CSR Career Management: 2010, A Responsible Employee's Market?

Responsible Careers: For the past two years, your career management strategy might have boiled down to three words: 'Keep This Job'! With so many unemployed qualified candidates globally, you did you best to keep you job not to compete with them to find a new job. The tide is turning though. The Department of Labor recently reported that, in February 2010, for the first time in 15 straight months, the number of people who quit their job was higher than the number of people who were laid off. In addition, early signs indicate a slight uptick in job openings, which might also make you think that now is the time to make a move to another company. You might think that you could finally get the CSR position you want or that you could secure a job with another company that allows you to integrate more social and/or environmental responsibility into your current job function.

However, before moving on to another company, I would encourage you to reframe your career management strategy and investigate whether you can leverage your current job to create your own CSR presence at your current employer.

Why? Because your current employer is getting worried about retention! Employers know from past recessions that some of their employees will leave when the job market will improve, and employers are now thinking about ways to re-engage disgruntled employees. A recent report by Risk Management confirms employers' worries: 60% of currently employed US professionals who answered the survey indicated that when the job market recovers, they intend to change jobs. Employers hope that proactively re-engaging current employees will boost trust and decrease costly employee turnover. Depending on the type of position and on the specialized skills required for the position, recruiting and training a new employee when a current employee quits costs the employer between 50% to 150% of the position's annual salary.

Given these high employee turnover costs, your employer might be right now getting in touch with your manager to help him/her re-engage disgruntled employees like you. As you know your company's priorities, and you know your job, you might also have ideas about how to integrate social and environmental responsibility into your current projects. This might be the best possible time for you to make your next career management move. Demonstrate to your boss that you want to help him/her re-engage your colleagues by enabling them to create more social and/or environmental value through their current job. Possible suggestions include strengthening or creating a community volunteering program oroffering training sessions that teaches them how to reduce the environmental impact of their projects. There is accumulating evidence that environmental responsibility is becoming mainstream in business, less because it is the right thing to do than because it saves companies money. By helping in the design and delivery of ways to measure and reduce environmental impact, you can emerge as a champion of environmental sustainability within your current company. Building upon the training, you might be able to offer a fun and engaging competition for most innovative or most environmentally friendly project to further boost morale. For more information on how to best get start with such new initiatives, see previous posts here and here.

If your boss is not receptive, your next career management strategy can be to pitch your idea to your training and development department or your HR department, and see what they say. Remember to include data from the 2003 'Good Companies, Better Employees' report by Tuffrey in your pitch. This report' data indicated that higher retention rates as well as higher reputation ratings are observed for companies that offer company-sponsored volunteering opportunities to their employees. Furthermore, the report showed that employees participating in company-sponsored community service enjoyed higher levels of job satisfaction, and were more likely to recommend their employer as a good place to work.

By engaging your boss or your HR department in creating (or strengthening) their community service initiatives or their environmental impact measures, 2010 might provide you with a unique career management opportunity to position yourself for future CSR jobs within or beyond your current company. Other career management ideas, advice or questions are always welcome!

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