Are you doing something for Diversity day in Luxembourg? Have you thought about what you are going to tell people about these actions? If you haven’t already thought about communicating around your Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) projects, you may be missing out on some really big opportunities.
The 17th of May is the Diversity Day in Luxembourg and a lot of companies run different activities to show their support of its basic principles: demonstrating that are really dedicated to the idea of creating a workplace for employees with different religious and political beliefs, gender, ethnicity, education, socio-economic background, sexual orientation and cultural origin.
But what I often see happen with some companies is that in the planning phase, the communication team is not involved and this can mean missed opportunities for effective communication of their corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) programmes.
1. Missed opportunity around your Corporate Social Responsibility projects: press coverage
It is not enough to simply send a Press Release about a certain activity or campaign to be covered in the Press. It is crucially important to plan with this idea in mind. As a lot of companies do something very similar for the same occasion, journalists receive tons of almost identical Press Releases. They cannot cover all events and need to choose. If you plan the right way in advance with communication specialists, it is possible to draw the attention of the journalists to YOUR activity or campaign and get it covered.
What is the impact?
If you miss out on this opportunity for press coverage, your customers and prospects will not get any information about your commitment to diversity as the part of your corporate social responsibility.
So, how can you do it?
The best way to do it is to adding some unusual aspects to the nature of your campaign. But there are also other powerful ways, such as inviting famous people to participate and(or) tipping into the news agenda.
2. Missed opportunity: attracting new talent
The fight for talent is on, with more and more businesses looking for the best young talent to come and work with them. But how do you find them and how do you attract them?
Young people are heavy users of social media. They consume, rework and share content and they trust certain types of content more than the other ones. To find a response in the hearts and minds of the millennials any message should be planned and formulated with respect to these particular aspects.
And recent studies show that young talents, while choosing a working place, prefer the companies which are able to demonstrate their commitment to social values and sustainability. Young professionals join if they see that they can do something good for society.
In a survey by the non-profit organisation Net Impact, 72 percent of students entering the workforce said that they would like to have “a job where they can make an impact”.
Most would even agree to receive smaller salary to achieve that goal.
What is the impact?
If you miss out on this opportunity your possible future employees - young talents- will not get information in a credible way about your diversity principles and possibly other aspects of your corporate social responsibility. You will be less attractive to them than your competitors.
So, how can you do it?
One of the possible ways could be making live videos with your current employees while taking part in the initiative and talking about it. Important is that it is authentic and not staged.
3. Missed opportunity: showing your employees that you care
More and more employees care about the social impact of their organisation. According to the Net Impact survey, in 2012 it was 53%, but as more and more millennials enter the workforce, this figure is constantly increasing. If you plan a relevant campaign or an activity and can effectively communicate this internally, you can show your people that you hear their concerns. On the other hand, if in the planning phase you do not think about communication, and fail to inform your employees properly, or if they feel that you are only paying lip service to the notion, you will miss the opportunity to reinforce how you believe in social initiatives.
What is the impact?
If you miss out on this opportunity to show your employees that you care, you will not be able to demonstrate your employees that you hear their concerns, and they may become disillusioned over time.
So how can you do this?
One of the possible ways would be to invite employees from the beginning to contribute in any way to the project. And then report about it in the in-house magazine.
Well, the planning and preparation for the 2018 Diversity Day is already over but there are a lot of other occasions ahead where you might be involved in different Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) initiatives in your organisation and which you can use to provide effective communication, if you take communication experts on board as soon as possible.
In particular, by getting them on board from the start, your communication experts will help you to:
- add some aspects to the nature of your campaign to make it more “coverable” by press;
- spread information in a credible way about your diversity principles; and
- demonstrate your employees that you hear their concerns.