For ESG we need the EAP
For ESG we need the EAP
CIPD President, Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith, has called for boards to hand over responsibility to HR when it comes to meeting environmental, social and governance goals (ESG).
While ESG was now on all CEO and senior executive’s minds, they needed support and drive to take action from those closest to people issues and concerns. ESG had to be fully embedded into business objectives — or there was the real risk of being exposed in future, with serious implications for the employer brand, recruitment, retention and overall performance.
Virtue-signalling
“The more senior you get in an organisation, the less you know about the day-to-day activities of the organisation,” said Baroness McGregor-Smith at the 2022 Festival of Work. Too often this led to “virtue-signalling” where ESG just became part of the branding and promotional side of activities rather than having real meaning and being part of policies and behaviours.
She emphasised the importance of HR in taking a lead, and basing their work on more data collection on actual employee experiences, what’s behind staff choosing to leave, as well as their promotions, their wellbeing and sense of purpose within the organisation. Employees had to be feeling “empowered” by their organisation.
EAPs for all
EAPA UK chair [https://www.eapa.org.uk/] Eugene Farrell said: “Whether organisations are seen as being successful isn’t enough for either consumers and employees. The reputation of organisations is more and more dependent on their bigger role: are they really a ‘good’ influence on society, a good employer that cares about people and planet?
“More employers are being found out, and are going to be found out as not living up to their branding — making attention to staff experience a must-have for HR, and in turn, for the employer as a whole. The critical heart of this work has to be staff wellbeing and sense of purpose, feeling they can be themselves at work, are cared about as an individual human being, and are part of a community that had a shared mission.
“On a practical level, this is where EAPs and the range of services an EAP can provide — including anonymised data on trends — are an essential.”