How do you engage your employees in your CSR policy?

What is a CSR Policy?

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a framework deployed within companies and organizations to develop more ethical and sustainable practices in their operations to contribute to sustainable development goals.

In other words, it involves integrating social and environmental concerns into business activities, relations with stakeholders, and the behavior of individuals within the company. Decisions related to managing spaces and resources are consequently affected.

CSR has become a priority for many organizations.

Why Should Your Employees Be Involved in Your CSR Policy?

For the company's CSR policy to be genuinely effective, actively involving employees is crucial. They are key players in the company's implementation of many initiatives and are also ideal spokespersons to promote them.

Ensuring employees feel involved significantly contributes to their commitment and engagement towards set objectives.

Furthermore, the CSR approach contributes to enhancing the company's image. Your internal ambassadors will again be the best actors to work towards this goal.

How do you engage your employees in your CSR policy?

Human-Centered Approach

Certain subjects require more than just an email to evoke a sense of concern and involvement. This often applies to the CSR policy for personnel who may not naturally be sensitive to the topic. Consider gathering your teams through regular workshops, testimonials (internal or from locally engaged stakeholders, for example), thematic breakfasts, or more specific training sessions. Sustain your employees' interest throughout their journey within your company so that your CSR commitments also become theirs.

Organize working groups to help evolve your CSR policy and implement new initiatives that employees genuinely originate and, therefore, feel responsible for their success!

Lastly, presenting your challenges as internal contests can be interesting. What if you launched individual, team, or company-wide challenges for a specific period to kick-start the movement? Human nature is inherently competitive. A small incentive could make all the difference while encouraging employee teamwork and collaboration!

Measure the Impact of Your Efforts

There's nothing better than being able to track results in real time. Like your business objectives, regularly measure (if possible, in real-time!) the outcome of your collective efforts and communicate them as much as possible. Share reductions in consumption achieved. Highlight your volunteer actions. Numerous solutions allow a fairly straightforward display of building consumptions in real time and change over weeks. Your employees will be more motivated if they see the impact of their actions.

Empower Your CSR Policy

Encouraging employees to volunteer without providing the means is ineffective. Similarly, pushing employees to make efforts (eco-friendly practices, choosing sustainable transportation, etc.) without setting an example or providing the means for these efforts is not coherent.

The company must do its part for such a policy to be viable. Participating in collective efforts and implementing arrangements to encourage behavioral changes (establishing proper bike parking, setting up a collection point for local fruits and vegetables, allowing a workday dedicated to volunteering, etc.) will facilitate behavioral changes.

Leverage Your Existing Internal Communication Tools

Consider the relevance of each tool at your disposal within your company or one that you could implement. The goal is to regularly disseminate awareness and information messages regarding your CSR policy to keep it a part of daily discourse.

Surveys

You may already use a survey tool to inquire about various subjects with your employees. Why not query them about the CSR policy? Their sentiments? Or simply the good ideas they might have? Similarly, setting up a suggestion box allows everyone to voice their thoughts and share their good ideas.

Digital Signage

Utilize screens already placed in common areas (reception, break rooms, elevators, cafeteria, etc.) to communicate your overall CSR policy objectives, ongoing projects, progress made so far, etc.

Do not hesitate to establish a clear communication plan to push specific themes at particular times. Waste reduction, energy efficiency, eco-friendly practices, easy-to-adopt best practices, volunteer projects, other sponsorships, association engagement, etc.

Remember, the most effective way to raise awareness is when the message is conveyed by someone they know. Consider letting your employees speak about their feelings and their actions! Short video interviews of staff or a simple quote alongside a portrait can be more effective than a lengthy speech from the President.

Underutilized Communication Spaces

If you wish to avoid overwhelming your employees with emails, fearing that essential information might go unnoticed amid a hectic workday, consider the various opportunities available. For example, an often underutilized screen is the lock screen, frequently seen multiple times during a workday. Pushing internal communication that deserves recurrence on such a screen makes sense: you don't change your employees' work habits, you don't disturb them in the middle of a professional task, and you avoid the risk of a message being sent directly to the trash, and you take advantage of a previously unused space that won't leave the recipient indifferent when they see it changing.

Communicate in Real-Time and Consistently

Regardless of the chosen solution as the preferred channel for your internal communications, plan recurring messages. Indeed, topics like CSR must be reiterated for easier integration into daily routines and not be abandoned over time.

Certain information related to your CSR policy deserves to be pushed in real-time. Take advantage of a notification or alert solution to inform your employees about important news, the start of an event, an action to be taken, or an immediate behavior to adopt.

Ultimately, actively involving your employees in the CSR policy will lead to better adoption. Consequently, your goals will be more easily achieved while significantly improving your company's image. This will strengthen the company culture for your employees and, thus, their overall commitment to the company.