Social Enterprise – People, Planet, Profit
By Deborah Thoben
In the past, businesses and corporations have been clearly structured as commercial enterprises solely concerned with the objective of making money. For today’s businesses, though, it seems that there is great interest in creating “triple-bottom-line” organizations where the lines between people, planet and profit become blurred. Under this new "social enterprise" model, businesses are not only trying to make money, but to aid society and be mindful of the environment as well.1
In Deloitte’s 2019 Global Human Capital Trends survey, the topic of social enterprise seemed to dominate. In fact, 65% of CEOs stated in the survey that their primary measure of success for the year was to have an “impact on society, including income inequality, diversity, and the environment.” While 77% of companies surveyed indicated that “citizenship and social impact” were important, they further indicated that it was the change for which their companies were the least prepared.2
Reasons for the Rise in Social Enterprise
While this trend all may simply seem to be about political correctness, the shift in priorities may go beyond a “feel good” objective for the following reasons.
• The rise of technology and automation is making a company’s human qualities and soft skills more important than ever.
• The sought-after millennial workforce has shown that they care about the societal impact of the companies they work for.
• Companies have found that being a social enterprise can favorably affect their bottom line.3
Steps for Creating Social Enterprise
1. For the Labor Market – Companies will need to effectively incorporate alternative workers into their organizations and maximize their contributions in a strategic way. Workers will need to “supercharge” their careers by embracing and incorporating AI and other technology tools to be even better at their jobs. Companies will need to have leadership that is knowledgeable about the ever-changing technological landscape and flexible enough to deal with the uncertainty that it brings.
2. For Companies – 84% of survey respondents cited “employee experience” as one of their company’s most important challenges and 28% of respondents indicated that the need was at a critical point. There is a definite shift from hierarchy to teamwork and collaboration with 31% of respondents indicating that their companies embraced teams while another 65% said that their companies were a hybrid of hierarchy and team initiative. On the topic of their company’s acknowledgement and reward system, only 11% of those asked said their program was effective because only 23% of those asked felt they even knew what employees wanted for rewards.
3. For Human Resources – Even though employees cited the”inability to learn and grow” as the #1 reason for quitting, 50% of employers said that they felt advancement was more likely outside of their organization than from within. It seems obvious, then, that an area for improvement in HR would be to provide training and education so that employees could “learn and grow.” Additionally, hiring managers need to hire from within, hire alternative workers, and leverage technology to eliminate HR busy work.3
1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2018/04/03/the-rise-of-the-social-enterprise-a-new-paradigm-for-business/#58dd8ad571f0
2 https://www.hrtechnologist.com/articles/digital-transformation/deloitte-2019-global-human-capital-trends-report-4-insights/
3 https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ro/Documents/HC_Trends_2019_C_TT-FFF-06291_ro_2019_General_Document_en.pdf?nc=1&utm_campaign=HC_Trends_2019_C_TT-FFF-06291_ro_2019_General_Email_en&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua