by Christian Gray, Southern California Chapter, Pharmaceutical & Health Technology Division
Thinking about SLA President Cindy Romaine’s core tenets of Future Ready it is easy to see the convergence between pillars of Future Ready–career agility, alignment and community–and Corporate Social Responsibility/Social Responsibility (CSR/SR).
Your participation in CSR/SR can enhance your skill set and give you an opportunity to take on new roles and responsibilities giving you a more agile career. CSR/SR is a very high profile matter for many public companies and other institutions. You will find yourself aligned with senior management’s desire to be a socially responsible organization by providing direct support to that department. And as CSR/SR relates to community, well it doesn’t take much effort to explain. That is what CSR/SR should be about, making a real difference in your community or the community that your organization represents.
I have several working hypotheses regarding CSR and SR which I hope to validate over the next few months:
- Your personal participation in an SR program can increase your quality of life.
- Your active support of your company CSR goals and objectives can have a positive impact on your career.
- Being a leader for CSR/SR programs in your organization can lead to greater satisfaction in that role.
- Professional associations and other business organizations benefit from participation in CSR.
- Being an advocate and champion for CSR/SR programs can provide direct benefit to your clients, company and partners.
Recently I had a very late night of introspection and an honest evaluation of the many gifts I have in my life and had been aware of my growing need to be active in a community organization. I started researching non-profit organizations and even wrote a few checks. I joined the board of a local arts organization, Create:Fixate, and began to more actively participate in a group for which I had previously been a donor, LA’s BEST. Through that participation I reconnected with former associate Jim Howard, the founder of the Room to Read Los Angeles chapter.
Jim put the book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, in my hands and told me a little more about Room to Read. I was hooked before I even finished reading the book. I initially helped out informally, then facilitated their chapter strategic planning session. After visiting the global offices in San Francisco, I realized that what had begun as a conversation with an old friend had turned into not only an incredible project, but also a great and very personal passion.
My new-found commitment to caring and helping aligned with the broader community of colleagues I work with in the publishing and information industry, including clients, prospects, partners, publishers and even the Special Library Association. I was happy to discover that my commitment was also shared even closer to home, when I was casually speaking to my CEO at Reprints Desk, Peter Derycz, in December 2009 about life outside of work. While sharing my interest in Room to Read he got a funny smile on his face and began telling me about his own experience trekking in Nepal, how he wanted to start a school or library but was concerned about it being sustainable.
So like many good intentions, time passed and Peter’s plans faded until our conversation rekindled his own interest in creating a sustainable, positive change. Over the following weeks, Peter’s personal interest became a corporate initiative and a new partnership was formed between Reprints Desk and Room to Read. The result: basically every time there is a transaction (we deliver scientific articles to some of the largest research and development organizations in the world) Reprints Desk drops a small percentage in the Room to Read bucket. That commitment has, in one quarter, generated enough to fund more than 12 years of girls’ scholarships, including bikes and uniforms as needed, or more than 50 percent of a library, or more than 3,000 new books in local languages.
By integrating corporate social responsibility into Reprints Desk’s DNA, as we grow the company, the financial support and direct impact on children’s lives will grow with us. And that does not even count the impact of the initiative’s growing fan base. Both inside and around Reprints Desk, employees are making a difference around the world. While writing another line of code or providing customer service, our employees know clients are often thrilled to learn that their choice to use our services how has the added value of making the world a better place. As Peter and other senior managers have visited with the world’s largest publishers and they’ve learned about our partnership with Room to Read, many of these publishers are now asking how they can participate.
Over the past several years I’ve presented a series of talks about Career Agility to SLA Chapters and Divisions, sometimes solo, other times partnered with Cindy Hill or Kim Dority. One of the themes in these talks is emulating some of these positive characteristics of corporate leaders. One key take-away has been that it is not only important to understand our own strengths, but to look at ways to channel our strength into action. I believe we have the means to do just that. To be an effective and valued contributor at your organization, you must consider becoming directly involved in your company’s CSR program. If your organization doesn’t have a CSR program, now is the perfect time to initiate one. Why? You will benefit by increasing your exposure to senior management, you can make a difference outside your enterprise and inside the “cause,” and you’re likely to gain tremendous personal satisfaction from your participation.
I hope this is the beginning of the conversation about CSR/SR and the role of the special librarian/info pro. We had a very engaged group during the SLA CSR Unconference session and we will continue the conversation via the SLA Social Responsibility group just started this week.
With over twenty-years of sales, marketing, business development and public speaking experience, Christian Gray has a unique and diverse perspective of technology, software and information companies. As a Strategic Account Manager for Reprints Desk, Christian has worked directly with many of the world’s largest life science companies including Amgen, Gilead, Genentech, Johnson and Johnson and Allergen, as well as other Fortune 500 Companies including Sony, Disney and Sun Microsystems.
Christian has been an active member of the Special Libraries Association since 2002 and is a past Board member of the Southern California Chapter and recently received an SLA Presidential Citation for his work on Future Ready 365.
Christian has given presentations to numerous SLA Chapters and Divisions and published a series of articles for Searcher Magazine, an Information Today publication on Enterprise Social Software. He has also been published in the Los Angeles Times, and Los Angeles Business Journal.
Great post Christian! At a recent management meeting we were brainstorming non-monetary rewards for staff, and allowing staff to participate in SR programs during work-time made it on the list. With our new leadership I’m hopeful something might actually come of it. But to play devil’s advocate for a moment, I see a few essential problems with the whole idea of CSR/SR. What is your response to the people who tell you they really don’t have anything to give? We’re all so swamped for time that most of us can’t even fit our work into the regular workday anymore and everyone has extensive personal commitments. Many folks I know are barely making ends meet, either because they’re still in school, they’ve been laid off, or their salaries have been frozen for years. And how do you convince an organization to start a CSR program when it’s not already a part of the corporate culture or when your organization is trying to weather the recession? I have a few ideas about all of the above but I’d love to hear your perspective.
Christian, thanks for taking the initiative to get us moving forward on CSR/SR!
I think Robin’s raised very valid points. One of the cool things about having information skills, however, is that even if we’re not yet in a position to contribute financially, we can contribute our professional knowledge and skills, which may be as valuable to an organization as more tangible assets (e.g., money).
Perhaps if an organization is too financially strapped to be able to initiate a CSR campaign right now, the first step could be to let their info specialists/librarians dedicate a specified amount of “on the job” time to contribute their info skills to the designated cause.
Thanks for launching the discussion!
CSR can take place at all levels of organizations of all sizes, no matter how big or small. Whether it shows up because shareholders and the CFO want the write-off or because the CEO or an employee is driving it from some personal passion, the benefits are many and can make a profound impact on organizations. We may be early in terms of quantifying the impact, but the number of volunteer hours donated and funds raised is a very tangible metric every employee, customer and shareholder can identify with. If anyone is interested in learning more, I have been impressed by the work Causecast has been doing around employee engagement, CSR and cause marketing (http://www.causecast.org).
Our division head once mentioned that the medical device companies were pretty much on an equal level as far as quality and products, so what could we do to really stand out. Many companies invested in continuous improvement programs such as Lean and Six Sigma. Over the past few years our organization has been involved in the Reading Buddies program at a local elementary school, contribute time and funds to events raising money for the local Children’s Hospital, work on several Habitat for Humanity projects, and participate annually in Doctors without Borders programs. Corporate responsibility helps us stand out as an involved and responsible member of the community close to home and all over the world, but I have to agree with the concerns raised by Kim and Robin – what happens when our company really feels the pinch from a dwindling market and is waiting for new product drivers to generate revenue? Will the organization still be supporting such programs? When does corporate responsibility mean keeping employees working?
Christian’s post raises a number of issues — which have been commented by the others. Working for an organization that both identifies it has a social responsibility and then does something about it — on either a local level or a more global level is a wonderful thing. An organization’s “tipping point” (to borrow a phrase from Malcolm Gladwell) may come when it gets too big/ successful (the irony here being when the organization has more capacity to give, individuals within the organization want more for themselves) or perhaps when it gets bought by another company that doesn’t share all the values of the acquired organization.
Developing and maintaining a core set of principles regarding how an organization or an individual will act is both important and difficult. The more successful we become, it seems the more pressure there is to maintain that set of principles. Beyond maintaining our own set of principles, we can help keep the discussion going.