Should Professional Service Firms "do" Corporate Social Responsibility?
Does Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have a place in the strategy of a professional service firm (PSF?) David Maister ponders this question in his blog with a posting titled Should PSFs do CSR?
(David's web site is a veritable gold mine of other resources for the PSF strategist, too.)
He notes that many benefits are claimed for CSR, including better risk and crisis management; improved financial performance and productivity; enhanced brand value; the ability to attract better employes and last (but not least) the ability to obtain licenses needed to operate.
But surely all this applies more to companies that pollute the environment or whose business processes, products or services can harm or kill people?
David points out that while CSR is probably far from the prime decision driver in purchasing professional services, it nonetheless has several aspects that do apply directly to PSFs. The range of issues on which to take a stand is enormous though. The ideas that he suggests for how to go about addressing the issue include:
1) Identify those issues that you truly do support, or could support, carefully
2) Involve your people so the issues selected are those that are really important to them, not those that you think are important to them
3) Employment practices are part of CSR and this can link into other burning issues like Generation Y expectations
4) Ensure that programs (both individual and firm-wide) are consistent with the firm's ideology and protect its reputation.
Read David's posting here.
As always, comments are most welcome and may be posted below.