Engaging employees in CSR – A study carried out by CEGOS* shows that employees have a real appetite and are looking for support for CSR issues.

• 72% wish to be associated with the reflections on the subject
• 71% want more education on the role they can play
• 69% expect support from local managers to help them better embody and manage CSR issues as well as sharing of indicators for implementing the approach

It is an intelligence that is distributed everywhere, constantly enhanced, coordinated in real time, which then results in an effective mobilization of skills.

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Beeshake, the collective intelligence tool that engages employees in CSR

We will show you how a tool can be used to concretely deploy your CSR strategy, and what features will enable you to engage and involve your employees in your CSR strategy. But first, really ask yourself what you expect from this tool?

• Raise awareness and train your employees on concepts revolving around CSR
• Open conversations and allow everyone to speak
• Collect feedback, opinions or take the pulse of the company regarding the CSR strategy
• Generate sharing of good CSR practices between teams
• Allow everyone to participate in the co-construction of the CSR action plan by proposing innovative initiatives or solutions
• Share content, monitoring, expert interviews for inform and inspire your employees
• Other

[Read also – Collaborative CSR approach: where to start?]

Beeshake: Bring your CSR strategy to life

Beeshake is a collective intelligence platform that you allows you to make your strategy concrete and credible and to engage your employees in CSR. So, in a single tool, you will be able to inform them, train them, raise awareness, inspire them, and especially, get them involved by allowing them to share their feedback, their irritants, their good practices or even their ideas to feed into your CSR action plan.

And concretely?

• Polls and surveys
• A space for sharing good practices, solutions and innovation projects
• Awareness or training courses
• Idea challenges and gamification dynamics
• A space for communication and sharing of monitoring or inspiring articles
• Thematic discussion forums hosted by experts

As you read through this Practical Guide, you will discover the concrete features that will ensure the success of your CSR action plan and that will place your employees as the primary players in your approach.

New habits to adopt to centralize your efforts

Have you decided to get started with Beeshake? This is the opportunity to establish new habits! Perhaps you were using tools such as a corporate social network or mailing lists until now? Now is the time to centralize your communication efforts on your new platform. Indeed, you must lead by example by abandoning old habits to make way to using new tools that will lead you to success. So, to help you get a clearer idea, we suggest you list the old habits to eliminate and the new ones to put in place:

Capitalizing on ambassadors

We must be aware that this is a new approach and, initially, it is possible that employee participation will be timid or even weak. Your role is then central to leading the group. Indeed, it is up to you to stimulate a dynamic of participation, to publish content, to ask questions, to relay issues and to bring out ideas.

What do you have planned to make the magic happen? Guidelines, MOOCs or tutorials explaining how to propose ideas? Yes, but all these actions will be useless if your employees do not dare to get involved. As always, the most motivated must show the way!

Who are the employees most motivated to participate?

You need to identify collaborators who will be the first people to get started in thecollective intelligence and sharing of initiatives.

They can be

• highly motivated employees on CSR issues
• experts on certain subjects
• leaders convinced that collective intelligence must be put to the service of CSR
• Etc.

How to support them?

Your support must be ultra qualitative and effective. We give you some ideas of help that you could offer them:

1/ An explanatory meeting of the objective of the approach and the CSR platform. Do the identified collaborators have any questions to clarify?

2/ A brief demonstration workshop of the platform. Have they understood how to propose ideas in line with CSR objectives? Do they have any points of vigilance?

3/ A point to help them publish content (initiatives, problems, videos, etc.). What are the first emerging ideas?

Organize key moments to bring together and engage your ambassadors

Events are a great way to create links and structure your community of ambassadors. Here are some ideas for simple events that you can organize to bring together your CSR ambassadors and get them on board with you in the process.

Event 1 : A moment to get to know and identify yourself better

• Official presentation of the CSR ambassadors mission
• Setting up workshops to enable ambassadors to get to know each other better
• Presentation of an CSR ambassador kit

Event 2 : Informal training to ensure that all CSR ambassadors understand their mission

• Questions/answers to answer your ambassadors’ questions about your CSR approach and the platform to use
• Exchange on good CSR practices proposed by the ambassadors
• Demonstration of certain features of the platform (e.g. how to propose an CSR innovation project)

Event 3 : A round table

• Feedback from CSR ambassadors on the CSR approach and platform
• Promotion of CSR projects proposed by CSR ambassadors

Mobilize your CSR ambassadors in publishing content

Your collective intelligence platform is intended to be a space for exchanges and even debates, information and inspiration. And your collaborators have a real role to play! Indeed, the more your platform is co-hosted, the more alive it will be!

Here are some ideas to encourage your ambassadors to co-host the platform with you:

• Register them for CSR-related events so they can share their experiences and propose ideas on the platform
• Organize round tables, breakfasts in order to discuss CSR topics which are important to speak about on the platform
• Organize article writing workshops on CSR topics. For example, feedback on a good practice implemented within their team.
• Challenge your ambassadors! For example, give them the challenge to each share a good practice by shooting a short video with their smartphone.

Providing a space for acculturation to engage employees in CSR

There is no need to remind you: to be engaged on a subject, you must first understand what we are talking about. THEacculturation is therefore an essential step in your system for engaging employees in CSR. And that’s good, Beeshake can help you with this!

Off-the-shelf content to engage employees in CSR

At Beeshake, we provide you with a platform for acculturate and raise awareness among your employees about your major CSR issues. But we also offer you content!

We can provide you with generic content on major recurring themes:

• The fundamentals of CSR
• Responsible digital technology
• Green washing
• Responsible purchasing
• etc..

And thanks to our expert partners, we can also provide you with content adapted to your sector of activity, or even content produced tailor-made for you!

The creation of real acculturation paths to engage employees in CSR

At this point, you will certainly have understood that Beeshake allows you to create real acculturation courses for your employees. They will thus be able to understand and master the fundamentals of your CSR strategy. This is fundamental to then actively get involved in the action plan!

Example of thematic acculturation courses:

• An update on the pillars of our CSR
• CSR issues in our sector of activity
• What is a carbon footprint?
• Our CSR charter explained in detail

Courses that acculturate your employees to collective intelligence in the service of CSR :

You can also create small, fun MOOCs that will act as tutorials to help your employees understand the logic of collective intelligence in the service of CSR. They will thus better understand how to participate in this dynamic. For example:

• The role of feedback in a CSR strategy
• Do you have a good CSR practice? Here’s how to propose it!
• How can I join a team to work on a CSR project?
• How to support ideas proposed by other collaborators?

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Interested in engaging your employees in CSR? Schedule a meeting to discover how this approach can strengthen the involvement and impact of your initiatives.