Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is taking an increasingly important place in organizations. Indeed, it is now essential, for many reasons, to fully integrate environmental and social issues into the heart of your actions. Recently, it has also become an important factor for the employees themselves, who need their company to be committed even more than before. We are going to explain why it is essential to involve your employees in your CSR. We will also give you The steps to be respected in order to successfully implement these actions in a sustainable manner. Finally, we will see a concrete example a very useful tool to do it.
Why involve your employees in CSR?
The advantages of engaging your employees in your CSR strategy are numerous. Here are the main ones.
Align your values and your raison d'être with your employees
Your employees represent the first resource of your company. Their work and skills allow you to carry out your projects effectively. By involving them in the choice of CSR objectives, you give them the opportunity toalign their core values with their work. By taking ownership of the company's raison d'être, their motivation can be increased tenfold.
According to a MEDEF study, there is a link between the pleasure employees experience in working and the implementation of innovative CSR policies. Their wellness is therefore bigger, and their productivity more important.
Retain employees by engaging them
The second advantage of involving employees in CSR concerns their involvement. Indeed, the companies that make them actors in this subject have a reduced turnover rate. This is due to a deeper attachment, which reinforces the motivation to remain in the organization in a sustainable manner.
Employees who have the opportunity to carry out solidarity actions, even if they are occasional, feel more proud of their work. It also allows them to develop new skills. This makes them evolve, gives them experience and challenges them regularly. These stimulations are often a source of motivation, which maintains the loyalty of talent.
Attracting new talent
Finally, involving employees in its CSR strategy is an important argument for attracting new talent to join you. Social and environmental commitments are increasingly taken into account by people looking for work. It is therefore a very nice element to put at the service of your employer brand.
For those under 25 years of age, sharing values with their company has become one of the most important criteria in their choice, Before the salary (JAM study, February 2020). The possibility of being useful to associations is also one of their main concerns.
Involving its employees in its CSR policy therefore allows both to engage, of the motivating, of the build loyalty And ofattract new talent to you. Now we are going to give you the keys to do it.
The steps to mobilize your employees in your CSR policy
Raise awareness and train
The first step is to Raise awareness among your employees about social issues and sustainable development. Even though more and more of them are personally interested in these types of causes, it is important that everyone has a similar level of information. This facilitates their overall understanding of the subject.
To raise their awareness properly, it is imperative to train them. To do this, you can use interactive and entertaining communication tools. You can also set up training courses to help them become aware of all the challenges of the company and its environment.
Knowledge motivates teams to take action and commit to actions that benefit society.
Mobilizing around common causes
The second phase is undoubtedly the most difficult, since it involves mobilizing employees and encouraging them to take a full part in the company's CSR initiatives. The success of your liability commitments depends enormously on this factor.
To do this, it is essential that you give everyone the opportunity to get involved in the causes that are most dear to them. Indeed, not everyone necessarily has the same sensitivity on all subjects. So you need to encourage them to get involved and to be actors of the change that is most important to them.
Several types of actions can be implemented, for example:
- The skills sponsorship. It consists in allowing employees to carry out missions for associations or for the general interest, during their working time. They then put their know-how at the service of a cause.
- Les solidarity events. They can take very diverse forms, such as fundraising or collective missions for example. They can also strengthen the links between teams through the implementation of joint projects.
- Les volunteer actions. These mobilize employees outside of their working time.
The possibilities are multiple and depend greatly on the willingness of your teams to participate. The better the awareness-raising is carried out, the more numerous initiatives are there on the part of employees.
Accountability with clear communication
Finally, if you want this CSR commitment on the part of your employees to last over time, it is imperative to communicate with them.
A viable CSR strategy depends on the efforts you make on this point, at all stages of your actions: before, during and after. Your follow-up must be clear, and employees must have objective data concerning the CSR actions that are carried out. By valuing them, by detailing your goals and results, you value their commitment. This is essential to maintain the solidarity momentum of your teams.
Example of solidarity actions to involve employees
There are lots of ways to'engaging your employees around your CSR policy. Here is an example of an action that is effective and easy to implement.
The Teamstarter platform allows you to set up creative projects initiated by your employees themselves. The principle is simple: every month, all employees are allocated a monthly budget. Everyone then chooses the project they want to finance. It has been proposed in advance by one or more employees, ready to implement it as soon as they have raised a sufficient amount.
Involving employees in projects that go beyond the strict framework of their job description can seem difficult. However, thanks to information and especially thanks to innovative mobilization actions, you can make them want to get involved with you. The implementation of CSR initiatives by employees is a perfect example of commitment, beneficial both to your organization and to society in general.
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