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Management, Pages: 4, Research paper

HR Strategic Role in Corporate Social Responsibility

HR Strategic Role in Corporate Social Responsibility

An organization’s human resources are recipients and promoters of an organization’s sustainability efforts. One of the connections between the HR department and corporate social responsibility (CSR) is that CSR emerges from or can be managed by HR. Besides, CSR can be a function of another organizational department, say communications or marketing, with HR collaborating with these departments to implement CSR initiatives. Another way to examine the relationship between HR and CSR is by defining an “organization”: HR Strategic Role in Corporate Social Responsibility.

A basic definition of the term organization includes any individual or group who can affect or be affected by an organization’s achievement of its objectives. This definition emphasizes the social and relational aspects of sustainability. HR’s role in CSR implementation revolves around aligning people and processes with the organization’s sustainability culture and enhancing employee engagement.

HR Strategic Roles

Internal/Process Orientation

The HR function supports CSR through the internal process orientation. This refers to the technical role an HR function plays in supporting sustainability efforts at the organizational level. As one of the quadrants of the roles of HR in supporting sustainability, it refers to how HR supports employees’ welfare and development (De Stefano et al., 2017).

Some of the activities performed by HR under this segment include employee training, development, performance evaluation, and safety management (De Stefano et al., 2017). These activities are designed to help employees grow professionally. In the same breath, they are meant to create an enabling environment where employees can work effectively.

Today, organizations are increasingly requiring employees who align with their organizational values. To achieve this, the HR department must implement strategies supporting the recruitment and retention of people who are passionate about sustainability (De Stefano et al., 2017). During recruitment, job advertisements must push a message that an organization wants professionals who are naturally dedicated to CSR.

Also, HR employs strategies that bolster morale, satisfaction, and retention, like positive feedback and reward systems (De Stefano et al., 2017). By improving the welfare of employees and creating a positive work environment, organizations support workforce sustainability, which is an internal CSR effort.

External/People Orientation

Another role of HR in CSR is pegged on helping employees serve the communities around them. The role of HR in helping employees serve society is categorized into two-fold. On the one hand, HR supports, designs, and implements employees’ volunteering programs. The role of HR in helping employees achieve this CSR function revolves around the fact that it is the HR department that permits employees to engage in CSR (De Stefano et al., 2017).

In other words, just like the finance department controls an organization’s financial resources, the HR department controls and manages the organization’s human resources (employees). To that end, employees must get permission from the HR department before engaging in CSR initiatives. By encouraging and supporting employees to engage in CSR initiatives, the HR department enables an organization to achieve the organization’s sustainability objectives quickly. These activities mirror HR’s role in fostering a sustainability culture and creating a sustainable internal climate that enables employees to complete their roles effectively.

The second role of HR under this quadrant is providing the necessary training to employees to uphold external stakeholders’ human rights, and this targets other departments such as procurement. To perform this role, the HR department builds upon business ethics that encourage businesses to enhance the welfare of the community around them (Hohnen, 2007). Here, HR adopts an outward-looking approach to determine people’s needs. A good example of this function is when the HR department analyzes the external environment and realizes that there is a significant homelessness challenge.

Having identified this problem, the HR department mobilizes resources and employees and empowers them to attend to the homeless children. As stated earlier, HR is the custodian of employees’ time. Therefore, in collaboration with employees and other organizational departments, HR sets aside time for employees to visit the streets and provide food and other effects to homeless families.

Formulating Corporate Sustainable Rewards

Kang et al. (2022) delve into HR’s role of reward systems and behavior modeling in helping an organization achieve its sustainability goals, improve employee performance, and enhance productivity. When employees are rewarded, they exhibit an internal stimulus of wanting to do things in a particular way. For instance, most organizations are increasingly adopting a green reward designed to enhance environmental sustainability awareness and encourage employees to preserve the environment. Some of the rewards under this segment include wage increments and praises.

A wide body of research has emphasized that monetary and non-monetary rewards encourage employees to engage in sustainability initiatives. To benefit from these rewards, employees engage in activities like participating in tree plantation within and outside an organization’s premises and encouraging their colleagues to align with environmental sustainability objectives.

Supplier Diversity and Ethical Sourcing

The HR department can also extend its diversity and inclusion goals beyond an organization to its supply chain. This can be achieved by screening the supply chain in collaboration with the procurement department. To ensure ethical sourcing, an organization must ensure that its supply chain partners do not recruit underage children, nor do they exploit employees through long working hours and poor wages (Zhang et al., 2017). Notably, Nike’s 1997 sweatshop scandal showed how the company’s partners used children to do factory operations and, thus, highlighted the need for companies to screen their supply chains to ensure corporate responsibility.

HR CSR Strategies Recommendations

Ensure That All Stakeholders Are Sufficiently Informed about the HR Strategy to Facilitate Buy-In

First, the HR department should provide regular updates about the organization’s HR strategy through emails, leadership meetings, and newsletters. Second, holding town hall meetings involving all stakeholders will facilitate the exchange of ideas, address concerns, and gather useful feedback that will inform the formulation of an HR strategy. Third, adopt a personalized communication strategy that will inform every employee how they will be affected by the HR strategy.

Embrace an Employee Engagement Culture Where Employees’ Input Will Be Used to Design an HR Strategy

One of the action steps to involve employees is by conducting surveys and focus group analysis to gather CSR expectations and concerns and use the input to foster buy-in. Second, select advocacy groups that will explain the CSR strategy to the rest of the organization’s employees, gather data, and revert to the organization’s leadership. Third, offer CSR training to help employees understand the new CSR strategy, and this may involve the use of hands-on sessions and online resources.

Draw Measurable Metrics that Will Be Used to Assess the Success of the CSR Strategy

Since the CSR strategy will be implemented by employees, it is vital to define the key performance indicators (KPIs) revolving around employee satisfaction and employee retention rates as determinants for CSR success. Next, the organization should adopt a tracking system that assesses the success of the CSR strategy, including software that measures accountability. Lastly, depending on the success of a CSR strategy, the organization should celebrate milestones by rewarding and publicly recognizing employees who made a significant effort to support the CSR strategy.

References

De Stefano, F., Bagdadli, S., & Camuffo, A. (2017). The HR role in corporate social responsibility and sustainability: A boundary-shifting literature review. Human Resource Management, 57(2), 549–566. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21870

Hohnen, P. (2007). Corporate social responsibility: An implementation guide for business (J. Potts, Ed.). International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files?file=publications/csr_guide.pdf

Kang, Y.-C., Hsiao, H.-S., & Ni, J.-Y. (2022). The role of sustainable training and reward in influencing employee accountability perception and behavior for corporate sustainability. Sustainability, 14(18), 11589. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141811589

Zhang, M., Pawar, K. S., & Bhardwaj, S. (2017). Improving supply chain social responsibility through supplier development. Production Planning & Control, 28(6-8), 500–511. https://doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2017.1309717

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Question

Consider the scenarios in which you have taken the role of an HR executive hired to guide and lead Global ProTech’s new CSR initiative At this point, you are feeling proud of what you have accomplished. However, you are well aware that a key component in strategic HRM is taking time to evaluate and plan carefully.

To complete this Assignment, review the Learning Resources for this week and respond to the following key points in a 3- to 4-page academic paper.

  • Evaluate what your role, and that of HR throughout the company, should be in advancing Global ProTech’s new corporate-wide CSR initiative and its guiding vision statement.
  • Recommend 3–5 strategies that HR can utilize to drive the successful launch of this new initiative system-wide. Provide 3–4 action steps for each strategy, including what must be put into place to make these strategies work, e.g., initiating executive briefings to gain understanding and support, assigning an oversight committee, establishing tracking or metrics, holding Town Hall meetings with employees, etc.

    HR Strategic Role in Corporate Social Responsibility

    HR Strategic Role in Corporate Social Responsibility

Sources that can be used are: