Why CLOs Are Integrating Corporate Social Responsibility Into Their Learning Organizations
Your company has a corporate social responsibility program, but is your learning organization part of the CSR strategy? It should be, and heres why:
Employees Care About CSR, But Dont Always Know What Their Own Company Is Doing About It
The industry has known for some time that whether a company engages in socially responsible practices contributes to employee retention (Towers Watson. CSR: Its No Longer an Option, http://bit.ly/i4SIVl).
Unfortunately, research also shows that companies do a much better job communicating their CSR programs to external stakeholders than to internal ones, and that many employees are unaware of the existence or extent of their organizations efforts in the community (Sloan Management Review. Using CSR to Win the War for Talent http://bit.ly/i7zyKt).
Build the Connection Between Corporate Identity and Employee Values with CSR
In their well-regarded HBR article, What Does It Mean to Work Here (http://bit.ly/hjWHFC), Tammy Erickson and Lynda Gratton emphasize the importance of providing a signature experience that encapsulates your companys story and builds connections with your workforce. Making the CSR program an integral part of that story creates a shared value system with employees in ways that increase productivity and satisfaction.
Your employees want to work for a company with a good reputation for sound business practices. Give them a story to be proud of, and they will be your best ambassadors; give them a role in evolving and executing the CSR strategy, and they will strengthen the program and contribute to the bottom line.
Incorporating CSR into Learning & Development Gives Learning Executives A Stronger Voice in Corporate Strategy
By integrating social responsibility within the organization’s curriculum, the learning executive can create and suggest those connections between individual action and corporate conscience, advancing CSR while addressing performance and productivity.
The role of CSR in the learning organization will be a core component of the upcoming 2011 Global Leadership Congress; the theme of Day 2 will be Making an Impact on the World and will include a panel discussion led by leading scholar and UPenn professor Nien-hê Hsieh and including executives from companies noted for their CSR programs, such as Jill Guindon-Nasir of Ritz Carlton.
