corporate social responsibility and the project manager

Corporations, and the society they operate in, are already intertwined -- companies affect society through the activities they do every day. A society needs corporations to give people employment and infrastructure, and corporations need a healthy society to provide a capable workforce. While society looks in many cases to the corporate world rather than government for the provision of employment and infrastructure (not to mention goods and services), it is only a healthy society that can create the kind of productive workers that every corporation seeks to hire.

Companies exist to create prosperity. Society in turn decides what limits to impose on how companies behave, and thus we have laws to protect the common good. Corporate social responsibility tries to bridge the gap between what laws are in place and enforced, and basic fundamentals of good business practice, such as avoidance of exploitative practices, and complete transparency.

In the same way that social responsibility is not solely the government’s job, corporate social responsibility is not only the task of a company's senior executive. Project managers are instrumental in achieving strategic goals, as they hold the path to execution. In this way, they can play a pivotal role in corporate social responsibility. Being familiar with the details of day-to-day operations and execution, the manager is in a position to perceive and analyze socially relevant issues and situations that may not be obvious to senior management. The manager knows from firsthand experience that norms and laws, culture and traditions may render a project very different in execution and outcome from what it is in other countries, including his company’s home country.

The experienced project manager brings discipline in risk assessment and mitigation, which can be used to identify social risks that might go unnoticed by top leadership. For example, your company may not uphold norms of behavior in developing countries, arguing instead that they operate within the local laws of the countries in which they are working. You will be in the position to see that disconnect more vividly than a distant executive, and will be able to escalate discrepancies between the minimum the law requires and what’s appropriate for the community, before it turns into a crisis for the company’s operation or reputation. Don’t assume that company executives are aware of the social ramifications of a project – it’s the manager’s responsibility to ensure these issues are raised appropriately. The data a manager provides his leadership can help them make bold decisions, to go beyond what the law requires in developing ethical business practices.

For example, Levi Strauss and Company has a strict policy against underage workers. But when they discovered that two factories in Bangladesh had workers under the age of 15, executives in the US didn’t just shut down the factories or demand the workers be fired. Instead, the managers in the field looked into the problem, and they recognized that in Bangladesh, families rely on the money brought in from a child worker to survive. So they helped come up with a creative solution. The children who were already employed could remain, but the factory had to support their education, sending them to a local school, even hiring a teacher if there were no local schools nearby. That way, the company could ensure the children were getting proper education, while not driving families into poverty. Ultimately, such actions set the standard for other local factories, raising the bar throughout the society.

How can you evaluate risks around corporate social responsibility? You can rank social issues when you rank all other risks to project success, by probability and impact. What is the likelihood a social, environmental or ethical issue will arise in this project? What is the potential impact, not just to the project, but also to the community or the company at large? Never forget that you are your company. If you want your company to be ethical and do the right thing, be sure to model that behavior yourself.