Alpine Building Maintenance Outlines 5 Steps to A Successful Corporate Social Responsibility Plan
Corporate Social Responsibility or (CSR) is a self-regulating business model that encourages an organization to be socially accountable to both its stakeholders and the public. As an evolving business practice, it is a company’s commitment to manage the effects of its operations responsibly and to a high industry standard.
However, many companies rush into CSR projects without proper insights or preparation. Alpine Building Maintenance is one of the largest building maintenance companies in Canada, with over 1500 employees spread across its offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Toronto. In this article, the company outlines five steps to creating a successful social corporate responsibility plan.
1. Develop a Business Strategy-Driven Vision
A successful CSR plan starts with understanding the core vision, priorities, and culture of your company. These elements underpin your overall business strategy, an essential tool in formulating a unique and practical CSR plan. Once you identify these elements and outline your overall business strategy, start looking for CSR ideas that align with them. If you work in mineral extraction, for example, you could start looking at tree-planting or land reclamation as areas you can focus your CSR efforts upon.
2. Acquire Stakeholder Buy-In
Stakeholders such as senior executives, the CEO or owner, and c-suite members play a crucial role in any CSR plan. Unless you have their full support, any program you formulate will be met with resistance. The best way to get full buy-in is to involve them at the ideation stage. Get them to contribute to ideas and comment on those submitted by others. When doing this, understand their motivations and what they feel is a good blend of business dynamics and CSR activities. Once you have full buy-in, you are ready to move to the next step.
3. Align CSR with Operations
Most companies fire off press releases talking about their CSR programs but have done little to align CSR programs with operations. The result is a mud-in-the-face scenario where operations do something that completely contradicts CSR, and this ends up becoming tomorrow’s front-page news. The best way to avoid such situations is to align CSR with operations so that it is at least clear what lines CSR should not cross at the risk of contradicting operations.
4. Factor in Customer Needs and Preferences
According to Alpine Building Maintenance, when company’s establish new CSR programs, most customers are willing to share the programs on social media and with their networks. Such engagement, while welcomed, should be analyzed and itemized. Why are customers engaged? Do they care about the program? Is it aligned with their needs and preferences? CSR programs that enjoy long-term customer support have managed to get these questions right.
5. Integrate Talent Recruitment
Lastly, consider integrating a talent acquisition pipeline into your CSR plan. Some of the best employees you will ever hire are those attracted by your CSR work and deeply believe in what you are doing. Through a talent acquisition pipeline, you can identify such individuals and offer them an opportunity to join your ranks. If you cannot hire now, you can engage them through corporate volunteer opportunities and other non-commercial partnerships. As you engage, you may discover more ways to work together.
Last Words
These five steps shared by Alpine Building Maintenance offer a strong foundation on which to build your CSR plan. As you do so, remember that authentic CSR starts as a program and then evolves into a culture tightly interwoven into the very fabric of your company. Its real power lies in its ability to transform profit-first companies into planet-first companies.
