PART 1: What is it and why is it important?
You would be forgiven for thinking that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the exclusive responsibility of big corporate entities, after all it isn’t the simplest of labels for a concept. The term itself has been around since 1953, but the idea of responsible businesses existed long before then. In the current climate it can make the difference between a practice that is good and one that is great. In this brief article Mark explains to us:
- What is CSR?
- Why is it relevant to my practice
- Where do I start?
So, what exactly is Corporate Social Responsibility?
At its fundamental level, it is demonstrating that you care about your people, the environment and the community. CSR is about the choices you make regarding how you run your practice, how you involve your team, how you make informed procurement choices and how you engage with the community.
The key factors:
- People. How you look after people that come into your business, whether they're staff or patients
- Environment. How do you contribute to the sustainability agenda and care for the environment.
- Community How do you choose to engage with the local community and community groups and also charities that you might you might want to support.
Why is this relevant to my practice?
It is relevant to all businesses. Despite being individual business units, practices are part of the larger infrastructure of society, and can cause damage to the environment if they don’t act responsibly and ethically. Consumers and employees are starting to become more discerning about the services/ products that they want to use and the organisations they want to work for.
Statistics show that nine out of ten people now expect businesses to do good on a daily basis.
People will look for evidence of this on websites and social media and will expect to see a regular programme of activity, not just one-off events.
Is CSR compulsory?
Not yet, but the government has a clear sustainability agenda and these targets are starting to trickle down into dentistry. Already the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have two or three questions which they ask practices around their CSR. It is light touch at present but it’s not hard to envisage how this might become a requirement in the future.
What benefits are there to having a sustainability plan?
Recruitment and Retention
Three quarters of the working population will look for good CSR when they are looking for employers.
Recruitment and retention are becoming increasingly challenging. People are looking for a business that is going to care for its people, the environment and the community. Demonstrating that you have strong values may differentiate you from other employers and putting CSR into practice may be the thing that helps to retain staff. Having a stable workforce saves money in recruitment and helps the business to grow and flourish.
Fact: Employees are four times less likely to leave a responsible business.
Culture
It is common knowledge that businesses stand or fall based on their culture. If your culture is poor or weak even the greatest strategy in the world is going to fail. People are your greatest asset and ultimately business is done by people working together so that’s where culture really happens: that shared sense of belonging and shared vulnerability. CSR can be something that builds and strengthens your culture. Culture starts with good leadership and leadership that is real and authentic. This isn’t something that you are asking your employees to do, it is something that you are doing with them. People pull together because they are achieving something for an organisation outside of the business.
Value of your practice
Whilst selling your practice might be the last thing on your mind it, it has been shown that successful CSR is a value-creating part of your business.
Fact: The value of a practice increases if it can be demonstrated that CSR is in place.
Where do I start?
Just being aware of something doesn’t lead to action or a change of attitude, you need to own it and buy into it. You need to get the fundamentals right. Start off by asking:
- What kind of business are we?
- What is important to us?
- What are our values?
- Why is CSR important to us?
Articulating these in a way which is unique to you is the starting point of the journey. You can then build the commitments that go with these, an example might be ‘we are committed to being a great employer’.
The next stage is to bring in the team and ask them for ideas about how this can be put into practice… ideas will flow and a plan will slowly generate.
Remember: This is likely to be slow and steady. It should become part of your practice and needs to complement not dominate. Be realistic and don’t get despondent if things don’t go to plan.
So, now you know what CSR is, why it is important and why it is relevant to your practice.
Raring to go? In the next instalment Mark gives us some practical advice about how to get going.
Find out more information in our upcoming webinar with Mark! Available on demand.
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