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The systematic examination of employee performance and understanding of a person’s talents for future growth and development is known as performance appraisal. For a variety of reasons, corporations frequently struggle to satisfy their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) pledges. Indeed, because corporations frequently put profits ahead of social responsibility, they frequently give lip respect to the concept without delivering any meaningful results in practice.
However, because civil society and other stakeholders, such as regulators and activists, put pressure on corporations to demonstrate tangible and meaningful CSR achievements, corporate social responsibility outcomes are frequently scrutinised by the media and the general public. Indeed, with regulators like SEBI (Stock Exchange Board of India) and the Indian government requiring corporations to spend a particular percentage of their revenues and earnings on CSR, there is a greater drive than ever to hold corporations accountable and responsible.
As a result of these developments, many corporations in India and throughout the world are taking their performance management and corporate social responsibility more seriously and experimenting with new ways to make their CSR initiatives count.
What is Corporate Social Responsibility?
CSR refers to everything a company does to improve the lives of the people, communities, and places it affects. It’s also the rules and practices that a corporation implements to enable these outcomes. Despite the fact that there are many different viewpoints, the industry has yet to agree on a precise definition of CSR. It varies from company to company, as with many broad ethical ideas in business.
CSR is becoming a bigger concern for companies of all kinds, and it’s recognised as an important aspect of a company’s mission and employee value offer. In 2018, 86 per cent of S&P 500 Index businesses submitted sustainability or corporate responsibility reports, according to the Governance and Accountability Institute. Many businesses dedicate entire teams to creating and implementing CSR initiatives.
Including CSR Commitments in the Performance Appraisals
Indeed, multinational individuals like Goldman Sachs mandate that each employee spends a week or more during each appraisal period with the wider community and in rural areas as part of the identified CSR outreach programmes, and that they are rewarded for their time and efforts in the performance appraisals. Multinationals like Goldman Sachs think that by doing so, the theoretical and ideological parts of CSR may be realised in practical and pragmatic ways, ensuring that each person becomes a stakeholder in the organisation’s larger outreach and participates individually, resulting in synergy.
In other words, by including CSR outcomes in performance evaluations, these organisations feel that the sum substance of the entire organisation’s work is higher than the contributions of each individual, resulting in synergy for the entire organisation. Furthermore, by rewarding employees as per their CSR deliverables, the amalgamation or melding together of ideology and practical steps ensures that employees go beyond the mandate and are encouraged and motivated to do more, thereby creating value in the true sense of the word.
Understanding How CSR Helps Organisations
Here are a few concrete ways a CSR programme might benefit your short and long-term business outcomes:
Better Business Results
Organisations that are serious about CSR outperform those that aren’t. According to a three-year study by the Kenexa High-Performance Institute in London, which comprised 175 organisations, CSR-led companies had returned 19 times greater than those with a bad CSR rating.
Employee Advantages
Better corporate social responsibility ratings were connected to higher levels of employee engagement, according to Kenexa’s results. It also has an impact on a company’s capacity to attract top employees. The next generation of workers wants to work for companies that care about people and the environment.
Reduced Company Expenses
Cost savings and sustainable development are frequently linked with performance management and corporate social responsibility. Reduced production costs can be achieved by utilising less packaging and energy. Levi Strauss & Co.’s WaterLess project, for example, saves water use in production by up to 96 per cent. The company has saved over 3 billion litres of water since initiating the process in 2011.
Innovation
Corporate social responsibility efforts can lead to new developments for businesses. For example, GE’s Ecomagination programme, which is focussed on developing innovative solutions to environmental issues, has resulted in new energy-saving LED lights. According to the company, Ecomagination has made $200 billion in sales.
Community Repercussions
CSR allows a company to contribute back to the community and improve people’s lives. TOMS shoes, which donates a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair sold, and Starbucks are two examples.
Conclusion
As a result, a mindset shift is required, which can only occur over time. At the same time, we believe that including CSR pledges in performance reviews is a smart first step toward better results. To put it another way, we have to start somewhere, and guaranteeing that CSR and rewards for it can coexist is a sure-fire way to make the overall CSR outreach that much more effective.
Finally, corporations can engage with the broader community in a holistic and methodical manner by directing the entire firm toward realising CSR commitments.
