Recruiting in China

Contributed by Mohammed Senin of Clownfish Marketing

According to the latest research from the Carbon Trust, consumers are more likely to buy products and services from a business they think is tackling climate change¡­ Euan Murray, strategy manager at the Carbon Trust, said: "There has been a definite shift in behaviour. Fifty-three per cent of people felt that in the last year, climate change had become more of an issue for them¡­Consumers want to use their purchasing power to reduce their carbon footprint and that of the UK as a whole¡±.

This is further confirmation of what many other articles and reports have already claimed. And in order for consumers to make easy and quick purchasing decisions, they need brands. Brands help to ¡°edit¡± choices on their behalf, saving them the need for exhaustive research and allowing them to behave in the way they want.

I don¡¯t disagree with that but I would like to put a slightly different concept out there¡­

Sustainability initiatives are often driven from the most senior levels of organisations. It has become the vogue for large companies to boast positions such as ¡®Chief Ethics Officer¡¯ or ¡®Director in Charge of the Environment¡¯ to bolster their claims to good governance. This is nothing more than window dressing unless the ethics and values of sustainability and social responsibility are embedded throughout the organisation and the brand that it brings to market.

For example, the performance and remuneration of individual staff is often assessed against ¡°key performance indicators¡± that have little to do with values or sustainability. Few are the companies that reward their staff for reducing their carbon footprint or developing socially beneficial products.

The human resources industry has a lot to contribute here, since HR directors are closely involved in the development of job descriptions, performance criteria, and remuneration structures. If HR is equipped with the knowledge and support to do so, it can start introducing ethical, environmental, social and values-based criteria into this process. This is one of the most effective ways to infuse such values into the lifeblood of the corporate machine.

WWF¡¯s recent report, ¡®Let Them Eat Cake¡± (downloadable from http://www.clownfishmarketing.co.uk/clients_wwf.html) found that the majority of employees consider themselves to care more about sustainability than their employers do. Furthermore, very few companies reward employees for environmental and social performance. Only 6% were rewarded for carrying out environmental and social screening of suppliers and associates; a meagre 11% were encouraged to consider the environmental and social impacts of what they were marketing; and only 6% were encouraged by their employers to support environmental causes.

This trend must be reversed. Brands of the future will be rewarded for their commitment to sustainable development and social practices, and as such, they must behave as good corporate citizens in everything that they do. CSR values must be incorporated into recruitment and reward systems, because there¡¯s nothing like the prospect of a bonus to change employees¡¯ behaviour.

Recruitment has a critical impact on the performance and future success of any organisation. With increasingly fierce competition for the best candidates, and the proliferation of (sometimes dubious) qualifications amongst candidates, values and sustainability can help to attract and retain the very best.

A successful recruitment and selection strategy must consider CSR values in order to remain one step ahead of the game. Successful brands, therefore, not only need to be successful in the commercial market, but also in the recruitment process.