According to a study conducted by Hewitt and Canadian Business for Social Responsibility (CBSR), there is a strong correlation between employee engagement and how they view their employer’s record on social and environmental responsibility. Hewitt and CBSR analyzed the rankings of the Best Employers in Canada study and a companion study to gather the opinions of more than 100,000 employees and 2,000 leaders in over 230 companies.
Based on the findings, companies with high employee engagement are more inclined to focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a strategy to improve overall organizational performance and better meet the needs of employees and external stakeholders. For their part, 86% of employees at organizations with high engagement agreed that they worked for an employer that was socially and environmentally responsible. This figure fell to 71% at employers with moderate engagement and was only 60% at those with low engagement.
For the study’s authors, the findings also show that declining employee perceptions of CSR within an organization can be a significant threat to engagement for over a third of organizations. They recommend combined initiatives to sustain both employee engagement and CSR in order to increase the probability of a better return on investment than non-coordinated efforts.