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Social Responsibility Series (3) |
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Having introduced the concepts and the approaches to determining social responsibility priorities in the previous articles, we, in this article, introduce the Four Pillars Model and related management practices for social responsibility activities. Force members may take this Model as reference to the social responsibility activities in different aspects. The management practices are also essential to make social responsibility activities successful. Four
Pillars
Model
In many organisations, social responsibility activities cover four domains, i.e. Environment, Community, Marketplace and Workplace. These domains are also known as the Four Pillars Model. Environment
Environment covers efforts to reduce ecological or environmental impacts of an organisation's operation and to take proactive initiatives to green the planet. Activities may range from energy and paper savings to tree planting, and against animal testing. Currently, "climate change" and "reducing carbon footprint" are the hottest topics of concern. Some practices under this category may include managing an organisation's carbon footprint by introducing an internal carbon tax on business flights and supporting energy savings through the use of a high-energy efficiency product. Community
Community refers to the social aspect of social responsibility. Activities under this category may include staff volunteering to help the less privileged, neighbourhood programmes, and partnership with Non-government Organisations (NGO). Marketplace
Marketplace refers to an organisation's impact on society arising from its products and services. Issues include customer well-being, interests of minority customer groups, supply-chain management and fair procurement. Workplace
Workplace covers a wide range of issues from employee welfare, work-life balance, training and development to occupational safety. It is an employer's responsibility to look after employees, who form part of a larger society to benefit under the social responsibility banner, and who are also the delivery agent to assist their employer in discharging social responsibility while carrying out the organisation's business. Social
Responsibility Management
An effective and feasible management is essential to make a plan successful. In this respect, five key approaches have been identified in various social responsibility management practices: (1) Establishing Governance Structure
A strong governance structure with a clear delineation of responsibilities within an organisation is widely accepted as a key component underpinning an effective social responsibility management system. (2) Involving Stakeholders
It is understandable that social responsibility practitioners are keen to engage stakeholders, such as NGOs, suppliers and customers, in their social responsibility activities. Through ongoing dialogue and collaboration, common values are created with stakeholders, allowing organisations to manage social impacts more effectively. (3) Engaging Employees Organisations recognise that employees' acceptance and engagement is a critical success factor for implementing social responsibility. The common approaches to engage employees in both private and public sectors include: * communicating social responsibility internally; * making social responsibility part of the job; * empowering employees through training to facilitate the effective discharge of social responsibility; * recognising with awards promotion of social responsibility among staff; * offering paid leave to facilitate employees' participation in volunteer work; * cultivating caring individuals as a culture and volunteerism among employees; and * developing individual accountability and shared responsibility in discharging social responsibility. (4) Aligning
Business with Social Responsibility
For a social responsibility policy to be truly effective and sustainable, it must be integrated into organisational strategy and operation. Business integration may involve the processes of identifying business drivers, prioritising issues, implementing initiatives and measuring performance. (5) Reporting
System
Stakeholders nowadays demand organisations demonstrate they are socially responsible. An organisation, therefore, needs to consider communicating or reporting social responsibility performance in the public domain. We note that in the social responsibility field, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has been adopted by many organisations. The GRI is a multi-stakeholder network (including business, investor community, labour, civil society, accounting, academia, and others) that collaborates to advance sustainability reporting. It has become the de facto global standard for reporting. Nevertheless, a company is free to adopt GRI or to use its self-developed performance indicators. For more details of GRI, see http://www.globalreporting.org/Home |
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