Good Business Sense

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CSR on Your Resume: 5 ways

Every time I hear that a company is looking to hire a CSR person or I hear csr on ur resumesomeone say they are looking for a CSR job, I want to bang my head in a wall…HARD! Not because I think it is a futile endeavor, not by a long shot; my self-destructive behavior is driven by the knowledge that both parties are shooting in the dark, on a moving train. By only looking for people with CSR experience, companies are depriving themselves of talent that could be a great fit for CSR, yet never worked in that role. Similarly, people who despair because they believe they have no experience to land a job in this particular niche may be missing out on many opportunities that could use similar strengths or could potentially turn into a CSR function.

Below are 5 ways you can put your strengths on your resume in a way that portrays are a good fit for a CSR Sustainability related role. Continue reading →

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Media has no interest in your CSR message? Here’s how to fix that.

So you have a Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) program that you are really excited about? elated even, and you expect the same enthusiasm from others? You foresee people writing in for interviews and bloggers dying to get your story and media clamoring to feature you first.  Sadly, none of this happens. That’s not how things work, your PR would tell you; the momentum builds up slowly, the excitement grows gradually and the interest develops over time. I beg to differ; while there is no such thing as an overnight hit, there are steps you can take that would make sure the media is excited to hear about your program and write about it.

 In this age of frenzied and fleeting attention spans, even without a CSR tag, it’s becoming increasingly hard to get media to give your story some valuable real estate and when it’s a story with claims to “save the world” and “build a better tomorrow” the media simply tunes it out. So, how do you get them to pay attention? Read on for my top tips for getting noticed by media and finally receiving the attention your awesome new CSR campaign deserves: Continue reading →

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Pick yourself up, Dust yourself off!

It is the first and hopefully the last time, I title a blog post on a song lyric (and I humbly apologize)but no other words adequately describe the state of this blog and its owner. I have neglected this blog  for so long that I can practically pluck cobwebs off the sidebar and I would do that if I had the energy OR the inclination to do that. Instead, I  will use just one more post to have a minor pity party before we can move to our regular CSR ramblings.

My son who is 6 suffered a very severe eye injury in August. We have been to hell and back in the past 2 months and now that we know that the final visual outcome is not as good as we had expected, we have managed to make peace with the situation and accept it as God’s will. The last 2 months have been a frenzy of doctors and surgeries and ultrasounds and appointments and I’d rather have all my teeth extracted without anesthesia than go through that time again. The good news is that we are so much stronger as a family than we gave ourselves credit for. My little man especially is such a trooper that during all that time, he was the one cheering us on!

Soooooo that explains my awfully long absence and I just want to thank all the people who have been reading this blog when it was active and the new ones who haven’t read anything yet. You people have silently supported me by not giving up on this dusty old place and I can’t thank you enough for that. I promise it will be back to its regular self pretty soon. Till then please do keep my son and my family in your thoughts.

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How to craft a CSR message that wins over your employees

One of the most talked about (and documented) business benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is employee attraction and retention.  We also know via flicker creative commonsfrom the latest Net Impact study (pdf) that an overwhelming majority of workers want to work in a position that helps them make a difference. The business case for employee involvement in CSR is strong, with more and more companies taking on employee volunteering programs and dollar-for-doers like initiatives to involve the workforce in their CSR agenda.

That said, this is also the most cynical bunch of people when it comes to company CSR programs and some employees are downright critical. This could be because they have seen firsthand how the company operates and can therefore smell a rat when things are not as great as they are made out to be. This could also be because they feel a certain level of antagonism towards a company that puts customers first or that believes its primary responsibility is to the community while falling short on its responsibility as an employer. But most of all, this cynicism comes from not being treated as an intelligent group of stakeholders with specific information needs. Many, if not all of these needs can be addressed through well thought-out CSR messaging that respects their intelligence and treats them as an insider. This post is about how to create such messaging: Continue reading →

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