Let’s face it: Your decision to purchase a product is influenced by what you see on social media. Take a photo, attach a hashtag, wait a minute—do you really want to post a picture of your morning latte when Starbucks is in the midst of a racial bias storm? Should you tweet about your decision to boycott the coffee chain instead? After all, your purchase is more than an acquired product. Online, inadvertently or otherwise, it reflects a set of values—which is why CEOs are increasingly concerned about their company’s social image.
“Talent and customers are choosing what they want to be a part of,” says Nikki Barua, CEO of digital innovation consultancy Beyond Curious. Barua founded the firm in 2011 to help legacy companies become modern in the digital world, which includes operating with social values.
“The world where corporate social responsibility was just a department is dead,” Barua says. “If a decision is not truly connected to your company’s mission and values, you will not have a relevant role in business and society.”
CEOs play an important role in communicating corporate values. “Every stance taken by the CEO sets a new precedence,” adds Barua. This is especially true given the rise of social change around the world, motivated by the lack of progress on vital issues.
To create lasting change, Barua says that companies must engage allstakeholders, not just some: “There’s a huge opportunity for creating faster impact at a greater scale; it’s not just for one person or company to solve.”
By: Damanick Dantes
Source: Fortune
CEOs are spending more time on making the business case for their environmental and social commitments, and they’re building more rigorous mechanisms for addressing thorny issues and mitigating PR risks. To avoid communications missteps, CEOs should ensure they have the organizational capabilities and tools in place to monitor and analyze emerging issues and to gauge the sentiment of key stakeholders.
The vast majority of business leaders responding to a recent survey said they’re concerned they can’t train employees quickly enough to keep up with AI and tech developments in the next three years. A similar amount said AI and other tech disruptions will require companies to rethink skills, resources and new ways of doing work.
If you were to ask a random person on the street what an HR professional does, their answer would probably be conflict resolution, or that HR folks deal with employee salaries and benefits. And while that is part of an HR professional’s responsibilities — to ensure employee safety, respect and accountability — that doesn’t even scratch the surface.
