Last week we talked about the importance of helping your employees set goals for the New Year, this week we dive into positive impact goal setting at your organization: how to, and its importance for your business.
What are Positive Impact Programs?
Recycling competitions, company-wide walking challenges, and monthly volunteer events are all examples of positive impact programs. Positive impact programs can have a tremendous impact on society, but new data also demonstrates their business benefits:
- 51 percent of employees say they won't work for a company that does not have strong CSR commitments - Cone
- 70 percent of employees say they are more likely to be loyal towards their company when they feel like they can make a positive impact at work - Cone
- Nine in ten consumers are just as likely to purchase products as they are to boycott products based on a companies' responsible practices - Cone
As we move into 2017, it's important for organizations to create company-wide goals related to creating a positive impact in society.
Benefits of Positive Impact Programs
You should develop your positive impact programs with four goals in mind: creating economic value, offering a great place to work, being a good neighbor, and helping to solve some of the world's biggest challenges. Let's dive a little deeper into each of these concepts.
Create Economic Value
Think about how your company is currently impacting society and the benefits that you provide to your consumers. Keep your goals focused on creating value for customers and potential customers. Setting both short-term and long-term goals for the business will increase your chance of continuing to offer product and services that make an impact on society.
Offer a Great Place to Work
If you don't already have a system in place, set a goal to assess employee engagement and/or satisfaction levels. Systems such as Gallup's Q12 and Net Promoter Score can help you gain these important benchmarks. If you already have a benchmark set a data-driven goal to improve the number and identify the programs that can help you achieve your goals.
Be a Good Neighbor
In addition to setting goals related to your product, services and workforce, a positive business also measures itself on its societal impact. Identify local non-profits or causes that you believe your business could positively impact. Create goals that outline how you want to support these causes and the impact that you hope to make.
Help to Solve Some of the World's Biggest Challenges
Many of the local non-profits and causes that you choose to support will be fighting to solve some of the world's biggest challenges. Focus on the issues that matter most to your business and identify the different ways that you can help to solve them. Volunteering, philanthropy and spreading awareness of these challenges are all different ways to help you achieve your goal of playing a part in solving some of the world's biggest challenges.