A good communications strategy lies at the heart of any successful corporate social responsibility programme, argues Pauline Ryder
Given the ever-widening spectrum of stakeholder interests that now have
to be taken into account if a business is to become sustainable, any
organization without a holistic communications strategy will soon find
itself out of step with its stakeholders’ expectations. This will
affect the company’s ability to meet the requirements of the emerging
global governance agenda, expose it to a much broader range of risks
and could even make its operations unsustainable in the long term.
Communications is a key strategic driver when developing any sort of
engagement process. Yet at present the role of communications in social
and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting is underdeveloped. This
is partly because the field is in its early days, and partly because
standard-setting bodies and auditing firms, rather than communications
strategists, are largely driving social and ethical accountability
practice.
This is a potentially dangerous situation. After
all, communications skills are fundamental to the success of any
stakeholder approach: what is stakeholder dialogue, if not
communicating with stakeholders?
Beyond engaging stakeholders
to determine indicators of social and ethical responsibility,
communication also plays a central role in making sure that any
dialogue develops into a vision with a set of values and strategies
that will improve a company’s overall ethical performance. And then, of
course, the vision itself has to be communicated to a wide range of
audiences.
There are, however, promising signs of a new dawn
for communication. The AA1000 standard, for example, uses a
stakeholder-centred model and places new emphasis on the value of
communications in organizational management. Launched in Copenhagen in
November by the London-based Institute of Social and Ethical
Accountability, this international standard should encourage new
thinking in the discipline.
AA1000 recognises good
communication as crucial to the effective delivery of stakeholder
dialogue, and that it is not merely a tactical management tool to
convey information and obtain feedback. In this new view of an
organization, open channel dialogue allows the organization to adapt
constantly to its environment.
We must all begin to recognise
that communications is the glue holding any corporate social
responsibility strategy together. Ultimately, it is the skills of
communicators that can help organizations to secure a sustainable
future.
Pauline Ryder is principal consultant at Capricorn Communications
