In this 9-15-2009 presentation to the Utah state convention of the Society of Human Resource Management, Paul Jones of Alden Keene & Associates describes how corporate citizenship efforts can help human resources (HR) build a better workforce.

1. How Corporate Citizenship Can Help HR Build A Better Workforce

4. Start a new corporate citizenship campaign from scratch

6. Corporate Citizenship Can Help HR: Build Employee Morale & Loyalty. Increase Employee Profitability, Skills and Teamwork. Improve Employee Recruiting and Retention and Put a Pipeline of Talent in Place.

7. Help Build Employee Morale & Loyalty The Council on Foundations found that employees involved in employee-sponsored community events were 30 percent more likely to want to continue working for the company than those who did not. A Fleishman-Hillard survey of employees found that 87 percent expressed greater loyalty to socially-engaged employers. A set of studies commissioned by IBM and conducted by UCLA Professor David Lewin discovered that employee morale at companies that were actively involved in their communities was as much as three times higher than in unengaged companies. A study of 22 marketing campaigns, reported in Journal of Marketing, found that even when cause-marketing campaigns didn’t achieve expected economic benefits, they were still effective at reaching goals like motivating the workforce.

8. Increase Employee Profitability, Skills and Teamwork An internal study at Sears showed that a 5-point gain in employee attitudes results in a 1.3-point improvement in customer satisfaction, which in turn drove a 0.5 percent improvement in revenue. Staffers who participated in employee volunteer programs self-measured their performance and showed an average 17 percent improvement in performance from before the experience to after. Supervisors assessed the improvement at 14 percent. In a survey of US corporations, 97 percent said that corporate volunteer programs boost employee teamwork. Timberland asserts that its employee service-learning program, organized and managed by City Year, represents a cost-effective way to teach employees teambuilding skills.

9. Helps Improve Employee Profitability, Skills and Teamwork II Cone compared workplaces that support a cause versus those that did not and found that: 90 percent of employees at a workplace that supports a cause (versus 56 percent without) report a strong sense of pride towards company values. 87 percent (versus 67 percent) feel a strong sense of loyalty. 56 percent wish their employers would do more for causes. 87 percent (versus 51 percent) wish their company would measure success in social and financial terms.

10. Improve Employee Recruiting and Retention and Put a Pipeline of Talent in Place Scott Brown, a systems integrator at Lenscrafters reports on his experience with the company’s “Give the Gift of Sight” program; “Gift of Sight has meant so much, both personally and professionally, that I’m just not willing to give it up.” Timberland’s attributes in part its relationship with City Year for helping it land on Fortune magazines list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For.”

12. People of diverse origins, races, and ethnicities, can find common ground in corporate citizenship.

14. Founded in 1990.

15. Headquartered in Salt Lake City.

16. Brenda Moland, VISTA’s socially-conscious travel manager department, heard a news item about the extreme need for food donations at the Utah Food Bank.

17. In a staff meeting she suggested the company sponsor a food drive.

19. Instead, of a food drive, Katie Abby from Vista challenged CompHealth’s David Baldridge to a ‘Food Fight.’

20. Vista Fueled the Fight in Emails to Employees “She followed it up with email pleas to save her from this fate. The “Save Katie” emails were flying. We engaged our out-of-state offices via email as well and they seemed to appreciate it.” Carolyn Rose, VISTA Staffing

21. The Ultimate Winner Was the Patrons of the Food Bank “Of note, productivity as measured by phone calls and days booked did not suffer during the contest. “Our contests are also a big recruiting tool for us. We talk about the contests…in the employee recruiting section of our website and in all of our job postings.” Carolyn Rose, VISTA Staffing

23. Egyptian government officials asked IBM to make Egyptian cultural more accessible.

24. This was entirely a nonprofit endeavor. Although as it turns out, IBM got a substantial contract from a related undertaking.

25. IBM gave away expertise and time, rather than cash.

26. Eternalegypt.org one result.

27. The multimedia is accessible online and by cell phone, which is vital.

28. Kiosks are in key parts of the country.

30. When IBM got involved with Second Life, the virtual world, nearly 200 IBMers self-organized to put together the company’s presence there, all of it on their own time.

32. Change is what counts. The public must care about the problems and be willing to support the solutions.

33. Innovation is the pathway. But the innovation must be sustainable, not one-off.

35. The work can and must be managed, just like any other project. Even if the funding is different.

36. ‘Agreements stress a process of joint discovery rather than following preordained specs.’

37. ‘The best partners round out the change coalition.’

39. Determine the benefits your company might seek in an alliance

40. Review your readiness to engage in alliances with nonprofits

41. Delegate responsibilities for guiding alliance development

42. List your current relationships with nonprofits

44. Identify nonprofits with which to create alliances

45. Develop a purpose and fit statement for each alliance

46. Develop a management plan for each alliance

48. Q&A Paul Jones Alden Keene and Associates 801/809-9470 aldenkeene@gmail.com Twitter: @paulrjones www.causemarketing.biz