Sustainability Chapter 5_Social_Sustainability MC PDF

Social Web of Stakeholders Every company is its own community. Business leaders have long referred to companies as a “family” to add a sense of loyalty for employees. While this may have been alright in the past, where a person could start in the mailroom and rise up to the board of directors, it’s...

Social Web of Stakeholders Every company is its own community. Business leaders have long referred to companies as a “family” to add a sense of loyalty for employees. While this may have been alright in the past, where a person could start in the mailroom and rise up to the board of directors, it’s now common for employees of younger generations to jump from company to company in order to advance their careers. Business leaders who understand the Social Web of their company can better implement socially sustainable practices, in order to retain talented employees, strengthen ties with external stakeholders, and keep investors happy.. On the following slide we’ll diagram the Social Web of a sustainable company, illustrating how stakeholders no longer communicate on a strictly hierarchical basis, but on a much more parallel one. Trickle-Down Sustainability: Leadership’s Role Unilever CEO Phillip Polman is a good example of sustainability efforts starting at the top, even to the chagrin of shareholders and board members, and implementing company-wide incentives that took root in the company’s culture. In the years that followed, Unilever became one of the leading examples of a sustainability-focused multi-national company. Sustainability Comes From The Top Setting the Example: Leaders demonstrating a commitment to sustainability sets clear expectations for the rest of the company. Aligning Goals: Buy-in starting from the top helps align goals at every organizational level. Building Trust: Employees are more likely to buy-in when leadership fosters engagement. Driving Innovation: Top-down focus improves chances of innovative strategies for implementing sustainability practices Long-Term Vision: When leadership lays out where they want to see the company in 5, 10, or 20 years from now, it helps bolster efforts and pushback from short-term losses for long-term gains.  Lip-Service vs. Deep Commitment If social responsibility initiatives are solely driven by leadership without meaningful implementation throughout the organization, employees my become disillusioned, perceiving the efforts as mere lip service rather than genuine commitment. Sometimes sustainability initiatives are made that the majority of employees actually disagree with, e.g., Microsoft’s support of the “Gay Rights Bill,” which went against conservative employee’s beliefs that marriage wasn’t intended for same-sex couples. It ended up being PR flub for Microsoft as they withdrew support for the bill in 2005, drawing some public scrutiny. Another example is the Enron corporation, now-infamous for their misleading of investors and cooking the books, was ironically once seen as a paragon of Corporate Social Responsibility. The notion of this all came from the top levels of their organization. It goes to show that for social sustainability initiatives to actually make a difference, they have to be “deep” within the organization, embraced at all levels, and not just part of a quarterly email from the C-suite. Diversity, Equitability, & Inclusivity Stemming from the 1964 American Civil Rights Movement, outlawing any discriminatory hiring practices based around race, color, religion, sex and national origin, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion are the modern day set of policies with a number of goals such as: Increasing the percentage of women in management positions, facilitating a healthy work-life balance, making workplaces accessible to all ranges of physically-abled people, and accounting for LGTBQ inclusivity. After recent social trends as The Great Resignation, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, workplaces are looking to retain Millennial and Gen-Z employees who, for the most part, tend to place a high importance in DEI issues. Today, 63% of European companies have a DEI policy in place, and the percentage is likely to rise in the coming years. The EU  Implementing DEI Policies (1 / 5) Address Implicit Bias Implicit Bias, the unconscious tendency for altering decision-making processes based on a person’s background, gender, socioeconomic status, or other personal factors, is a recurring problem in management and director-level in all companies. DEI policies have started to include corporate training to mitigate implicit bias, and tools such as Harvard’s Project Implicit provide tools for ongoing-self assessment. Implementing DEI Policies (2 / 5) Acknowledge Intersectionality An essential part of adopting more inclusive hiring practices and workplace policies, Intersectionality is how the various aspects of ourselves, gender, ethnicity, age, etc. intersect and how society treats us, positively or negatively, in turn. Management and HR can help foster a more inclusive environment by implementing intersectionality awareness as part of their DEI program.  Implementing DEI Policies (3 / 5) Employee Resource Groups (ERGS) ERGs are groups within companies where people of similar backgrounds, e.g., parents, veterans, older employees, etc. can freely share their experiences both within the company and without. Employees who have access to ERGs report they feel more included in their companies and can voice opinions and observations freely to someone who will actually listen to them, rather than an anonymous survey. Today, 90% of Fortune 500 groups feature ERGs. Implementing DEI Policies (4 / 5) Mentorship Programs Having a formal way of connecting entry-level or newer employees with senior management is an excellent way of encouraging internal promotions, retaining talent, and making employees feel included and valued. Mentorship programs also are an excellent way of planting the seeds of diversity at the highest levels of corporate governance by giving woman and POC ways to rise up to board-level positions, one of the main goals of DEI.  Implementing DEI Policies (5 / 5) Transparency Just as transparency is vital for external stakeholders, it goes the same for employees as well. Only 33% of organizations reportedly practice “true” transparency, and 82% of employees feel that their workplace lacks fairness. Transparency in the promotion process helps retain employees who would otherwise jump ship to another company in order to increase their salary or attain a better job title. The same goes for decisions made at the board- level, to an extent.