Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Benefits to Employees

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Benefits to Employees Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Your business doesnt exist in isolated way making money. Your employees always depend on your business. So customers, suppliers, local community all are affected by your business. Corporate social responsibility (in short CSR) is about understanding your business impact on the world and considering how you can use this impact in a positive way or keep well control on it. CSR can also be good for your attitude, going beyond to minimum legal requirement for the following straightforward principle is apply whatever the size of your business. Corporate social responsibility can cut across almost everything you do and everyone you deal with. You should think about the: The suppliers those you choose and the way how we deal with them. For example, trading with suppliers those who pollute the environment it could be as irresponsible as doing it so yourself. How we treat our employees. To make the responsible business, this means doing more than simple complying with legal requirements. How your business affecting local community and whether and how we should be actively involved. How do we affect the environment and what we can do to use resources more efficiently to reduce pollution and waste. This doesnt mean that you cant run a profitable business. In fact, corporate social responsibility can help you improve your business performance. By looking ahead, youre ready to cope with new laws and restrictions. We avoid costs such as wasted energy, paying unnecessary waste fees. In fact most importantly, we can keep winning business by increasingly demanding customers. Corporate social responsibility isnt just about doing the right thing. It means behave responsibly and also dealing with suppliers that do the same. It also offers benefits to direct business. Companies so often favour suppliers those who demonstrate responsible policies, as this could have a positive impact on it that how they are perceived by customers. Some customers dont just prefer to deal with responsible companies, but insist on it. The Co-operative Groups, for instance, places a strong emphasis on its corporate social responsibility and publishes detailed warts and all report on its performance on the wide range of criteria   from animal welfare to salt levels in its pizzas. Reducing resource use, waste and emissions doesnt just help the environment it saves you money too. Its not difficult to cut utility bills and waste disposal costs and you can bring immediate cash benefits. There are some other benefits too; Good reputation makes it easier to recruit the employees. Employees could stay longer by reducing the costs and disruption of recruitment and re-training. Employees are more motivated for better productive. Corporate social responsibility helps ensure you comply with regulatory requirements. Activities and involvement with local community are ideal opportunities to generate positive press coverage. Good relationships with local authorities make it easier doing business. By Understanding the wider impact of business can helps develop new products and services. Corporate social responsibility can make you more competitive and reduces the risk of sudden damage to your reputation and sales. Investors may recognise this and will be more willing to finance you. Understanding the environmental impact on business Your business affects many different people (employees, customers, suppliers and local community). It also has a wider impact on environment as well. Even the simplest step like energy efficiency measures by switching off lights and equipment when they arent needed, makes a real difference. By reducing the usage of water could also directly cuts your costs. Reducing waste also can make a big difference. Simple step like reducing the amount of the papers you waste could cut costs. You can even save more by planning about waste implications before you design new products and production processes. Doing Care about the environment can attract more customers too. Mostly customers prefer to do purchasing from responsible companies. There are many sorts of ways by you can reduce the environmental impact of business. e.g. making recyclable products sourcing responsibly (For example, using recycled materials and sustainable timber) minimising the packaging for products buying locally to save energy/fuel costs creating an efficient and fuel-efficient distribution network working with responsible suppliers and distributors who take steps to minimise their environmental impact We could reduce the environmental impact of our business by using environmental techniques assessment like lifecycle assessment and setting up an environmental management system. See our guides on environmental assessment techniques an overview and environmental management systems (EMS) the basics. Dealing responsibly with suppliers and customers By working with our suppliers and customers in a responsible way our business can reap substantial rewards. Customers We can take some actions when dealing with customers are: Make sure brochures  are in plain and simple English, telling the truth without hiding anything in the small print. Be honest about your products and services. Tell the customers what they want to know, including all steps you take to be socially responsible. If anything goes wrong, you should acknowledge the problem responsibly and deal with it. In returns you achieve the loyalty of customers in reward. Listening to consumers intentionally can also help you improve the products and services you offer them. Suppliers Choose your suppliers carefully as it is an important part of your approach to corporate social responsibility. For example, you may try to use local suppliers as many as possible. This helps you support the community and also reduces the waste, energy and carbon emissions from deliveries. When choosing suppliers you should also examine their environmental practices, health and safety and their employment. Customers are concerned increasingly about the wider impact of supply chains. Your business reputation can be damaged by being associated with others those abuse the rights of their employees or their local environment. Big organisations often audit their suppliers to ensure that they practise the responsible work. You could do something similar simply asking them about their attitudes to corporate social responsibility might be revealing. You should treat your suppliers fair way as particularly smaller business rely on you. For example, getting pay on time could make a big difference to employees. Working with local community Working with local community brings you a wide range of benefits. Local customers are an important source of sales for many businesses. By improving reputation of your business, you will find it easier to recruit the employees. A good relationship with local authorities can help your business run smoother. For example, mostly local authorities prefer to award contracts to businesses with a record of involvement with communities. There are different ways to get involved with local communities. Some businesses choose to support local charities, or sponsor charity/community a local event. It makes a commercial sense to get involved in activity related to your product. This will let you use your expertise as well as showing the human face of your business. For example, some restaurants provide foods to local homeless groups, and while builders can give free labour and materials to community projects. Look for opportunities that will directly benefits you, for example, by publicity, or improvement in neighbourhood around your premises. Many businesses involve their employees to work in directly or indirectly with the local communities. For example, you might support the charities chosen by employees. Some businesses encourage their employees to volunteer for the community activities and also offer them paid time off for the involvement in community activity. As well as by improving your community relationships can help motivating their employees and can help developing their interpersonal and team participation skills. You could also give your employees the option of making regular donations which are deduced at from their pay. Business in the Community (BITC)  has  developed  the Community Mark standard to help businesses get the most of our community involvement. Communities Justice Project The governments community justice initiative helps businesses work with local agencies to make improvement in the quality of life in their local area. This can benefit the business in different ways. For example, if your business suffers because of damage in your property or the surrounding area, the community justice team will work with you to address this. Your business could take a prominent approach to dealing with local crimes by supporting recent offender or your local community justice team. You could: provide financial and practical resources to help the local community justice team get involved with local projects support staff who volunteer in the criminal justice system, for example, as mentors, special constables, youth offender panel members, or in victim and witness support Corporate social responsibility can help you cut costs and boost sales. However, there are some other significant benefits which businesses forget about as they are harder to measure. Identify and measuring indicators of success You can benchmark business against others. Some of the UKs largest companies publish corporate social responsibility reports online. You can use key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure your environmental performance.   The Community Mark  standard lets you measure community involvement. Its worth remembering that measurements will probably only show the immediate impact of CSR. The biggest benefit can be the long term improvement in your businesss reputation. Benefits of corporate social responsibility Make the most of your corporate social responsibility activities by publicising them. Ensure the customers, suppliers and the local community that they know what you are doing. Corporate social responsibility lends itself to bring good news stories. Publicity can be a key part of using corporate social responsibility to successfully qualify for contracts. People want to get involve with businesses they respect. Corporate social responsibility can be particularly effective for targeting ethical companies, the public sector and not-for-profit organisations. At the same time, you should see corporate social responsibility as part of a continuing process of building long-term value. Everything and all good steps you do should help improve your businesss reputation and encourage customers to  stay involved with you for long time. A business that buys recycled paper, but exploits its customers and ignores the community, has missed the point. You can consider working towards a management standards which you can then use to publicise your ethical, social responsibility or environmental. For example, many businesses have achieved the environmental management standard ISO 14001. Images from: http://www.carbonfootprint.com/vcs.html Effective corporate social responsibility like this helps you continue to differentiate yourself. Even with dozens of competitors, a real commitment to corporate social responsibility lets you stand out.  For  example, John Lewis department stores  are well known for a business that owned by its employees.  Its commitment to corporate social responsibility feeds through into customer service, sales and profits. As well as affecting the way you behave, corporate social responsibility can lead to new product and service that reflect your values and those of your stakeholders. Over time can add up to powerful brand and winning business. How a corporate social responsibility initiative benefitted business The Venus Company is an award winning shop and a cafe operator with several outlets based in Cornwall and Devonshire. Established in 1995 by Michael Smith, the firm has strong environmental and ethical principles, and sells food that has been produced using local suppliers. And Michael explains how developing corporate social responsibility policies have helped him to run the business successfully. What Michael did to help the environment and support the local community Our mission is to be the greenest beach shop and cafe operator in the UK, and our attitude to almost every business decision flows from this. For us, CSR covers a number of elements. We support local producers, having spent more than  £300,000 on local food and drink from the immediate area around our cafes, and use local businesses for other goods and services. Over 80 per cent of our food and drink comes from Devon and Cornwall. We also work hard to minimise our impact on the environment, from using solar panels to recycling, carrying out regular litter collection and buying non-toxic cleaning products. Weve also focused on things like packaging to make sure its as biodegradable as possible. One scheme were really proud of is the SAM Beach Wildlife Fund, which raises money to educate local schoolchildren about their environment, and we also go into schools to do talks. Any business can engage in the local education system, and its very rewarding. Build a customer base and attract staff Building a positive image of a company that gives back to the community has undoubtedly created a number of business benefits. Over the past couple of years, we have been able to open two of our beach cafes year-round, rather than just through the summer months, as we have built up a loyal, local customer base and trade isnt simply seasonal. Recruitment is another area in which the business has benefited. Many of our staff are young, and they are really keen to work with a company that has a responsible and ethical approach, so attracting people to come and work for us has become easier. Generate PR Developing our CSR policies has also boosted our profile. Weve won quite a few awards, which have been good for us in PR terms, and weve also been able to use the award logos on our website and van. These have become part of our visual identity that people hopefully recognise. Entering awards can be a time commitment, but they can also be a fantastic way to audit and benchmark your business against others. What Id do differently Raise awareness about environmental protection earlier Id have got involved with the education side of things earlier. I think weve achieved a lot when it comes to teaching local kids how they can look after the environment, but if wed started ten years ago, wed be much further down the line by now. Heres how my business benefited from corporate social responsibility (Flash video) Bailey Partnership, established in 1971, is a progressive multi-disciplinary property and construction consultancy with five offices covering the South of England. Through their practices as a business, and role within community, they aim to support local causes, foundations, charities, schools, initiatives and people less fortunate than themselves. Here, Chartered Architectural Technologist Paul Chapple talks about how partaking in corporate social responsibility (CSR) work has benefited Bailey Partnership. References Link:- www.wikipedia.com http://www.carbonfootprint.com/vcs.html Change Management in Coca Cola | Case Study Change Management in Coca Cola | Case Study According to a Greek philosopher Heraclitus there is nothing permanent than change. He believed that change is the core of universe. This quote describes the importance of managing change in human as well as organizational life. A structured approach to transfer organization, its people and processes from current state to a desired future state is called change management. This process gives employees the ability to accept changes in the existing environment of the business. Change can be of different type for example, change in technology, operations or strategies etc. company needs to implement individual strategies to cope with each type of change. Organizations need to change and adopt dynamic survival strategies to stay alive in uncertain political, social and economic environment (Hiatt and Creasy, 2003). All environmental factors present in the nature experience change on continuous basis. Human nature resists change, so managing that resistance requires well planned change management strategies. This report is aimed at describing the importance of change management for organization its motives and objectives, change management processes, how company can involve all the stakeholders for successful implantation of change management and the strategies that an organization can adopt to implement the successful change. Reasons for adopting change Organizations need change for the following reasons: To respond to the rapidly changing environment To improve the overall performance of the company To rapidly respond to the customers demands To improve the effectiveness and efficiency To increase the employee performance To create the best practices inside the organization and setting standards for the industry To improve profitability and return on overall investment Change management is needed for organizational survival. So the company should adopt to change management techniques in order to maintain its worth in the industry. Importance of change management In a study 327 project managers had responded to the question that if you had a chance to do it again, what would you do differently? Most of them responded that we will implement an effective change management program planned way before starting the project. This study highlights the importance of change management in an organizational perspective. Change management moderates the risks that can cause failure (Jeff and Creasey, 2003). The change management process Change management is being studied by the philosophers, researchers and business experts for many years. A number of change management theories, approaches and philosophies are developed by psychologists and management professionals to implement successful change in the organization (Paton and MacCalman, 2008). There are three phases of change management i.e. preparing for change, managing change and reinforcing change. Preparation for change phase includes assessment of change capabilities and capacity and developing a strategy that fit to those capabilities. Second phase i.e. managing change phase includes processes like planning and implementation of strategies made in the first phase. Last phase which is the reinforcement of change includes the processes like collection and analyzing of feedback data, finding out gaps and coping with determined degree of resistance from inside and outside the organization and taking corrective actions to successfully conclude the change managemen t process (change management learning center, 1996-2011). According to Lewins 3 step model, change is episodic i.e. it can be easily planned into three stages: Unfreezing Changing Freezing Managers at Coca Cola Company can motivate workforce in the unfreezing stage by informing them about the vitality of change being planned in context of organization benefits. Training to the staff members can make them more adept at accepting the transformational stage. In the changing phase the company can initiate practical steps with regard to the strategic plan for change. It can be achieved by developing strong relationships and offering rewards. Refreezing phase allows Coca Cola Corporation to make recently innovated change a part of their strategy so that workforce does not get back to the previously used operational methods of the organization (Robbins and Coulter, 2008). Change managementA case of Coca Cola Corporation Coca Cola is a retailer, marketer and manufacturer of non-alcoholic drinks and is known worldwide for it coca cola beverage. In addition to its coca cola brand, Coca Cola Company offers 500 beverages and non beverages brands in about two hundred countries. The company was founded by Asa Candler in year 1892. Its headquarter is located in Atlanta, Georgia of United States of America. The company had total net income of approximately 11.8 billion US dollars in year 2010 with total number of employees 139,600 worldwide. Companys brand i.e. Coca Cola stands number one in the list of most well known brands of the world (Coca Cola company, 2006-2011). Coca Cola is a type of company that requires making changes in its products and business strategies according to the consumer expectations and external environment. Here in this study we would quote different examples from coca cola corporations history and will examine that what were the triggering events for opting the change and what strategies the company developed and implemented in order to successfully going through the transitioning process. The need for change in an organization is often created by external and internal factors, where external ones encompass governmental laws, labor markets, market conditions, economin scenario etc. and internal factors are the workforce, resources, attitudes of workers and strategy adopted by the organization (Robbins and Coulter, 2008). Coca Cola Corporation is among one of the oldest corporations of the world. It has gone through many internal and external changes since it has been in existence. The company has used techniques of change management in order to survive from the consequences of those events. The company has faced a lot of external changes, for example in world war II, the company was able to manage its existing position at that time and also entered in many new markets and discovered new niches (Coca Cola company, 2006-2011). The company also provided free drinks to soldiers which were the part of its strategy to become a patriotic symbol for the people of the country. Also it boosted the sales, so the company achieved two objectives by carefully planning to respond to that external environmental change. The plants developed by the company in war era helped its expansion after the war. Barton et al (2002) reported that Coca Cola Corporation adopted acquisition strategy in time of Asian financial crisis. The company acquired bottling, coffee and tea shop businesses in Korea and Malaysia. Beverage is a type of industry where tastes and preferences of the consumers change on continuous basis. Coca Cola Company also responded to such consumer changing behaviors in an effective way by developing new products like Diet Coke and Coca Cola Zero. The company also committed a marketing blender when a rival company launched a black beverage with comparatively sweet and smooth taste. The product was named as new Coke. But the sales gradually went down and company faced severe consumer critics and protests. The company managed this situation very commendably by restoring the old formula and naming the bottle as diet coke (Kotler and Armstrong, 2010). As people are becoming more health conscious and willing to invest on health based products, coca cola is developing juices and v arious energy drinks as well. This shows the companys strategy to responding varying consumer tastes and expectations and changing itself according to it. The coco cola company used theory of organization change presented by Kotler (1996) which elaborated the procedure to manage change on the people dimension of the organization. In addition to making operational and strategic changes, the company also changed its advertising strategy by targeting various groups of consumers like American consumers, African consumers, Middle and far eastern consumers and European consumers. The company altered the packaging of its coca cola brand and developed more product lines and broadened them globally (The Coca-Cola company case. n.d.). The present condition of Coca cola Company worldwide is very good. The company is selling its beverages throughout the world successfully. But in some countries, coca cola stores are not as according to the companys main marketing, inventory and efficiency theme. The company is planning to align its performance standards according to its own corporate culture and strategies with the help of a comprehensive change management plan. These changes will be implemented within the business operations and management of the company. Change Management at Coca Cola Organizational change might be referred to as any change brought about in structure technology or people of an organization. Change in structure is maintaining the span of control, specifying different work roles, redesigning job scenarios etc. Change in technology could be an introduction to new innovative methods for improving the products quality launched by the organization. While change in people is to bring about alterations in the way people think and act. It means to modify their behavior towards the betterment of organization (Robbins and Coulter, 2008, p.364). Employee engagement The recent change management at coca cola is directed towards the intrinsic values and motivations of the employees and can be referred to as employee engagement. The change management process, together with internal branding programs is expected to bring about ideal behaviors in employees, which would align the operations of coca cola worldwide, and bring about efficiency throughout coca cola across all its business segments. Coca cola hopes to bring about a thoroughly integrated system of communications, and focus on creating brand relationships with their employees. This would enhance the operations of Coca cola, as an integrated approach would mean all employees believe in engaging fully in the values, and this would become an inherent part of the employees at a personal level. Coca-cola is actively seeking to incorporate the change into its company for building capability in engagement, maintaining engagement momentum and ensuring that engagement is integrated into CCRs people practices (Samdahl,2011). For this purpose, employee engagement surveys are conducted twice every year for all the coca cola associates, which serve to highlight the areas where action is required, and further actions and implementations can henceforth be executed. Coca-cola believes that their business results hinge on the dedication of their employees to operational excellence. The company truly recognizes the importance of the people to the business, and knows that to continue to bring about tremendous results it is bringing in, employees throughout the world should believe in the values intrinsically, and therefore the employee engagement is being focused on all the countries the company serves to align, thoroughly integrate and align the company so that operational efficiency can be achieved. Importance of change to coca cola Employee engagement is very significant to all segments of operations at coca-cola and has translated into performance in areas where employee engagement is higher. For coca-cola, an engaged workforce means: A more committed workforce Employee performance aligned with organizational objectives Employees have a clear idea of what is expected of them and what are the deliverables Customer experience focuses an inherent part of employees values, who strives to provide a better experience to the customers. Customer focus was identified as a central tenant of the multi-year engagement strategy to be implemented in 2011(Gee,2011) When employees are aligned with company goals, they themselves adopt a proactive approach towards issues such as waste elimination Employees awareness gives them a voice which helps to influence legislations at local levels An integrated system of communication is very helpful in the volatile and dynamic markets of today, where conditions change very often and the company has to be responsive at all times Therefore, for all the business segment of coca-cola wherever they are located across the world, the change towards employee engagement is justified if they have to reap the fruits gained by an effective system of integration. Ensuring the Involvement of Required Stakeholders Coca Cola Company can use two change management tools to make sure that all people who are required to be the part of change management process. These tools are Force Field analysis and AKADAR model. Force field analysis is a technique developed by Kurt Lewin to scrutinize the forces that are causing an opposition to change process (Bass, 2009). By doing Force Field Analysis, Coca Cola Company will be able to induct people who are in need of appropriate training. Another useful tool is AKADAR model which stands for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. Through AKDAR model, firm creates awareness about the need of change, generate desire in the people to help in transitioning process, give knowledge to the people that how they can help the change process, develop an ability in the people to go through the change and provide them with continuous reinforcement to withstand the change (CMLR, 2011). Ensuring that change is successful Some considerations that will facilitate the change management process include: productive and consequential dialogues and talks with employee representatives Online and paper surveys from all the stakeholders involved in the change throughout the world, and with associates to gain an insight on their perceptions Effective communication at this stage for informing the stakeholders the reasons for change and the benefits it would bring Overcoming the inertia by taking all stakeholders in confidence. The surveys can serve as a pre requisite to gain an insight on the stakeholder perspective Details of the action planning process communicated to all those who would initiate the change Recommendations for Coca Cola Company In the volatile dynamics with which companies operate today, change is inevitable. Therefore, the focus should not be on avoiding change, rather bringing about a smooth transition towards the new change by communicating about the change, and ensuring all parties of the change that it is for the best of all those involved. To successfully implement organizational change of any nature, a specific regards to organizational structure, design, culture, management and leadership is required to see whether the change would make a best fit with the organizational goals and objectives. First of all the company should ascertain the core problems exist in the company for the change management. The company may develop a change management program for responding to financially uncertain environment of the world. It can also develop change management programs for better operations and logistics. The company can introduce new procedures and technological systems to carry out operations. Programs can be introduced in forms changing companys mission and corporate culture enhancements. For all that, the most essential thing is to train upper management to provide them with specific skills necessary to effectively going through the transitioning process. Following is the brief expression of plans that the company can adopt. Systems thinking Systems thinking can be used to guide the successful change in the organization. The model is based on an integrative and interactive open system which consists of the variables, attributes, internal relations and environment. The system is based on characteristics like wholeness, interdependence, chain of influence, need for balance and adaptability etc in an open system where communication is seen as an integrated process that facilitates change within the organization. Several system characteristics are: wholeness and interdependence (the whole is more than the sum of all parts), correlations, perceiving causes, chain of influence, hierarchy, supra-systems and subsystems, self-regulation and control, goal-oriented interchange with the environment, inputs/outputs, the need for balance/homeostasis, change and adaptability (morphogenesis) and equifinality: there are various ways to achieve goals. Different types of networks are: line, commune, hierarchy and dictator networks. Communication in this perspective can be seen as an integrated process not as an isolated event. Establishing new structure It is a well known fact that Coca Cola Corporation was an entrepreneurial venture started by one person who bought the formula from another firm and laid foundations of that beverages manufacturing firm. Current structure of the coca cola company is simple with minimal labor and management division. New system that can be adopted by the company may be the machine bureaucracy which Henry Mintzberg (1992) defined as an organization with clearly defined hierarchy, well defined area of operations, standard operating procedures, proper rules and regulations, well division of labor, formal relationships among the member of organization, centralized decision making, technical competence and standardization of work. Reducing employee defiance Opposition of change is a common human behavior. Particularly, in the workplace people resist the change in organizational culture, structure and policies. But in order to successfully and effectively implement the change management program, it is important for Coca Cola Company that it should develop strategies to reduce employee defiance to change. Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) explained six strategies which can be useful for coca cola Company in employee defiance management. First strategy is to involve the employee in change process and make them participate as far as they can. Second strategy is to communicate the change management programs to the people effectively to educate them about the benefits the programs would bring. This will make them comfortable in adopting the change. Third strategy is negotiation and agreement. The company should create a consensus on important change issues and with the agreement of all important stakeholders; it should launch the change management program. The resistance level will be zero on change programs that are being launched with the mutual agreement of all relevant stakeholders. Fourth strategy is that to support the employees who are due to some disability or emotional or psychological issue or some other threat unable to adapt to the change. If the company develops proper channel for such people, they would adjust gradually to the change management program. In case of failure of above mentioned four strategies, company can manipulate the employees by calling union leader other than relevant ones as fifth strategy. Sixth strategy is to force the employees with articulate or non-articulate methods but this is not a very good approach. Conclusion To conclude, it may be said that communication can be a key element to successful change management. Communicate the changes to the employees; tell them why the change was inevitable and how they will benefit from the change. The management should itself adopt a positive attitude towards the change so that employees can follow their lead and welcome the change. Coca-cola as a company has a heritage of embracing change rather than resist it and it should translate into their future endeavors towards change management to ensure that the organization is best poised to market under all sorts of environmental conditions.