Business Bytes: Unveiling Corporate Wisdom

Discover corporate wisdom in our category, "Business Bytes: Unveiling Corporate Wisdom." Each byte is a strategic guide for navigating business intricacies. Whether you're seasoned or budding, find curated insights on trends, strategies, and timeless principles shaping the business landscape. Uncover corporate decision-making nuances and enhance your business understanding. Join us in our broader blog, where "Business Bytes" is your compass through corporate complexities.

The Giva Challenge: Giva Customers are Talking! San Jacinto Community College

San Jacinto Community College

One generally presumes businesses and corporations when they think of IT department support. However, IT support for colleges and universities in the U.S. is growing exponentially in light of the technological revolution.

One such example is San Jacinto Community College (SJC). Based in Pasadena, Texas, SJC serves approximately 30,000 credit students and 2,500 faculty and staff. The IT department has 115 employees supporting three campuses, a District office and several extension centers.

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The Giva Challenge: Giva Customers Are Talking! MetroHealth System

MetroHealth System

MetroHealth System, a hospital system providing quality care for over 175 years, has a history of constant growth and expansion. With humble beginnings in 1837 as the Cleveland, Ohio city infirmary, serving a population of 6,000 people, it experienced exponential growth with the arrival of the industrial revolution. Today, MetroHealth is one of the largest and most comprehensive public health systems in the country.

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6 Steps to Job Search Success from Net Impact

Successful Business Career Path & Job Searches

These days, it is no easy task finding a job that pays the bills and allows you to make your mark on the world. But thanks to these six simple steps from Net Impact—a leading nonprofit that empowers people to drive transformational change in the workplace and the world—you can dramatically increase your chances of landing an impactful job that you are also passionate about. All it takes is some thoughtful planning and action.

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The Giva Challenge: Giva Customers are Talking! Dataram

Dataram

With the advent of new technology comes the heavy responsibility of providing customer support and bandwidth to keep ahead of the dynamic growth of that technology. And even nano-second delays count in this day and age. Enter Dataram, a leading independent manufacturer of memory products and provider of performance solutions guaranteeing the performance of their products. Over the course of several decades, Dataram has developed premier memory, storage and software solutions to support its ever-growing database of customers.

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10 Key Findings on the Rising Role of CSR

Rising Corporate Social Responsibility

Today's consumers are savvier than ever when it comes to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). A recent nine-country consumer survey of attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors around CSR conducted by Cone Communications shows that CSR is much more than a mere afterthought or minor consideration for shoppers around the globe. The study reveals that CSR is now deeply integrated into how consumers lead their lives, what products they purchase, and even where they choose to work. With these findings come new pressures for companies to break through and leverage CSR to obtain a competitive advantage. Below, Giva has carefully selected 10 insights from the survey for companies looking to effectively engage global citizens in CSR efforts:

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3 Steps for Integrating People and Technology

Integrating People & Technology

Unlike the plot of many sci-fi movies, the human race has yet to be dominated by artificial intelligence. And since we are not living in the world of I, Robot or The Matrix, we still need smart individuals to work alongside the technology we use. Neither can achieve maximum efficiency without the other.

Integrating people and technology is a critical step in constructing efficient collaboration within a business. A lack of integration might hold any business back from achieving its maximum potential growth.

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Keeping a Pulse on CSR: Top 5 CSR Online Newsletters

Top 5 CSR Online Newsletters

So much to read, so little time. But fret not! Giva has searched the World Wide Web and narrowed down our top 5 CSR Newsletters for your convenience.

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3 Main Types of Cloud Computing: IaaS vs. PaaS vs. SaaS

Cloud Computing

The "Cloud" is everywhere today in technology. Whether it is data storage, or communicating with colleagues and friends, many apps and devices interact with the cloud. But what makes up the cloud? Cloud computing can be broken up into three main services: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

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The Giva Challenge: Giva Customers are Talking! Saint Elizabeth Health Care

With today's mobile workforce, the ability to access answers to important questions quickly is a must. Meghan M. Biro at Forbes says there is a "need to maintain a corporate culture supportive of - and with technical and communications systems in place - to enable remote employees to be successful."

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4 Helpful Insights for Effective Internal CSR Communications

Internal Corporate Social Responsibility Communications

There are a number of benefits to having a strong internal communication strategy set up to explain your Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, accomplishments, and future plans. Communicating internally about your company's CSR helps to inform individuals and departments, bring them "on board," and enhance participation. Here are 4 helpful insights on effective internal CSR communications.

Get Staff On Board

No matter your company's size, it is important that individuals and groups, or departments, understand how their roles are important in contributing to the larger goals of your business. Poor internal communication about CSR can have a number of impacts on its efficacy, a major one being that important individuals and departments may not understand how the program impacts their organizational functions, and, as a result, they may take no action to effectively support CSR program goals.

People work best when they understand how and why their work is making a contribution. To accomplish this, a company can create a CSR philosophy, or mission statement, in order to communicate and reiterate this to all new and veteran staff. As a result, this will appeal to them and show how CSR is not a separate and independent department, but an integral part of your organization. If you are able to convey the relationship between CSR and other departments as mutually beneficial and symbiotic, you will be able to foster employee buy-in and commitment to CSR.

Focus on Content

Whether you are communicating with staff or potential new hires, people are most interested in CSR programs that involve volunteerism or initiatives related to their interests. Just like college studenst may choose a course that incorporates one or more of their interests into the curriculum, workers will want to volunteer with CSR programs that incorporate their personal interests and talents, skills, etc. This may be obvious by the nature of the goods and services your company provides, or it may require obtaining feedback from a survey generated by your internal Communications Department to distribute and collect data.

Appealing to your staff's interests is a great way to select a CSR focus or program of interest, as well as an important aspect of your communication strategy. Appeal to employees interests in your communications. Explain to them what they will be doing, how their work and skills will benefit a program, and how they may benefit from their experience as well. This should be an ongoing process in your communication; continually establishing CSR as not only a foundation of your organizational culture, but also an important part of its functioning.

Choose a Vehicle for Your CSR Communication That Fits

Communication about CSR to your employees can take on many forms; choosing the vehicles of communication that are best for your company will require that you consider various things. One item to consider is how much money and time you want to devote to communicating about CSR. If you have limited funds to dedicate to your CSR communications, a very cost effective mechanism is via email or your company's intranet, if you have one. In addition, try to get individuals to communicate in person about CSR. Emails are easy to skim over, or just not read, and the same is true of intranet posts.

Incorporate your CSR communication into all-staff meetings, departmental meetings, or even meetings about benefit enrollments, etc. This is another vehicle for facilitating interpersonal, face-to-face communication about CSR. Employees can also ask questions and offer feedback in settings like this. You can even create meetings, either all-staff, or in smaller groups, strictly about CSR. Dedicating this sort of focus and time to CSR sends a clear message in itself that your organization values CSR and values employee involvement and their input about company CSR strategies and practices.

Suggestion boxes, whether they be tangible boxes in or around an office, or a virtual suggestion box online, is a great way to solicit feedback from employees about CSR. Remember, communication is a two-way street. You should communicate with employees about your CSR strategy, not at them.

Involve Leadership

Regardless of the size of your organization, communication should always, in some way, involve a leader in the company. You can have CSR newsletters and emails come from your CEO or bring them to speak at meetings or events. Whatever the method, involve leadership in CSR communication.

Aside from the content of the message itself, when a CSR newsletter comes from a CEO or other executive, there is an implicit message about the importance of CSR in your company. When leadership shows that they value the CSR initiatives of their organization, they are validating it for other employees and lower-level leaders. Their involvement, or lack of involvement, has a trickle-down effect; therefore it is in the best interests of the CSR department to heavily involve executives. Ideally, a CEO or other high-level executive will serve as the face of the company's CSR initiatives.

DeSantis-Breindel is a consulting agency that works with companies to improve a variety of functions, including employee engagement with CSR. They note the importance of leadership involvement with CSR communications: "A well thought-out branding and communications strategy, backed by the support of an engaged CEO, can align CSR activities with the corporate brand in a way that is both authentic and meaningful, and transform all volunteer, philanthropic and sustainability initiatives into culture-building activities" (Does CEO Engagement Lead to CSR Impact?).

These are just a few insights into what makes an effective internal communications strategy for CSR, which can increase commitment and participation among employees. If you would like to learn more about developing an internal communication strategy that is right for your organization, there are many guides and resources you can reference to build your strategy.

Here are a few suggestions for further reading:

CSR Europe: Internal Communication and Employee Engagement

EUROPA: A Guide to Communicating About CSR

Internal Communications and Employee Engagement 2013

 

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