Key tips for incorporating CSR into your workplace

In 2016, Bohlsen Group had the pleasure of co-hosting a series of nonprofit Power Plays events for communications professionals throughout the Indianapolis area. We boiled down the hours of conversations with Power Plays attendees and years of experience into 10 tips for incorporating CSR into your workplace.

No matter if you’re a start-up working out of your partner’s kitchen or part of a large corporation engaging thousands of employees across the globe, these 10 actionable tips apply.

Get Leadership Buy-In

Make sure the executive management team is on board, understands the goals and is willing to incorporate CSR into the framework of your organization’s operating structure.

Audit Current Operations

Certainly your organization is already doing many things CSR-related that you can build upon and institutionalize. Take the time to assess your current approach and identify what practices you can expand on or develop.

Realize the Variety of CSR

There are many components to CSR – sustainability, employee engagement, monitoring and evaluation, community investment, partnerships and reporting. Not every company excels in all areas, and that is okay.

Tie CSR to Outcomes

Understand how each CSR initiative ties to your organization’s goals and objectives – marketing and PR, HR, outreach, branding and lead generation. Doing so will force you to be mindful about formalizing your CSR program.

Listen to Employees, Clients and Vendors

Tie your organization’s CSR program to what interests and motivates your people and connections. You can do this by listening in meetings, conducting a survey or organizing an internal brainstorm.

Set Achievable Goals

If you set goals that are easily met, your organization will stay on track and be motivated to reevaluate them often. Approach CSR like you’re training for a marathon – slow and steady wins the race.

Make CSR Enjoyable

If you listen to what your organization’s stakeholders care about, you know you’ll get buy-in and participation. Consider creating an awards program to motivate in an ongoing manner.

Tell Your Story

Caring about CSR makes for some great storytelling, and your organization should absolutely fold all initiatives into its marketing plan to share the initiatives and results across all divisions and company efforts.

Embrace Social Media

Amplify what you are doing across social media platforms. Use social media to support others that are highlighting and pursuing the benefits of CSR and get ideas on how to improve.

Measure Success

Put into place a program to quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate your company’s CSR program. Doing so will help you sell the program to upper management, excite employees and show you where to make improvements.