Pictured: A view of CSR from the Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles (what, you can't see it?)
Fenton, a leading public interest communications firm that has sparked many campaigns including the end of apartheid in South Africa, led a chat on employment engagement and its ties to
corporate social responsibility via
Twitter. Guided by the hash tag, #CSRChat, 75 participants tweeted out over 300 comments. The key questions what employee engagement means in the first place; who does it well; how it’s measured; and who should run such programs.
A great overview is on
TriplePundit, so I thought I’d cull some of the best points stated in 140 characters or less.
What does Employee Engagement mean to you? Your company?
Engagement means ideas from many sources, action from many sources, creativity and interest in the company beyond the job duties.
Engaging employees is about aligning motivations and empowering employees to take shared responsibility.
Who is doing it well? Examples? In your research, can you share some great firms doing outstanding engagement work?
@Patagonia tracks daily ocean surfing by its employees in its office. Gr8 employee engagement
Zappos: Their employee Handbook is a collection of perspectives from employees, unedited & updated frequently. Most of their meetings are livestreamed to employees.
Radio Flyer Wagon (60 employees) gives each new employee a brand new red wagon to take home, own and play.
FedEx does a good job. From a service culture, FedEx empowers employees to deliver (pardon pun) and protect the brand.
Can you suggest some good examples of NGO/Corp partnerships that inspire engagement?
TNT in the Netherlands sponsors the UN World Food Programme, that creates engagement, espially for would-be employees
@nikeonline partnered with the
http://www.mgrf.org for the Chicago marathon and did a training mentorship program for over 100 high school students
Swiss-based @Novartis has Community Partnership Day--thousands associates (from Bangladesh to Slovakia) give back to their towns
Is it the Company's responsibility to create engagement or the employee or both?
Engaging employees in community service may still not mean they are engaged on the job. Need more. EVP is just one part
A company must create an environment where an employee can become engaged, but of course the employee has to make the decision.
How can environmental sustainability play into Employee Engagement?
Include environmental sustainability into benefits packages (extra vacation day for series of actions taken to reduce footprint).
Obviously it is challenging to express issues involved with employee engagement in a brief tweet, but as the Fenton discussion showed, participants could get quite creative.
Special thanks to
Fenton’s Susan McPherson for inviting me to the chat; unfortunately I was on a plane!
