Every CSR & ESG professional is asked to do more with less in 2022 and in this WeSpire: Weekly, we are exploring 7 tools that you likely already have that can improve your program’s awareness, participation, and reporting.
1. LinkedIn
The most obvious way to use LinkedIn to communicate your CSR & ESG programs on LinkedIn is through posting progress and achievements that align with company values and ESG goals.
But there are several other tools within the platform that can help grow communication both internally and publicly.
Use the ‘Recommend to employees’ feature to highlight milestones internally and enable employees to quickly share wins that are relevant to them.
Setting up this content is easy:
- Log onto LinkedIn as an Admin (ask your marketing team for help getting these permissions)
- Click the ‘Content’ dropdown and ‘Recommend to employees’
- Click the textbox & write your content
- Click ‘Recommend’
Employees can easily share this content with their network by:
- going directly to your company's LinkedIn page,
- clicking ‘My Company’,
- selecting the post they want to share
- adding their own thoughts and tone
- Clicking ‘post’
At WeSpire we also recommend sharing new recommendations on Slack/Teams or internal newsletters.
2. Internal Newsletters
Many CSR- & ESG-minded companies use recurring newsletters to build an internal community.
If your company is one of these there are two tactics we recommend to take advantage of the built-in audience: 1) dedicated sections with each edition and 2) takeovers
A dedicated section within each newsletter is a great way to build interest and awareness of ongoing programs.
A simple graphic showing the progress of your personal grant account allocation campaign and a call to action is easy to build on Canva and doesn't take too much space away from internal comms.
Newsletter takeovers are another great tactic to get major events or achievements in front of the whole company.
If your internal comms team is willing to lend their newsletter platform to you, make sure you maximize its impact.
Here are three must-haves to include in this takeover:
- A specific goal. Are you trying to drive donation matching, sign up volunteers, communicate metrics and milestones, or something else?
- A clear ‘Call To Action’ like “Donate now”, “Sign up today”, “Read the report”.
- A tie-back to the passions of your people and your company’s CSR/ESG goals. Directly state how the actions employees take help their communities.
3. New Employee Orientation
Most organizations have clear timelines and checklists that each new hire must complete to be fully onboarded. This is an opportunity that A LOT of CSR pros are missing that could be the most simple way to grow awareness.
Work with your new-hire teams to incorporate CSR program signup and activation.
Here are three examples of clear tasks that will immediately engage new employees in social responsibility programs (if you have WeSpire they can do them all in one place):
- Sign onto your WeSpire account & choose your non-profit for eligible donation matching
- View the list of ERGs on your WeSpire account and email ERGs@companydomain.com to learn more or opt into the groups of your choice.
- View the sustainability checklist on your WeSpire account and mark off at least one task to get the ball rolling.
Each of these tasks take just seconds to complete and will get new hires on the path to CSR engagement.
4. Company Town Halls
Depending upon the size of your company you may have town halls as often as weekly or as little as annually.
At WeSpire our Town Halls are bi-weekly and we always have at least one deep dive on a specific subject. During these deep dives everyone can learn about the work going on in other departments and how it relates to the overall mission.
This is no different when it comes to corporate social responsibility efforts. Work with your internal comms team to develop a deep-dive for your next town hall on a specific program within sustainability, giving, wellbeing, or DE&I.
A few question to consider when giving a deep dive:
- How are the goals and milestones I am reporting on relevant to the overall mission of the company?
- Will people completely unfamiliar with CSR or ESG understand what we are telling them?
- What story am I trying to tell and what emotion should it elicit?
Your town hall deep dive is an opportunity to elevate your efforts among peers, coworkers, and major company stakeholders (including investors and C-Suite!).
What commonly held tools are you using to grow your programs?
Share with us how your team is driving awareness and engagement using existing tool sets or if you are finding it difficult to work within the tools you currently have - email us at info@wespire.com and WeSpire would be willing to offer a free consultation!
5. Sharepoint & Google Drive
CSR engagement can only be as good as the accessibility and share-ability of the program’s content. If your employees can’t easily find information, instructions, and content they simply will not engage at a high enough rate to have an impact.
Here are 4 steps to take to keep your content accessible and engaging within your file sharing like Google Drive or Microsoft Sharepoint:
1. Keep your main folder as high in the folder hierarchy as possible
Elevate your content out of hiding! Differentiate your content & program by separating your folder from other department folders.
2. Use invite notifications to alert users of your new folders and content
In Google Drive select “Share” and search for your all-email group. Add a descriptive and compelling message. Be sure to check the “notify people” box so everyone gets your invite.
3. Use a consistent naming convention for your folder & files to make searching easier
Most Google Drive users know what they’re looking for. Make it easy for them to find your content by building a purposeful naming convention.
HERE are some file naming conventions you can implement today to make searching for your CSR content much more intuitive.
4. Include a how-to-use document to help navigate the content saved in your folders
This document can live in your most topical folder in the hierarchy or live within your internal articles software like Notion.
This document should contain 3 key sections:
- What is CSR?
- How to use the CSR benefits
- How to navigate the CSR content folder & find what you are looking for
Make this document easy to read and similar to a blog post or article by linking directly to the documents you reference so users can quickly get ingrained in your system.
6. Slack & Teams
Slack & Teams is where employees spend most of their time communicating both on a professional and social level at work. If you want them to engage with your program and talk with their peers about what you are doing then you need to go to them
Here is how to make the most out of slack when launching new programs:
1. Set up dedicated Channels
An employee sustainability channel is an accessible way to get started as it is something almost anyone can accomplish with a low barrier to entry.
2. Create a challenge with a specific goal and pin it to your channel
Include an enticing introduction, name the challenge, note how to get involved (bonus: include an activity list in the form of a spreadsheet that is linked and easily accessible in your new folders), include clear goals, and outline how to submit the contribution.
Quick tip: use “@here” to notify everyone in the channel of new updates and make the submission process as easy as possible to remove any friction in reporting
7. Track results by individual, team, and company
Communicate out progress early and often to generate interest & FOMO (i.e. fear of missing out). Add posts to other channels and work with internal comms to highlight big accomplishments and milestones.
Next week we will dig into 6 tools for gathering data, visualizing data, and communicating out results with easy-to-use templates.
How do you launch CSR programs and keep employees engaged?
Share with us how your team is driving awareness and engagement about your CSR programs using existing tool sets or a CSR platform. WeSpire may be able to help!