Essence of Corporate Social Responsibility and CSR Coursework

Essence of Corporate Social Responsibility and CSR - Coursework Example CSR can be defined a commitment made by a company towards the stakeholder to operate in an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable fashion. CSR seeks to integrate workplace culture, communities and human rights to business strategies. In the initial days the many used to treat CSR as arm chair philanthropy, however things have changed drastically. It is treated as an integral part of the overall business strategy. In order to discuss the focal points related to CSR two companies have chosen in the form of Philip Morris and Starbucks. Philip Morris is one of largest tobacco companies. It includes seven leading international brands that include Marlboro, the top most cigarette brand in the world. Starbucks one the other hand is a global coffee chain. They are based on Seattle, Washington. It is also the largest coffeehouse company. It has over twenty thousand stores and operates in over sixty countries. Starbucks shops provide a wide range of products including hot and c old coffee, pastries, snacks, etc. As it can be seen that two companies with distinct product mix and different business model has been chose. The main objective of such choice is to demonstrate the importance and benefits of CSR across various industries. Add to it must be mentioned that as per research the key focal points of CSR activities of both the companies happens to be same, at least to some extent; such as investment in foundations and communities, waste reduction, energy conservation, recycling etc. Here it is needless to say that CSR for Philip Morris is supposed to be a bit trickier as compared of Starbucks keeping the product line in mind (Urip, p. 13). Potential Benefits and Importance of CSR CSR should not be looked upon a leakage of resources. If implemented properly CSR policies can provide an array of benefits such as increase the level of customer retention, enhances relationship with customers, suppliers, stakeholders and other channel partners, differentiates t he company from that of the competitors, improves reputation, generates positive publicity and even helps the companies to get new business. This segement will be of great help to understand how CSR activities benefits Starbucks and Philip Morris to maintain better relationship with the stake holders. Stakeholders include employees, business partners, investors, local communities as well customers. It will also be helpful to analyze the alignment of CSR with the corpora objectives. It will reflect the importance of CSR keeping the overall corporate strategy in mind. Corporate objective can be defined as a realistic objective set by the company that influences key strategic decisions (Heal, p.132). Starbucks views CSR as an opportunity to give something back to the community. As a matter of fact it runs down deep to the company roots. For Starbucks CSR is an approach to fulfill the commitments made to the origins, environment, communities, and partners. Some of the approaches include investments to benefit coffee producers and their families; promoting the concept of recycling, conservation of coffee growing countries; having in store green teams. More than one billion people work at Starbucks. They are not treated as employees; rather they are treated as partners. As a matter of fact the mission statement of the company talks about the commitment to partners. As mentioned before CSR activities for Philip Morris are supposed to be a bit trickier as compared to the other. However the CSR activities of the company are nothing short of impressive. The company actively invests in art

Business Plan Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Business Plan - Assignment Example Issues raised by the survey The fact that the person who conducted the survey, Paul had previously worked as Director of HR for Utiliscan and later moved to Plasted as HR Director, is very revealing that there is an issue of lack of professional advancement in the company. Interpreting the issues that were raised by the survey, a close examination would reveal that they were in fact interrelated as employees perceive that the lack of performance reviews to be the root of other issues that include lack of opportunities to improve their skills and therefore, no opportunity to be promoted. Moreso, the employees also thought that since there is no performance review, it will not matter how they perform because they will be receiving the same pay regardless of how they do their job. This caused the employees to feel despondent because they see their jobs as career dead ends without any prospect of getting better nor advancing in the career ladder nor an increase their pay. Such that it wi ll not be surprising that employees will leave the company at the first sign of opportunity as attested by its former HR Director and the very person who conducted the survey. ... Second, there is also an opportunity cost associated to it and also when waiting for the new employee learn the job. And lastly and worst, the skill of the previous employee which has been acquired from the company is transferred to its competitors with minimal cost to the competitor such as the case of Paul, the former HR Director. If the current exodus of employees to competitors will not stop, Utiliscan will inevitably lose its valuable knowledge base to its competitors through its lost employees and that could mean losing the business in the long run. Solution The solution to the root of the problem is the implementation of performance management and making the job interesting so that employees will be more motivated to work. Performance management is the procedure or method used in evaluating the performance of a certain employee for a given period of what the employee has done or how productive he or she is. It is also the process of obtaining relevant information about an empl oyee and determining its worth to the organization by analyzing the given information. The analysis of an employee’s performance involves its recent accomplishment in the organization, its deficiency, strengths and weakness to determine whether the employee is suited for promotion or needs to be retrained. It also serves as a feedback mechanism to immediately solicit information from the employees about their jobs so that management can quickly respond to them. Included in performance management is career-pathing where employees can see where their careers will be going if they are going to do well with respective jobs. Performance management can also address the issue that 87% of the employees think that there were no promotion opportunities. Performance appraisal, a