Corporate social responsibility is vital to the success of your business. Giving back to the community can set an organisation apart from its competitors. Customers choose organisations that regularly to give back to local communities. Whether a business has a social conscience or not can be a deciding factor in whether consumers support you, or not.
Effective corporate social responsibility can boost the morale of an organisation’s staff. This can then boost your operations and productivity to help cut costs. Here are some ways to improve your organisation’s corporate social responsibility.
Establish community relationships
Consider what is important to your local community. Does the local football club need support? Are their social programs that could use a mentor? Could local schools use your help? For example, an IT services company could donate annual internet hosting time to the school. It could also offer a discount internet package to students’ families. This way the students and school benefit as well as the families.
You need to be sincere when you connect and engage your customers. Providing free hosting to the school and discount packages to families can increase your sales. It is also good for word of mouth promotion of the business because you are offering genuine community discounts.
Be transparent
Your business cannot hide in the age of technology. Anyone can write what they think about a business anywhere online these days. Instead of hiding your company’s processes and procedures, be transparent. Grasp internet opportunities to promote how you operate. Talk about your attitude to corporate social responsibility. Be transparent instead of secretive about your business practices and customer service. Being open and honest earns the trust of consumers as you are telling the world that local communities matter.
Encourage employee participation
Giving back to the local community boosts employee morale. Encourage employee involvement. It gives employees a way to contribute to their community. Promote staff volunteer opportunities during work hours. Offering opportunities to get involved builds strong, loyal teams. It also provides leadership opportunities for staff. This promotes a sense of fulfillment which increases productivity to boost company profits.
Make socially responsible decisions
Consumers like to see the organisations they support make socially responsible decisions. For example, a café that uses recyclable takeaway containers and coffee drink containers may increase customer loyalty. While you need to save every cent you can, you may save nothing if people disagree with your purchasing choices. Consider spending a little more to bring your business in line with consumer expectations. These days sustainability is important for some consumers. If they think you do not support protecting the planet then they may not support you.
Promote your community involvement
Let the world know what you do. Promote your community involvement on your website and social media pages. Let everyone know how much money you give and how much time your employees donate to community organisations. If you do not tell the world, how are they going to know how much you give back to the community through your business.
Improving your corporate responsibility is one way to improve productivity, sales and profits while contributing to your local community.
