Corporate Social Responsibility: Is Your Company a Good Corporate Citizen?

Corporate social responsibility is a big buzzword in business today with lots of companies claiming that they are great community citizens. However, the reality is that few really go the extra mile to give back to their communities. What these companies don’t realize is that community involvement and corporate social responsibility are highly correlated with employee morale. Opting to not be a community-minded corporation can actually lead to lower productivity in the workplace and employee retention problems.

The logic here is very simple…

Happier people are more productive, and being proud of the company you work for and what you do goes a long way in making an employee happier.

Seeing your company give back to the community gives people the same sensation as giving themselves — they feel like they are a part of something good. The more a company can trigger this sensation through charitable activities, the more impact it will have on employee morale.

Similarly, philanthropy events can also serve as great team building activities that strengthen the ties and personal bonds between colleagues. Gallop has shown that building friendships in the workplace improves employee engagement and overall productivity in the workplace. Of course, there are other ways to build employee bonds, like hosting social events and sponsoring office sports teams. However, there is something special about gathering your employees together to raise money or do charitable work for a cause.

Social Responsibility + Happy Workers = Better Business

As I discussed in a previous post on internal branding, happy and proud employees also aid the process of developing and/or building your company’s brand. Satisfaction, pride and happiness on the job will lead employees to positively talk about their company among friends and in other social settings and positively represent your company when interacting with customers, prospects, partners and other corporate associations. This helps bring the brand to life.

There are lots of ways for corporations to get involved in their communities, but those that will have the largest impact on their company are those that create positive memories in the minds of their employees and allow team members to develop stronger personal relationships with their colleagues.

Here at OpenView, we are passionate about being great corporate citizens. In fact, we even decided to build this ideal into our company aspirations to ensure we don’t lose sight of this important quality in our corporate culture. Here are some highlights of what OpenView has done to give back to our community during the last year:

• We sponsored a team for Tech Gives Back in Boston, which is an industry sponsored trip to the Boston Food Bank to help the staff sort and bag food and other household goods for distribution to less fortunate families and soup kitchens.
• We hosted a team in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Golden Bat Wiffle Ball Tournament last summer.
• Our office team, “The Mustache Venture Partners,” raised more than $1,500 in this year’s Movember cancer fundraiser.
• We have committed to providing a monthly meeting space for the Boston Chapter of the Relay for Life and plan to organize a team for this year’s event, which is scheduled for June 15, 2012.

To see pictures of the OpenView Team’s community service activities this year, please visit our Facebook Page.

If you are interested in learning more about corporate social responsibility, I highly recommend reading Causecast’s series on “The 7 Secrets of Successful Workplace Giving Programs.” If you are trying to build corporate giving into your corporate culture, I highly recommend reading Scott Maxwell’s series on how to develop corporate aspirations that drive corporate culture and facilitate your company’s corporate vision.