The Balanced Scorecard And Corporate Social Responsibility

BY ROB WHITWOOD

Corporate Social Responsibility for many companies is not just about compliance or requirements to be a supplier, but is a statement demonstrating Business Excellence to their target market. The main areas covered under CSR are Health, Safety & Wellbeing, Environmental impact, Quality Management and Ethical Trading. All of these areas of critical importance to any company. They cover the safety and wellbeing of staff, contractors, visitors, consumers/customers and also the planet.

There are legal requirements for companies to manage a number of these aspects, but in addition to these minimum requirements there are also recognised International standards in Safety, Environmental, and Quality Management namely ISO 18001/14001/9001. Other standards also exist for specialist industries.

Nearly all these standards focus on best practice and continuous improvement of procedures and management of those procedures and to this end CSR fits nicely into the Internal Business Process Perspective.

Having a clear set of procedures for managing any of the component parts of CSR is only part of the effort required, and there is a significant part to be played by the management, staff and culture of the organisation.

So where does this fit in to the Balanced Scorecard? The Balanced Scorecard consists of four different perspectives to analysis business performance: Financial, Internal Business, Customer and Learning & Growth. Ensuring that your business is up to date with corporate social responsibility fits into the Internal Business Perspective.

orporate social responsibility comes from having clear procedures and these procedures being adhered to by staff and enforced by management. Effective tracking of performance measurement of these procedures and incidents that result from poor compliance will drive action through management, training or a change in culture. For this reason CSR can be most effectively managed through inclusion in the Internal Business Perspective.

By monitoring your internal business processes you can see whether complying with accreditations for health and safety, environmental impact and quality management make a difference to your business performance as a whole.

Balanced Scorecard is one of the most effective ways of monitoring business performance by combining the four different perspectives. It allows us to get not only an overview of the entire business but also look in-depth at each as sub-sections to see which areas are excelling and which areas need some work. The user can also see a cause and effect relationship between different elements of the business which allows them to see which changes they make to the business have positive effects on other elements of the business and vice versa. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bio: Rob Whitwood is the owner of Inspired Change. The company helps businesses identify areas that could be improved on in their businesses using The Balanced Scorecard. Visit the website to find out more.

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