perspectives
give back, 75 per cent of respondents said, “Donating money to
causes/charities.”
Corporate giving, or a strong corporate social responsibility
practice, lays the foundation for employers to empower employees
by giving them the opportunity to contribute to an organization
that resonates with them on a personal level. Current employees
and new talent alike want to be part of corporations that place
value of charitable acts – 48 per cent of Canadians think employ-ers
should be offering volunteer days, according to the Interac
survey – and a corporate social responsibility practice that funnels
from the top down. Employees want CSR to be part of the fabric
of their organizations.
With a strong CSR practice in place, the question becomes:
How can HR professionals seamlessly slot these efforts into their
hiring strategies?
One advantage that successful CSR practices can give a hir-ing
manager is access to the wider community. Typically, talent
flows through the same channels – LinkedIn, Glassdoor – but
an enterprise that is active in its community inherently increases
its selection pool and opens its doors to people from underrep-resented
backgrounds who may not typically make it into the
company’s hiring stream. This is part of the reason enterprises
should be including their HR team in all CSR activities, either
as facilitators or participants. CSR allows a corporation to have
its ear to the ground and transforms the hiring process into a dia-logue
– corporations stop speaking at potential hires and begin
to listen to what the community needs, allowing them to better
access talent and make strategic hires.
The reverse also happens – corporate social responsibility can
be an opportunity for the community to engage with an enter-prise
on a deeper level. Potential talent can take pride in a brand
that reflects their personal values and develop a relationship with
a corporation long before they consider applying for a position,
refining the employer-employee fit. Corporate social responsibility
thus allows the hiring process to focus on talent and values, rather
than recruitment.
Sharing an enterprise’s corporate social responsibility initiatives
can be tricky – companies don’t want to discredit the authenticity
that they’ve worked diligently to achieve in the campaign itself, but
it’s also important that they share beyond their immediate com-munity
in order to reach potential talent, wherever they may be.
For example, Interac has found video testimonials to be the best
tool for sharing their CSR efforts. Video is an aspect of their cam-paigns
that they consider from the very beginning and is built into
all campaign roadmaps.
At its core, corporate social responsibility needs to be heart-felt
or it won’t work, not as a charitable initiative or as a talent
acquisition strategy. However, throughout the process, corpora-tions
should still be considering how they can best capture those
moments and how they can be shared post-campaign. Beyond
in-person community initiatives, tools like social media allow
enterprises to share their CSR campaigns to a wider audience
online and create a meaningful dialogue, foster relationships with
the community, consumers and, most of all, potential talent. n
Caroline Stephens is the chief human resources officer at Interac Corp.
rawpixel/123RF
FROM A HUMAN RESOURCES AND
RECRUITMENT PERSPECTIVE, A
FLESHED-OUT CSR STRATEGY
PUTS ORGANIZATIONAL
VALUES INTO ACTION.
62 ❚ FEBRUARY 2019 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL
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