Employees’ Perception towards CSR – Survey Results

Last month we carried out a survey, among professionals from 7 countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Spain, Germany, Austria and the UK) to research the employees perspective on Corporate Social Responsibility. The results are more than clear:

• 70% of the participants consider Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives to be important
• more than half said they would like to be more involved in the CSR policies of their companies

The majority of respondents are between 20 to 35 and more than half are working for companies with over 250 staff, including large banks, hotel chains and retailers.

Most respondents (42%) said their employer had a CSR policy, showing CSR is spreading across industries and becoming a standard part of every business.

However,nearly 27% of the participants said they did not know whether their company had a CSR policy — a clear indicator for bad internal communication. The results also show that CSR topics are still alienated from the general everyday business discussion. Employees are uninformed and isolated when it comes to the Corporate Social Activities of their employers, leaving them feel distant to the company goals & strategies and resulting in missed opportunities for the businesses.

For those who already have dedicated CSR policies, our study showed they may benefit from reviewing how they communicate their initiatives. Involving employees in the causes a company supports can be another effective way to keep them engaged and motivated at work.

These survey results also mirror findings of international researcher: Three out of four Millenials, as per a survey done by Cone Inc, want to work for a socially responsible company, while 65 per cent of working people say employers’ activities benefitting society or the environment make them more loyal to the company.

Apart from employees, wise CSR policies are also helping increase consumer confidence. A survey among Finnish consumers found out that CSR had a major impact on the shopping behaviour of 53 per cent of respondents, up from 42 per cent in 2014.

This shows the increasing importance that CSR already has and will continue to have for companies in the future.

Respondents said that governments, non-governmental organizations and businesses were the most important actors in helping prevent dangerous changes to the climate, so businesses need to act.

But launching a CSR Policy, especially in small and medium sized companies, can be a huge challenge. Lack of resources, lack of knowledge and time are often mentioned as reasons to not even try engaging in Corporate Social Responsibility.

We at CO2 Cards believe businesses will make a huge impact, if the majority of the companies get involved in environmental and social activities. To remove all the excuses from the picture, we developed a Green CSR Platform, which uses the UN mechanism offsetting as infrastructure for CSR. We believe part of being innovative means also being sustainable! We want to empower businesses and are giving them a stepping stone for a CSR Policy, which resonates both with the company and with the employees needs.

Sounds interesting to you? Click here and fill out our Free Assessment Form to start today!