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In each episode, Onirio explores all those tricky, even improbable (and yet real!) situations that the manager's job can throw at us 😉

On today's agenda, we talk to you about CSR: an unavoidable theme in our organizations.

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🛶 Today's Struggle: How to contribute concretely to CSR Initiatives?

Your company has a new CSR ambition. You're going to have to roll it out across your team, while maintaining the same traditional performance objectives, of course! 😉

You're sensitive to social and environmental issues. But you're skeptical about your ability to make a real impact...

What can you do concretely with your team?

🍀 What is Corporate Social Responsibility?

The European Commission defines Corporate Social Responsibility as "thevoluntary integration by companies of social and environmental concerns into their business activities and their relations with their stakeholders."

There's even an international standard on the subject: ISO 26000.

The scope of CSR revolves around 7 themes:

The field of action is vast, encompassing various issues: ethics and code of conduct, diversity and inclusion, health and safety, carbon footprint reduction, volunteering and skills sponsorship, sustainable waste management, respect for the privacy of customers and employees…

⛔ Watch out for dumplings!

Do you want to be an exemplary CSR manager? Then, be careful not to fall into these classic yet unfortunate attitudes…

Fatalism: "Frankly, there's not much we can do at our level... Big companies / our leaders / the US and China should get involved.".
Economic arbitration: "It's nice and all, but it doesn't pay our salaries!"
Easy satisfaction: "Our flagship CSR projects? We now print in black and white!"
Delegation: "Jane, I'm entrusting you with this year's CSR topic! We'll review it in your year-end review. Good luck!"
CSR-washing - "Sure, we have projects that aren't exactly CSR compliant, and an intense work pace that can tire some... but we offset our emissions by planting trees!"

💡What are your action levers?

1 - Step back with your team

You've probably heard the proverb "Alone we go faster, together we go further" right?

In terms of CSR, without your team, you might not go very far. So, a piece of advice: start with a workshop to step back (or even raise awareness 😉).

Here's the outline of a workshop to be done with your team (approx. 1h30 to 2h):

Introduce the workshop by presenting the 7 themes of ISO 26000
List, as a team, the facts that make you aware of your team's practices regarding the 7 themes..
- Examples: "our last three recruits are men", "our procedures are accessible to the visually impaired", "8 out of 10 people have taken anti-money laundering training", "we have reduced air travel by 30% compared with last year".
- The goal is to remain as FACTUAL as possible!
Collectively debrief to analyze the situation and identify the main areas for improvement

2 - Identify and prioritize actions within your control

The second step to be done as a team: the action plan.

Identify your company's CSR commitments (if they exist!) that your team can contribute to and have a direct impact on
Review the elements of your step-back workshop:
- What are the achievements that already contribute to CSR commitments?
- What are the main points to improve?
Conduct an ideation session to identify concrete actions within your control!

Victim of writer's block? Some examples of action levers

It's sometimes challenging to figure out how to positively impact your social and environmental footprint. Not everyone works for a humanitarian organization fighting world hunger...

Are you an accountant in a multinational? A artisan-baker? An IT project manager?

What can you do concretely?

The field of CSR is vast, and action levers can be applied to any type of activity. Here are a few examples:

CSR awareness: Ensure awareness of your team on CSR issues (training, conferences, monitoring...)
Diversity and inclusion: Review the recruitment process to ensure candidate diversity, ensuring that job offers are inclusive.
Process dematerialization: Reduce paper consumption by adopting digital work processes
Transport: Limit professional travel related to team activities and/or prefer environmentally friendly modes of transportation.
Health & Safety: Integrate practices to preserve the health and safety of all team members (workload management, ergonomic equipment, safety standard improvements...)
Volunteering & Skills Sponsorship: Organize team solidarity days to support local initiatives or associations
Waste reduction: Implement initiatives to limit waste related to team activities
Supporting the local economy: Source primarily from local suppliers
Sustainable purchasing: Establish criteria for sustainable purchasing, favoring eco-labeled products and services
...

3 - Take action and, most importantly, iterate

We are all too familiar with action plans that remain plans and never materialize into actions... And an CSR action plan is the typical "usual suspect ":

It requires investing time at the expense of other actions deemed more priority.
Effects will be noticeable in the long term.
Return on investment is difficult to evaluate and is generally not economic.

A few tips to get you moving - despite everything:

Block time to make progress on these issues: allocate 5%, 10%, or 15% of the team's time; it might seem like a lot! But in reality, it translates to 2, 4, or 6 hours per week.
Start with actions that yield short-term results (it boost morale!) and with actions that contribute to other goals (there's no harm in doing some good!).
List what you can give up: What would happen if we do less of...? If we postpone the project...?
Incorporate the tracking of CSR initiatives into your managerial routines: set concrete goals for teams, monitor progress in team meetings and one-on-one sessions...
Step back every 3 to 6 months with your team to assess progress, reassess your initiatives, and decide on new experiments...

And if CSR is not a priority for your company?

Let's be honest: it will be very challenging!

ou'll have to deliver on your operational goals to earn the freedom to progress on your CSR initiatives. Mobilizing individuals who are less sensitive to CSR issues will be a challenge, even a mission impossible.

Should you give up then?

No, exemplarity and perseverance are likely the best ways to reach a tipping point and initiate a movement. We leave you with this video to illustrate the point.

Be the "dancing guy"! 🙂

À for the next episode!

In each episode, Onirio explores a managerial situation and gives you advice on how to take a step back and adopt the right reflexes!

To find all the episodes already published, go to here !

To find out what's next for management, you can follow us on our LinkedIn page.

Have you experienced managerial difficulties? Inspire us!

We're sure you've been in plenty of situations that would merit an article 😉. And we're always looking for inspiration for our next episodes. So drop us a line with a description of your troubles! We'll be delighted to explore your situations!

Episode #19 - Committing to CSR initiatives: Mission Impossible?

🛶 Today's Struggle: How to contribute concretely to CSR Initiatives?