporate_social_responsibility_all_about
[Accessed 31 July 2021].

Jan, W. S. W., 2006. Defining corporate social responsibility. [Online]
Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229578267_Defining_corporate_social_responsibility
[Accessed 31 July 2021].

Lokhadwala, S., 2019. The Balance Careers. [Online]
Available at: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/the-hr-role-in-promoting-corporate-social-responsibility-1917743
[Accessed 31 July 2021].

Servier International, 2019. What is Corporate social responsibility (#CSR) ?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bpf_sHebLI&ab_channel=ServierInternational
[Accessed 01 August 2021].

Visual Factories, 2020. What is Corporate Social Responsiblity and Why You Should Care. [Online]
Available at: https://visualfactories.com/blog/what-is-corporate-social-responsibility-and-why-you-should-care/
[Accessed 1 August 2021].