Employees see a clear connection between responsible business practice and positive impact on the bottom line, according to new research sponsored by BUPA and carried out by Business in the Community in partnership with the CIPD and the Future Work Institute.
The key messages from the report, ‘Responsibility: driving innovation, inspiring employees’ were:
- Employees are convinced that a talented and diverse workforce enhances creativity and innovation and contributes to increased focus on customers, improving competitive edge
- They want to be treated as individuals – not categorised according to whatever ‘diversity’ group they fall into
- They want to see the organisation’s values practised throughout the business – from corporate social responsibility through HR to products and services.
The report says that organisations should make sure they put into practice the five key characteristics of a responsible employer identified by employees. These are:
- treating individuals fairly
- responding to the changing needs of individual employees over time
- providing good quality products or services
- listening to employees
- understanding the importance of values.
Only 45% of employees find the recruitment rhetoric about corporate values that helped attract them to their employer is actually implemented.
Many employees considered that a responsible organisation would be particularly good at having strong and inspiring senior management, but scored it low in their organisation.
The report can be downloaded here.
