Care in the business community

If staff are the most important asset that a company has, then one of the proven ways to retain them is to immerse the organisation in what might loosely be termed "good works". Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR, which is defined by the organisation Business In The Community (BITC) as "the expression of a firm's commitment to and acceptance of its role in society", reflects the belief that the needs of some communities and groups cannot be met by government alone. Whether the issue is education, health, crime or urban regeneration, private sector partnerships with local communities are becoming a vital weapon in the battle for healthier, more productive lives.

If staff are the most important asset that a company has, then one of the proven ways to retain them is to immerse the organisation in what might loosely be termed "good works". Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR, which is defined by the organisation Business In The Community (BITC) as "the expression of a firm's commitment to and acceptance of its role in society", reflects the belief that the needs of some communities and groups cannot be met by government alone. Whether the issue is education, health, crime or urban regeneration, private sector partnerships with local communities are becoming a vital weapon in the battle for healthier, more productive lives.

In turn, CSR has also become a vital recruitment weapon in the battle for top-quality employees, particularly graduates, and those firms who neglect it, says BITC, may be shutting the door on some of the country's top talent. Today's graduates, notes the Association of Graduate Recruiters, invariably have a well-developed social conscience and want to do more over a lifetime than make lots of money. They also want to feel that they are making a difference to people's lives. Little wonder then that study after study has found that graduates are more attracted to and persistent in applying to firms with a good record on corporate community involvement.

The days of a bank or food store simply dishing out money like some Victorian paternalist - to the local school or the rundown council estate perhaps - are over. Today, most organisations prefer what they call "corporate community investment" - which increasingly involves volunteering - where the skills and interests of employees are used, alongside extra funding or gifts in kind, to achieve specific objectives.

Employee volunteers get involved in a wide range of tasks: they may produce business plans, create long-term funding strategies or help set up trading arms, provide IT training or professionalise the organisation's marketing and PR efforts.

Critically, CSR is not just about earning good PR for the firm whose employees are donating time and effort to their local youth club, say, and the benefits are by no means one-sided. Today's corporate community investment programme is geared towards achieving the defined business goals of the donator - including gaining the goodwill of potential recruits - just as much as meeting the needs of the organisation receiving that support.

In 1998, MORI asked the public how they felt about the statement that "a company that supports society and the community is probably a good company to work for". Thirty-two per cent strongly supported the statement, while 55 per cent said they "tended" to agree. More recent studies suggest that CSR is moving even higher up the shopping list of job-seekers; the recruitment consultancy Bernard Hodes, for example, finding recently that between a quarter and a half of all graduates say they will simply not work for companies that they believe to be unethical.

Figures for last year show that at least 74 of the FTSE 100 firms have established some kind of employee volunteering programme and an estimated 1.5m people have volunteered through an employer-supported programme. Northern Foods for example believes that "our employees want to work for a company which is concerned not just about profits, but the communities and neighbourhoods in which we operate", while the Bank of England notes that "bank staff who have become involved in community programmes have benefited from the experience personally and professionally".

Companies with employee volunteering programmes find that staff are proud to work for them, potential employees want to join them, customers feel good about buying from them, investors want to invest in them and local governments want them on their "patch". Employee volunteers, says BITC, improve the company's relationship with its stakeholders, with the local community and invariably with the wider community as a whole.

Intriguingly, volunteers' skills are becoming as important as money. In 2002, MORI asked a sample of community organisations what they wanted in terms of corporate involvement. While straightforward financial donations were preferred by 67 per cent of organisations, 64 per cent said that what they really wanted was long-term company volunteers.