Employees

In the search for the business case for community involvement and wider social responsibility, the benefits to corporate reputation are usually placed centre-stage. For some companies, that's right, mainly those with high-street consumer brands that the media and politicians take an interest in. But most economic activity occurs in firms only tangentially affected, not least the large number of small and medium sized enterprises. So it's the employment agenda where all those in business need to fight the argument, and win.

Corporate rhetoric has long been "our people are our greatest asset". The truth, we all know, is that accountants record employment on the cost side of the P&L, and not as a credit on the balance sheet. So it's welcome that the evidence is mounting to show what most readers of Briefing intuitively believe -that embracing socially responsible employment practices will generally benefit the business in everything other than the short-term. It's good to see Will Hutton's leadership of The Work Foundation, previously the Industrial Society, bearing fruit in a stream of relevant studies.

Some caution is needed on the Foundation's finding that one in three employees is set to resign because of poor CSR performance. As with cause-related marketing surveys, what people tell pollsters and what they actually do are two separate things. More believable is that one in ten employees is a CSR enthusiast, with a similar number taking a keen interest. For these, often younger workers, their propensity to leave reaches costly proportions.

The weight of evidence makes it all the more strange that comparatively few employers have embraced the whole agenda of flexible working, motivation-based rewards and an inclusive approach, certainly on a scale that would change the whole culture, and hence the performance, of their organisations. Although the CBI has been swift to condemn growing 'red tape', actually the government has been slow to force the pace of change. Next month's new rules are very limited in scope: only a duty to consider flexible working for some parents, and with only limited compensation required. More thoughtful business leaders such as Lloyds TSB's chief executive, Peter Ellwood, are already saying that flexible hours should apply to all workers, as he believes the benefits outweigh the costs.

Which brings us back to the accountants, for whom the 'accounting for people' initiative is tailor-made. It also promises to be very useful for those charged with producing social reports with meaningful indicators of performance. Those who think the Global Reporting Initiative is the bees-knees should check out what it says on these aspects…. totally silent on staff satisfaction, employee morale and absenteeism, flexible working and the other vital CSR issues we report above. As we've argued before, GRI remains too focused on outsiders' interests, and not enough on the practical tools managers need to measure and benchmark the performance indicators they need to track the win-win gains from CSR - on which depend its future as something the corporate bean counters take seriously.