As we are all recovering from a period of over-indulgence and TV re-runs, it is that time of year for a spot of reflection and a look forward at the year ahead.  My long list of resolutions for 2011 range from the practical (avoiding drowning in the mounds of paper on my desk) to the aspirational (learning to cross-country ski so I can take part in an Arctic biathlon for charity).  Beyond personal goals, I think there are also a few things that should be on a list of professional resolutions for 2011.  Here are some ideas for communicators, along with how we plan to help you along in 2011:

1. Make competency development a priority.

Why it’s important: As the demands on the communication function evolve to be less about simply creating and delivering communications to the desired audience and more about “managing the debate” and providing consultative support to business partners – a new competency set is required.  Whether it’s for your own professional development or standardizing and building the skills across your team, few Communications team have a formalized plan for skill development and it’s now more important than ever. Read More »

One challenge with CSR, equally important to having a clear strategy, is making sure that strategy is embedded into the business processes and workflow of the organization. As Communications executives, we face two hurdles in achieving this: 1) we don’t have intimate knowledge of the business’ day to day operations, and 2) even if we do, we can’t directly influence the business’ behavior.

With limited resources we can’t (and shouldn’t) be everywhere, so how do we make it easier for business colleagues to see how they need to do their jobs differently to become more sustainable? Communication is a key part of getting the business to implement new approaches, but in many organizations this just means communicating CSR goals without doing the extra work to understand implications on the business (and, thus running the risk of rejection at the business unit-level as they see just another thing added to an already loaded plate).

One company that takes a different approach is Ford, the American automotive manufacturer, who has achieved good results in getting the organization aligned around CSR. John Viera, Director of Sustainability at Ford, takes a bottom up approach to gaining buy-in from the business: he and his team start by reaching out to middle managers –understanding direct from the frontline what implications a CSR initiative will have on work processes and gathering informal support. This helps Ford make a stronger business case in formal conversations with senior leadership. Read More »

As you may know, the Council has been recently updating its work on CSR and Sustainability, and is beginning to release new materials to assist our members in this area.

Primary among these is a new diagnostic, which we’ve designed to help you identify the key areas in which you should be focusing your efforts. The idea is to identify any pain points, or potential weaknesses, in your current CSR management, and then use Council resources to help you make improvements, and close the identified performance gap.

We’ve focused the diagnostic on the following five key areas of responsibility for communications professionals in CSR. Over the coming weeks, the Council will also release tools, and resources to help you improve performance in each of these areas:

1. Partnering with the business to set a CSR strategy that creates shared value for society and the company.
2. Dynamically embedding CSR in the decision making, and operational processes, of business units and functions.
3. Mobilising frontline employees, and engaging them with CSR activities.
4. Engaging external stakeholders with your efforts.
5. Assessing the impact of your strategy and activities. Read More »

Let me begin by making a confession: as a rookie to the world of corporate communications, I was at first surprised to hear the emphasis on corporate social responsibility . But as I have put my CSR hat on, aside from the headspin with all the buzzwords (CSR? Social Responsibility? Sustainability? Philanthropy? Corporate Citizenship?… Gaah!), one interesting finding has emerged from conversations on the subject with executives around the world:

Communicators have for long focused on CSR rankings and reporting as the finish line, aiming to be portrayed as good corporate citizens, but they are losing the connection of CSR efforts to company performance.

Read More »

On Wednesday, 1st December, CEC will host the first in a three-part webinar series.  During the series we’ll highlight some of the most progressive thinking we’ve found around Corporate Social Responsibility.  For the first event, we’ll focus on innovative approaches to CSR strategy and the resultant challenges facing communicators.  CEC members, sign up today.

Traditionally, demanding stakeholder groups have forced organizations to adopt CSR activities.  As such, CSR has grown up  “separate from profit maximization”; and therefore, viewed only as corollary to the business.  The best companies we’ve seen in CEC are shifting to a new role–helping  the organization spot and create opportunities for business growth that simultaneously benefit society.  This is called “Creating Shared Value.”

Two genuine pioneers in the CSR field will join us for this event to share their experiences and answer your questions.

Read More »

This is part 4 in a weekly blog post series about CSR  & sustainability.

Here on the CEC research team, we’re necessarily a lateral-thinking bunch.  So, having spoken to over 30 leading companies about their CSR activities, we figured it was about time we speak to the folks who often face us across the barricades.  For example, Tim Bishop, head of Private Sector Engagement at CARE International, a leading international aid NGO.  We talked to Tim about his perspective on the most productive business-NGO partnerships.

CARE have a permanent presence in more than 70 of the world’s poorest countries – and a huge amount of expertise accrued by working amongst these communities.  Crucially, this is expertise that they are happy to share with the business community… for free!  Previous blogs have emphasized the need for businesses to be more targeted in their CSR efforts (i.e., focusing on CSR activities that are a part of a company’s core operations).  CARE is convinced that NGOs can use their local knowledge to play an important role in helping to identify these opportunities/intersections – for business and society.

Rather than viewing NGO’s as opponents, as has occasionally been the perception, Tim actually sees NGOs as allies of Corporate Communications; he sees Comms as having a pivotal role in coordinating business, NGO, and society, and shared three pioneering examples with us.  You’ll notice that each of these companies are focusing either on their own value chain, or their own operations – as such, there is profit to be made in these examples.  CARE simply works with these companies’ Comms teams to show them the opportunity and provide them with the local knowledge to help operationalise the ideas! Read More »

This is part 3 in a weekly blog post series about CSR & sustainability.

A running theme throughout this CSR blog series is the idea that, CSR should be a strategic activity, whereby your CSR activities are in line with your core business capabilities.  However, we’ve heard that for a lot of our members, CSR has emerged by way of response to stakeholder pressure – reactive CSR.

In truth, the balance lies somewhere between the two.  Of course, your CSR activities should align with your organizational strategy and with your operational capabilities, but you can’t ignore your external stakeholders’ demands altogether either.

So what rules apply to stakeholder engagement – and particularly to those stakeholders (we all have them!) who go out of their way to criticize you?

Stora Enso (who have been nominated as one of the world’s most ethical companies for a third time) provides us with a great example.  Stora Enso is a large producer of paper and wood products.  As such, their major raw material is wood, and more specifically (and much to the chagrin of environmental activists!) – trees.

Now, the provision of wood and wooden products to the world is a tricky business; despite the high praise Stora Enso receive, the nature of their business attracts a lot of activist attention.  It’s worth looking at how they deal with the negativity that comes their way: Read More »

Ever feel that you could get more impact from your CSR activities?  Ever feel that they’re a little disjointed – not related either to company strategy, or to each other?

If so, you’re certainly not alone – we’ve heard this from a lot of your peers over the course of CEC’s latest project around CSR. It’s not surprising when you think about how a lot of our CSR activities came to be – largely reactively due to local stakeholder pressure (well documented by Mark Kramer) rather than strategically, based on a central decision around the highest impact opportunities to create value.

Hill-Rom provides a fantastic example of a company taking a step back, thinking strategically, and assessing where they could add the greatest value.  They streamlined their CSR activities, and ensured that they were based around their core operational strengths.

For those that don’t know Hill-Rom, they’re one of the world’s largest manufacturers of hospital beds.  They recently reconstituted their entire CSR program based on two key observations:

1. They had a great culture of volunteerism, but it was spread across a collection of hugely divergent CSR activities, making it hard to see the overall impact.
2. There was an opportunity for them to take advantage of their old hospital beds  instead of scrapping them. Read More »

Today’s post is the first in a weekly series where I’ll blog about the smart approaches to CSR challenges that we’ve heard over the course of conversations with your peers.  First up: The scoop on the folks at TNT, who came up with a smart method of engaging their workforce around their strategic CSR initiatives…

For readers who don’t know them, TNT is a global transportation and distribution company with operations all over the world.  They’re conscious of the environmental impact of their fleet of vehicles, which are responsible for more than half of their total CO2 emissions.  TNT calculated that some drivers could improve their fuel efficiency and decrease CO2 emissions by up to 25%, so they took an innovative approach to getting drivers to reduce their impact.

In 2008, they launched a competition amongst their drivers, the Drive Me Challenge.  It involves an F1-style dash, in their usual TNT delivery vehicles, and around a racing track!  We’re assured it’s great fun for all involved… But this involves more than racing, like Sebastian Vettel or Lewis Hamilton, around a track ; TNT has added an extra dimension, which ties to their CSR objectives, which link in turn to the strategic success of the business.

Drivers can only qualify for the Drive Me Challenge by driving both fuel efficiently and safely – drivers from all over the world are ranked against this criteria, and only the regional champions qualify for the main event.  As drivers bid to qualify for the finals of the Drive Me Challenge, which has become a very prestigious annual event, TNT has improved the fuel efficiency of their vehicle fleet by 5%. Read More »

By Laura Newman

As I was boarding a British Airways flight for London the other day, I overheard a mother and teenage daughter having a heated discussion about the movie, “Thirteen.”  The mother was appalled and disturbed by the movie.  You could hear in her voice that she was concerned about the peer pressure her teenager potentially faces daily.  In the movie, one troubled thirteen year-old pressures a naive classmate into stealing, taking drugs, rebelling against her mother, and causing havoc.

There is no doubt that peer pressure plays a role in the growth and development of an individual.  But that got me thinking: What role does peer pressure play in a company?  Does it influence the formation of company strategy?  Of a company’s social responsibilities?

Read More »