10 Top CSR Tips for Responsible Business
Ever since our e-learning division Academy Internet won the 2007 Business in the Community “Small Company of the Year” award, our people have been helping other businesses to introduce or extend Corporate Responsibility practices in their organisations. Getting started with a CSR strategy is easier than you think, especially if you partner with our local Business Community Partnership and ‘Business In the Community’ as we did. It’s likely that your company is already involved in various CSR activities but these are not aligned to any particular sector, therefore not providing you with the impact you could achieve with a focussed strategy. Hopefully these tips will help short cut your journey to CSR success.
Why is AI Digital talking about CSR you may wonder? The reason is that we’ve discovered that operating our business in a responsible way has created huge business benefits for us. It has allowed us to punch far above our weight as a small business, made us a more attractive employer and given us something in common with enterprise level businesses.
Last year we were awarded ‘Business in the Community - Small Company of the Year 2007’. (The “Big Company” was the mighty BT, you may have noticed the BITC logo on their envelopes). Its big deal and it has given us something to shout about and allowed us to rub shoulders with others who share our values.
Our top 10 CSR tips:
1. Audit what’s happening right now You’ll probably find you are already involved in some CSR activities even if you don’t call them that i.e. they have some element of responsible business practice covering the community, environment, workplace or market place.
2. Try to gain commitment from senior management to ensure things don’t happen in an ad hoc fashion, it’s important to get buy in from the top down – maybe name a few competitors and customers who are engaged!!
3. A great way to gain management attention is to measure your current spending – we found we were spending 50% of our net profits, which prompted immediate action…
4. See what your customers are involved in, if there are some shared interests, this could be a great way to build relationships with them and get your sales and marketing team onboard - research the CSR interests of your customers.
5. If you want to communicate your aims and how you’re going to get there, what it’s going to cost and who you need to help you, you’ll need to build a CSR Strategy.
6. Our time saving advice is to get help and work with someone who has done it before, like your local Business Community Partnership or BITC representative.
7. You need to ensure your team knows what you’re trying to achieve so they can figure out how they can participate and get involved, so don’t forget your internal communications plan
8. Build links with other businesses including customers and suppliers build your own local network of other businesses with similar aims. You might even call it networking and generate some business!
9. Involve employees and appoint a champion for each area of your CSR strategy- community, environment, workplace, market place. This will help steer the activities, keep you focussed on achieving your aims whilst maintaining momentum.
10. Build CSR into the every aspect of your business including the business plan, your budgeting process, personal development plans, marketing plan, PR plan, innovation plan, R&D, supply chain and so on. This will embed CSR deep into your company culture.
And lastly and most importantly, make sure you have lots of fun!!!
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