Corporate Sustainability, Workforce Planning and HR Strategy

The information within this post is a direct result of a conversation Tanya and I had with Seema Iyer - Workforce Planning Strategist.  Seema has an amazing background serving in key strategic HR and Global Workforce Planning roles at both Sun Microsystems and HP.  The goal of our conversation was to delve into the HR Drivers of Corporate Sustainability.

The first part of our discussion centered around where HR Drivers of Corporate Sustainability fit into Maslow's Hierarchy.  This is a very interesting concept, which frankly requires additional thought in order to fully flesh out the mapping.  At this point, I'm setting aside the Maslow mapping.  Here's a more general hierarchy of some of the benefits of Corporate Sustainability:

• Employee Satisfaction and Attraction / Retention....
  
• Risk Management / 'Exceeding' Compliance Requirements.....
• Improving Revenue (top-line  growth)......................................
  
• Operating Costs, Tax Implications (expense reduction).............................
  
• Regulatory Compliance............................................................................
  

I know what you're probably thinking.  "Wait, the only 'HR item' in the hierarchy is at the very top!"  And you'd be correct.  That was Seema's position right from the start - the HR Drivers of Corporate Sustainability are realized only after several other key benefits are achieved.

CONCLUSION #1: Corporate Sustainability can have a very real impact on driving benefits in the HR realm, but there are a lot of 'foundational elements' that need to be covered before these HR benefits can truly be realized.

The next part of our discussion centered on the Executive-level HR-related KPIs where Corporate Sustainability has an impact.  Here's a high-level summary of what we came up with:

    Executive-level KPIs:

• Employee Satisfaction
• Mapping Sustainability to Specific Dimensions of the 'Great Place to Work' Survey
• Credibility
• Respect
• Fairness
• Pride
• Camaraderie
  
• Attraction of talent from top universities
• Executives present at top universities and engage students in dialog
• Students form opinions of company based largely on these interactions
• Students are looking for companies that operate in a sustainable manner and that take Corporate Responsibility seriously
• Not having a clear, strong message around Sustainability and CR is seen as a large weakness by students
• Less Important: Retention (unless voluntary turnover is in double-digits it's not a focus area)
• If voluntary turnover is in double-digits it's more likely due to management culture and nature of work
  

CONCLUSION #2: Corporate Sustainability has a major impact on attracting talent from top universities.

More to follow in a subsequent post....