Tag Archives: Corporate responsibility

Material that won’t lose the plot: part II

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I’ve been blogging for a couple of years and according to my analytics, the most popular post I’ve written so far is on the topic of materiality.

It’s still a hot topic in the sustainability reporting field. As it should be. Materiality is central to the strategy and story that a sustainability report seeks to communicate to an organisation’s stakeholders.

I came across this GRI blog post answering a question about how materiality will be examined as part of the GRI’s development of the next generation of its reporting guidelines, the ‘G4‘.

Two points stood out from the GRI’s answer:

1. The Materiality Principle is not under question in the G4.

2. One of the main focus areas of the G4 is to ‘improve considerably guidance around the definition of what is material (from different perspectives)’.

Point #2 is important. Reporters need as much help and guidance as they can get on establishing a robust materiality assessment process that is effective yet practical and logical. I’m looking forward to seeing how this materialises (excuse the pun) in the G4.

I’ve registered to take part in the G4 public comment period; what about you?

 

 

 

Three big questions for every CSR Manager (and a few hints on the answers)

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So we’re off and running in 2012. Places to go, people to see. Work to do. Lots. So what should take priority for those with Corporate Responsibility reporting responsibilities? These three questions may help:

  1. What are you doing to champion the value of integrated reporting within your organisation? It’s the latest push in the CSR/Sustainability field and for good reason. The case for greater integration between financial and non-financial performance is clear. Yet it’s always the how you go about adapting new concepts to your organisation’s strategy and culture that makes or breaks the change process. The IIRC’s discussion paper Towards Integrated Reporting includes some practical information on alternative pathways to integrated reporting (p20).
  2. Is your materiality assessment process robust enough? Regardless of your approach to reporting (stand alone versus combined versus integrated), this is the cornerstone of any good report and it’s only as good as the inputs and the analysis and engagement process that supports it. Now is a good time to ask the hard questions: is your materiality assessment done frequently enough? Have you engaged the right people internally at the right time in the process? Have you linked your process to other strategic planning efforts within the organisation? Have you done our best to seek input from key external stakeholders? Can you prove it? Do you need to address gaps with further research?  AccountAbility’s five-part materiality test is a good reference point for what information to consider and disclose as part of this process.
  3. Are you communicating the right information to the right stakeholders in the right format and in the right forums? While the push towards integrated reporting is gaining pace, so too is the need to package up information for stakeholders that is relevant and accessible. So while the final reporting product is evolving into a more strategic, succinct and compelling performance narrative, there are additional demands to segment that story for key stakeholders. Communication planning is a core part of the CR reporting process and understanding stakeholder communication and engagement preferences should be a priority right from the start. What’s the point of all that work if no-one inside or outside your organisation uses the information?

If you’re still struggling with the answers to these questions and need a hand, let me know.

It’s what I do.

The five post(s) with the most: yours and mine

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Dear readers

Thank you for your support during 2011. I really appreciate you sticking with me as I launched myself into the social media universe with this blog and my twitter account @thebriefingnote (by-the-by, most of you are fellow Aussies, half of you found me via Google, another 20 per cent found me via twitter or Linkedin referrals and the rest of you seem to know my URL. Perhaps these are my family members).

Engaging in social media has been and remains a very steep learning curve. I think that’s one of the main reasons why it’s become such a key area of interest for me.

In fact, I’ve evolved into a bit of an advocate for social media technologies as a learning and development, engagement and leadership channel for professionals.

I consult across a number of areas so my blog posts are varied in subject. According to my Google Analytics, the five posts you liked the most this year were:

  1. Who Needs the King’s Speech When We Have Anna’s, which was about the speech Queensland Premier Anna Bligh delivered following the tragedy of the State’s extensive flooding;
  2. Raising the Bar on Stakeholder Engagement, which was about AccountAbility’s Stakeholder Engagement Standard;
  3. A Dozen Ways to Build a Better Corporate Culture (self-explanatory really);
  4. Four Reasons Why Journalists Should Pay More Attention to Corporate Responsibility Reports; and (drum roll)
  5. Material That Won’t Lose the Plot, which is about the importance of materiality in corporate responsibility strategy and reporting.

A highlight of the past year has been discovering the work of other bloggers. I’ve learnt so much from you all. The top five posts that I felt pressed my ‘Eureka’/great insight button over the past year are:

  1. From a leadership, governance and social media perspective, Lucy P. Marcus’ post What it Means to be Connected Today (via HBR blog);
  2. From a corporate responsibility reporting viewpoint, Elaine Cohen’s post Heretical Thoughts on Integrated Reporting;
  3. From a blogging as a valuable personal and professional learning experience, Peter Bruce’s post Reflections on Blogging; 
  4. From a social media, leadership and career path perspective, Rosabeth Kanter’s piece (read in 2011, but written in 2009), On Twitter and in the Workplace, it’s power to the Connectors;
  5. And for the ultimate reality check (and a quiet tear), Sally Sara’s piece on leaving Kabul, Afghanistan as the ABC’s Foreign Correspondent.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Alexis

Sustainability, the media and holistic performance: a conversation with the ABC’s Dr Mike McCluskey (Part 2 of 2)

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The media sector is far more comfortable asking the questions about business ethics and responsible business practices than being asked questions about its own. The GRI’s Media Sector Supplement (MSS) offers the media a framework through which to consider its unique societal impacts and improve transparency and disclosure on a number of key issues such as ownership, editorial independence, content and promotion of local creative talent in the workforce.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is represented on the GRI’s MSS international working group by Dr Mike McCluskey, the Chief Executive Officer of Radio Australia and former Head of Corporate Social Responsibility.

This post is the second part of an interview I conducted with Dr McCluskey recently where he described his experience as a member of the MSS working group and shared some of his thoughts on corporate responsibility.

On encouraging other Australian media organisations to examine the GRI Media Sector Supplement

It’s slightly disappointing – not just in Australia but internationally – in relation to the level of engagement and feedback for the GRI. I think there may be many reasons for that. But it is important to say that those involved with it think it’s very important. Media organisations have a very special and significant role in society because of the massive influence that we have.

Recent events in the UK [News of the World] would indicate that when the public finds out and the corporate world and governments in different countries find that their media has not been self regulating properly and not been accountable in terms of their social imprint being for the good of the community, then there’s wide dissatisfaction and wide backlash at the media organisations that haven’t been acting responsibly, as well as the ones that have been acting responsibly.  Effectively being tarred with the same brush.

We tried to have one of the working group meetings here in Australia and host a stakeholder meeting yet unfortunately it proved too difficult to organise. That was disappointing because I think it would have engendered a great deal of interest and a lot more support for what we have been trying to achieve.

On the challenges of measuring social impacts in the media sector

That’s the area that’s hard [social impact] for media organisations to measure. Environmental impact and social impact are addressed through the GRI’s framework and can be measured reasonably well through your capacity to educate and provide equity to a community. It’s not necessarily easy to succeed in, but moderately easy to measure. However, it is not so easy when you try and measure brainprint and influence. It’s difficult to measure but perhaps as important to measure because we are having an impact on people’s lives on a daily basis.

The ‘brainprint’ concept was coined by debate in the UK and is used in the supplement; we adopted it like a footprint that is measuring environmental impact. Some of it is extremely subtle, some not so subtle. For example, the brainprint of a book publisher as opposed to a game publishing organisation. They have just as much responsibility to think about their social impact and influence as a news and current affairs organisation does.

The role of trust in an increasingly complex media environment and greater choice for audiences as consumers and content creators

Media organisations are faced with the issue of how we manage debate that at least goes through our portals and platforms. It’s complex. It’s not just about our editorial content, it’s about an editorial focus of engagement with the community and feedback from the community. We still have the capacity to influence people significantly.

What all that means is that’s it’s a much more complex world for media organisations to operate in, far more than it ever has been before.

It also comes back to the issue of trust. Who do you actually trust in the community – the media and their platforms of social engagement, or do you go outside these because you don’t trust the media and you want true social engagement? These are issues that media organisations have to come to terms with because we have to demonstrate to the public that we are valuable and trusted and the place to engage in this discourse and what we offer is educative, informative and valuable. That we are a safe and a trusted place to have this type of discourse and that you can air a huge diversity of views as part of this discourse.

On whether journalists should pay more attention to CR reports

During a visit to New York for one of the MSS meetings, and in discussions with CSR practitioners, I had the opportunity to meet with the head of CSR for New York City who oversaw the retirement funds for NYC. Their first principle is to look at the financial risk of an organisation, yet they also want to look at the sustainability risk as part of their investment purposes. Is an organisation socially and environmentally sustainable in the long-term? Do they have responsible business practices? And then they rank them. They analyse those [CSR] reports with a fine tooth comb.

If organisations with billions of dollars to invest are analysing social and environmental reports as a way of checking if their investments are secure, why wouldn’t media organisations be more interested in these issues? We should. And that’s not to undervalue financial and economic data and analysis. We should be focusing on a more holistic approach to performance.

The public consultation period for the final draft of the GRI MSS was between May and August 2011; release of the final supplement is expected in early 2012.

You can read my post Four reasons why journalists should pay more attention to CR Reports (May 2011) here.

How to put stakeholder engagement on the board agenda, and keep it there

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Does your board of directors join the dots between quality stakeholder engagement, good governance, resilient reputation and robust corporate performance?

Or are you struggling to advocate the value of stakeholder engagement at the board level?

Tabling or presenting a board paper on the value of stakeholder engagement is one thing; demonstrating how you measure it — and track progress and performance over time –is another thing altogether.

This quote from the President of Oxfam America, Ray Offenheiser, quoted in The Ceres Roadmap for Sustainability (p25), sums it up for me:

“To operate successfully in a complex global business environment, forward-looking companies need to open their doors to diverse stakeholders and incorporate these perspectives into strategic decisions and sustainable development initiatives”.

So how do you get started or change course in order to educate the board on the value of stakeholder engagement and its relationship to overall strategy and organisational performance? Here are five suggestions:

  1. Suggest the relevant board committee’s charter is expanded to include stakeholder engagement. For example, this may be the Corporate Responsibility or Sustainability committee. An foundation piece of work may be a policy or strategy outlining how senior leadership intends to engage with your most influential stakeholders and why.
  2. Establish or review appropriate consultative or advisory bodies to assist management and the board broaden their perspective on material issues. I say ‘appropriate’ because every organisation is different and what’s fit-for-purpose varies by industry and organisation size and structure.
  3. Present the results of stakeholder and reputation research. This used to be considered bold stuff, but in the age of transparency, 24/7 media and social media, it should be the norm on an annual or bi-ennial basis.
  4. Present the outcome of an annual or bi-ennial materiality assessment process. This is already a key component of the GRI sustainability reporting framework and should be aligned with other strategic planning initiatives such as corporate plans; it should also be linked to the research mentioned in point #3.
  5. Invite a key stakeholder (or two) in. Hearing a key stakeholder’s opinion on the risks and opportunities facing the organisation in a confidential environment can be powerful – for both parties. It can also send a clear message about the culture of the board and the organisation overall which is ‘we’re keen to listen and learn’.

A demonstrated willingness to listen to, and learn from stakeholders will allow organisations to move from a defensive/risk business case approach for stakeholder engagement to one of opportunity and innovation.

Are you a board director? Do you think these five suggestions have merit or would you suggest other avenues for influence?

Will phone hacking be the media sector’s watershed corporate responsibility moment?

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The profession of journalism has News International and News of the World to thank for launching a period of intense global scrutiny of the media sector – who regulates, owns, manages and creates content and to what ethical standards.

So will this crisis of credibility in journalism be the media sector’s watershed moment in relation to corporate responsibility? Pretty much every other sector of the economy seems to have had theirs or moved onto the next one.

It may be too late for the media sector to avoid the regulatory stick. However I would argue that those companies that have already made serious attempts to demonstrate and communicate a commitment to corporate responsibility – accountability and transparency above and beyond compliance – will be in a far better position to be heard within a hostile stakeholder environment.

Perhaps the inevitable inquiries and reviews may have a positive outcome – we may start to see more corporate responsibility or sustainability reporting from the sector.

As luck would have it, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)’s latest sector supplement is designed specifically for the Media Sector and is open for comment until 4 August 2011 (note for Australian readers, the ABC is represented on the global working group). This presents an obvious starting point for those media organisations that want to learn more about how to start or further develop their reporting approach and in the process, share information and practices with stakeholders that builds (or restores) trust.

Yet reporting alone will not guarantee any improvement in reputation, corporate culture or ethical standards. In fact, corporate responsibility reporting that follows hot on the heels of crises inevitably raises eyebrows. Authenticity and motivations are questioned. Rightly so. Stakeholders expect to see evidence of real change and improvement in performance and not a tokenistic effort that tells them what they want to hear.

The Guardian in the UK and it’s “Living our Values” sustainability report is an excellent model to examine. Not only does it report extensively on its sustainability performance, it has its performance externally assured and publishes this statement on its website. Read the introduction to its 2011 Sustainability Report and you’ll get a seat in the front row feel for the complexities of managing a media business these days. Or if you don’t have time, they’ve even written a condensed 15-minute version. Nice. The important point to note is that the Guardian has been doing this for a while and it shows, not only in their performance but in their governance.

In Australia, it appears our media sector has still got its trainer wheels on in respect to consolidated external reporting on its corporate responsibility or sustainability efforts and governance of these issues at the Board level.

Australian media organisations should be encouraged to adopt corporate responsibility reporting as a means of demonstrating accountability and transparency to their audiences, employees and external stakeholders.

The only way is up.

Should I stay or should I go now? Parental leave retention rates a new addition to the G3.1

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There was a scene in the recent ABC production Paper Giants where Cleo Magazine Editor Ita Buttrose steeled herself to announce to her powerful media magnate boss, the late Kerry Packer, that she was pregnant. In the drama that unfolded, he says all the right things to her face and all the wrong things behind her back.

This mini-series was based on events that happened in Australia in the 1970s. Yet three decades on and ask any working mum-to-be about breaking pregnancy news to her boss and I’ll bet she’ll recount her own anxious experience. It’s a vulnerable time for women and their partners. I’ve been there. Twice.

Parental leave retention rates (by gender) has recently been added to the latest version of the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (the G3.1) under Labour Practices (LA15, Core).  

It’s an important and timely addition for Australian organisations given our first fully Government funded paid parental leave scheme started in January this year, about the same time ASX gender and diversity reporting changes became effective for listed companies.

Large Australian companies such as the ANZ report parental leave data (32% of Australian staff who took parental leave in 2009/10 returned, as compared to 30% in New Zealand and 100% in India).

There are many factors that will influence a new mother or father’s decision to return to work and when, such as their employment status (part-time/ full time/ casual) and what this means for eligibility to the organisation’s parental leave policy (which may or may not exceed government requirements), availability and access to quality childcare, the number of children they have and personal and financial circumstances.

I would also suggest that how a boss responds to his/her employee’s pregnancy news – setting in motion the organisation’s maternity and paternity leave policies (assuming they have some) will speak volumes for the corporate culture and play a big role in their organisation’s parental leave retention rate.

A 2009 report from the Productivity Commission on Paid Parental Leave found that of mothers in paid work prior to childbirth, 11 per cent return to paid work within three months of childbirth, 26 per cent within six months, 57 per cent within 12 months, and 74 per cent within 18 months.

Yet recent research suggests that for some Australian women, it’s not a case of will I stay or will I go now, it’s will I go somewhere else? Increasingly it’s to work for themselves (I’m a case in point).

According to research from Bankwest, the number of women setting up their own small business in Australia is growing at twice the rate of men. One of the reasons cited for the trend was women’s preference to work part-time whilst raising small children.

It’s clearly in the interests of organisations to keep their talented women and the link between flexible working arrangements, corporate culture and corporate policy is critical.

A letter to the editor from The Sydney Morning Herald (March 12-13, 2011), written by Dr Anne Reeckmann, captured this point so succinctly:

“Having children is not inconsistent with a career at the top of the corporate ladder, as most men will attest, but it is still the filter that removes a lot of women. Unless corporations have flexible working arrangements and actively support the needs of their women who choose to have children on the way up the corporate ladder, they will find their promising women leaving or opting out of the leadership track.”

The opportunity for competitive advantage in maintaining a strong parental leave retention rate is pretty obvious.  Yet in Australia, ask any working mother or father about the effort their organisation makes to ensure employees return after parental leave, and you’ll find there are still some dramas unfolding. We still have a long way to go in changing attitudes and corporate culture to support parental leave policies before performance on this indicator improves.

I’d like to learn more about your experiences – whether it’s in Australia or elsewhere – about parental leave policies and what you think contributes to the decision to return (and when) or not.

Stakeholder knowledge management: how to avoid Groundhog Day

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Do you know who maintains the most important stakeholder contact information and engagement history in your organisation? (And I’m not talking about the boss’s Christmas card list or the attendee list from a recent product launch).

Does it feel like Groundhog Day every time you request such a database or contact management system and someone dusts off an excel spreadsheet that hasn’t been updated for more than a year? It normally adds at least a month to your project timeline while stakeholder contacts are researched and updated.

There are many strategic projects where success hinges on an organisation’s ability to reach stakeholders and motivate a response from them. Yet many organisations don’t seem to value knowledge management in respect to stakeholder engagement, hence a lot of groundhog days and reinventing the wheel, often under pressure in order to meet tight deadlines.

Maintaining up-to-date contact information for stakeholders – including communication preferences (phone, email, post, and now blogs and social media accounts) and engagement history - at leadership and operational levels – is an ongoing job that often falls between the cracks of administration, account management, issues management and strategic planning. No-one seems to want the job – it’s too much administration for senior people, yet too complex for administration staff to manage alone.

Here are three tips on how to avoid stakeholder knowledge management groundhog day.

  1. Own it. Someone needs to be accountable for co-ordinating the stakeholder contact information and engagement history, communicating with the people who are accountable for key stakeholder relationships and choosing the IT system that best suits your needs to house the information (eg customised solution, off the shelf).
  2. Report it. Providing regular updates on your stakeholder engagement activity is a practical way to value stakeholder insights, keep stakeholder engagement top of mind and share updates on movements between roles, contacts and industry developments.
  3. Update it. The value of any contact management system lies in its accuracy. Practice makes perfect – so the more you update it, the more valuable it will be.

What does success look like? The next time you want to conduct reputation research, seek feedback on a corporate responsibility report, seek input on a mutually important issue or extend an invitation to participate in a multi-stakeholder project – you can avoid Groundhog Day and move swiftly from the planning to implementation phase.

What’s been your experience? Any contact management software or solutions you’ve had a good experience with – and importantly, why?

Four reasons why journalists should pay more attention to CR reports

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Corporate responsibility reporters frequently nominate ‘media’ as one of their company’s key stakeholder groups. Yet it’s often a one-way relationship as the reports themselves rarely generate news media coverage (the traditional kind, where a news editor makes an editorial decision about newsworthiness). This is despite the fact that CR reports are full of topical data and analysis about the state of business and society.

When I studied journalism in the early 90s, digging up good information sources was a key part of the news gathering process.

There’s not a lot of digging required to find a CR report these days. They’re readily available on company websites or sites such as CorporateRegister.com (which recently launched an Australian page).

Here are four reasons why I think journalists should pay more attention to CR reports:

  1. Leaders make commitments in CR reports. One of the most telling sections of a CR report is the Chairman and/or CEO’s statement summarising their company’s non-financial performance over the reporting period. Best practice CR reports are about balance so you should learn what they thought they did well and what they intend to improve and why. CEOs also nominate their key measures and targets for the year ahead. These are important commitments and they know their stakeholders will hold them to it.
  2. CR reports are full of data. Companies publish data on local and international policy issues that are important and topical. Take greenhouse gas emissions, for a start. The Government’s proposed carbon tax is at the top of the policy agenda in Australia. To find out more about what leading Australian companies think about a low-carbon economy, the quantitative impact on their business and what they’re doing about it, check out the Environment section of a company’s CR report. You should find a GHG inventory of their Scope 1 and 2 emissions and get a better understanding of the company’s key environmental impacts (and therefore a better understanding of how they can reduce their emissions). Other significant policy issues covered by reporters include diversity, gender equity, workplace safety, privacy and customer satisfaction.
  3. CR reports are about people. How much more human interest can you get than what companies are doing to try and make their workplaces more equitable and safe places to work? Measures and targets that indicate whether they are succeeding or not (Employee engagement up or down? Harassment complaints up or down? Proportion of women in senior leadership roles up or down? LTIFR up or down?) are surely material issues for business journalists to stay on top of.
  4. Potential readers are being drawn to alternative sources of information and have formed new communities of interest. Websites such as JustMeans and CSRwire and a community of sustainability bloggers including Elaine Cohen and Jen Boynton provide information, commentary and analysis on corporate responsibility initiatives and reports. Social media is amplifying and extending the reach of these content providers and curators.

In the UK, the Guardian newspaper has a site Guardian Sustainable Business which sources content from a professional network including experts and bloggers. I think this is a great initiative. Australian media organisations should pay attention to this and perhaps take a leaf out of their (e)book.

What do you think? Has your CR report generated media coverage? Or is media coverage not an objective of your reporting efforts at all? Do you get more value out of direct engagement with your stakeholders?