Employee Relation and CSR

Employee Relations is "The maintenance of employee/employer relationships that contribute to satisfactory productivity, motivate employees and ensure healthy employee morale.  This is generally the representation of an organization's management to inform or motivate employees through training, award programs, rewards, internal communications, or other events. 

For many companies communicating regularly with employees is important in keeping employees informed of corporate programs, sales incentives, personnel issues, as well as keeping them updated on new products and programs. Companies use a variety of means to communicate with employees, including Intranet, email, online and print newsletters. In larger firms an in-house PR department often works in conjunction with the Human Resources Department to develop employee communications.

Employee Relations is one of the function of PR in a Company.Recently, many companies are developing their employee relations plans to help increase the morale and productivities of their Employee. There are several factor that can influences employees  morale and productivities (Fujita and Miura, 2009) :

1. Understanding - Employee must understand the all aspect of the company and in turn, the leaders of the company must have a good understanding of their employee. In this case, a PR can be a mediator.
2. Apreciation & Recognition - People often leave an employer because they have not received the recognition they want, or feedback on how they are doing. One of the way to communicate appreciation to your employee is through a regular internal newsletter or special event.
3. Involvment - Many individuals want to feel the essensial to the success of their company and in order to do so, they should feel free to make suggestions to their managers. Not only giving suggestions or idea. The employee involvment to the company program is also important. 
4. Compensation - Employee need to feel they well compensated, which means having salary and benefits consistent with or better than other people doing similar place.
5. Management Loyalty - Manager must treat employees as they would expect to be treated, and they must lead by wxample.
6. Work Environtment - Employee are happier and more productive when the physical location of their workplace is clean, comfortable and pleasant.
7. Social Responsibility - People judge firms from their philosophy and level of customer service, their involvment in community activities, and their commitment to moral, environmental and even political issues. Nowadays, employees are concerned about wheter the values of the company for which they work are compatible with their personal viewpoints. 

From the factors below, we can conclude that Employee Relations are very important for the company. And on of the factors that could affect the employees is Social Responsibility.

EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT IN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) frequently evokes thoughts of the environtment, engaging with social community and shareholders, and issues ranging from pollution to fairness and ethics. Employee are frequently engaged in delivering project or working in partnership with others to help their local community. Nowadays, the recognition and the imperative need for increasing employee engagement has raised. CSR initiatives are not any different. The company may chart out a policy, draw up a plan, and invest funds, but it needs complete endorsement and active participation by employees to carry it forward and implement it as perceived.

Employees are among the key stakeholders for any of the CSR strategy or program. The critical first step in the mission, vision, values and strategy development is to understand the key concerns, priorities, and perspective of all key stakeholders, particularly employees. Employees who were consulted and engaged in the development of new programs and approaches are likelier to follow through with their implementation. Many companies or organizations consult and engage their employees in the development and like mentioned before, delivered to their community involvement and charitable donations programs. 

It is expected that as CSR becomes an acknowledged component of employee engagement and therefore driver of business value,CSR alignment will become a more critical tool for fostering corporate success over time. Nowadays, the CSR program has been proved to impact the employee engagement. It is a key driver of shareholder value in a firm and is becoming a key metric for monitoring corporate performance by Board and management. The level of employee engagement are evolving to several levels (Melcrum, 2006): 

• “I’m aware of the message” -  in which employees are familiar with the CSR strategy and how it helps the company meet its objectives
• “I understand the message” - wherein employees learn the reasons behind the company’sCSR objectives and begin to understand their role in making the company successful. 
• “I believe” - where employees feel conviction towards the company’s CSR values and objectives.
• “I am committed to act” -  Those employees who are and feel their basic job needs are being met and who achieve this level, will be inspired to act in ways that help the company reach its goals.

This is employee CSR engagement at the most engaged level – employees helped to align their total work experience with their community and home values become highly engaged, motivated and loyal employees. 

In addition to ensuring employees are included in key decisions, an employee CSR involvement and participation program can help develop the employee value proposition that can foster retention and enhance recruitment.  It is important not to miss this step as organizations that fail to engage their employees in key decisions and in their CSR embedment will generate low employee engagement resulting in employees that either quit and leave or quit and stay.

Sources:

Melcrum, Employee Engagement. 2006. Melcrum Publishing. (in http://www.ic.gc.ca) Access: Oct, 2012

Vembu, Renuka. Article: Engaging Employee in CSR. 2001. Indian Express Newspapper. (in http://www.expresscomputeronline.com) Access: Oct, 2012

http://www.managementstudyguide.com Access: Oct, 2012

Fujita and Miura, Blog Article: Get Great Employee Relations. 2009. in http://www.yourpubliciswaiting.com Access: Oct, 2012