Building Corporate Investment, Attention, and Momentum
Corporate Social Responsibility Training
Over 25 years ago, John Elkington coined the term “triple bottom line” - a new framework encouraging companies to adopt a sustainability framework that addresses the impact on people, planet, and profit.
Over the past few decades, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has played an increasingly visible role in companies and organizations across the world. Investing in CSR says a lot about a company’s culture and values, which CSR plays a significant role.
Although companies and organizations often have great intentions, they can struggle with finding the right people, resources, and training to build an effective and sustainable CSR program. Some companies have a designated CSR training manager, while others outsource or embed training tasks into each of the CSR staff roles.
In this article, we discuss several strategies companies can adopt to build strong CSR programs with a positive impact for:
People - such as employees, customers, suppliers, workers, and communities
Planet - such as protecting natural resources, eliminating waste, and other making choices that impact the environment
Profit - such as creating employment, generating innovation, and wealth creation
Building An Effective Training Program
At Columbia Sportswear, I joined the Corporate Responsibility team as the Project and Training Manager. One of the first projects I tackled was introducing CSR to all new employees at headquarter and all of the company offices worldwide.
Although I was joining the CSR team, I noted during my onboarding process that the company itself did not mention their own commitment to CSR. The following day, I met with the HR team, including the Training Manager, to offer some ideas regarding how the company could better infuse CSR knowledge into the company.
In response, I was offered the chance to give an overview of CSR in an upcoming training session. But, I had only five minutes.
Making Every Minute Count
Knowing I’d have only five minutes, I went back to my office and mapped out the key points I wanted to share.
Understanding that this audience was new to CSR overall, I prioritized the following:
What CSR is and why it matters
How CSR fits into the company’s overall strategy
Everyone can - and should - participate in the company’s CSR initiatives
Now that I had my main themes, I began writing talking points and notes, ensuring a consistent message that anyone could share and understand.
During the onboarding process, new employees received a company handbook that I used throughout my orientation class to take notes. I found it a useful learning tool, so I decided to draft a one-pager on CSR (mirroring the presentation that I was developing) to be included in the handbook for future new hires. I then built activities around this one-pager to use in the training.
Building Momentum and Endorsement
After the training, the team surveyed the audience, and we received excellent reviews. Several participants came up afterwards to say that they appreciated this new information and in fact felt more inspired by and connected with the company for having a culture that cared for people and the environment in which it operates.
CSR was implemented in the new employee orientation training schedule permanently, and I noticed that other departments started to join in the training.
To scale, I documented all of the feedback, reviewed it with my manager, and got the approval to roll out the same training in all of the offices the company operates worldwide.
Now that we had headquarters covered, I turned my head to our global offices. I started the same process, assessed the training needs, and reviewed the training materials to apply to the global audience. I followed up with documentation of the evaluations and the number of participants. The international offices' participants also felt connected to the company for the same reasons as the headquarter participants.
Does Your Company Need A CSR Boost?
Like so many CSR initiatives, this momentum started with an observation, led to an assessment, and resulted in action. If you have an existing CSR team or want to build the CSR investment in your company, I’d be delighted to help.
Need help? Let’s talk.
I provide high-impact CSR consulting, coaching & training for companies, organizations, suppliers, and people who want to make this world a better place.