For opening the brand new season 2011/2012 I decided to host into the blog some great and innovative guys in a High Value Guest Posts series, as we usually say. 

The first Guest Post to start is by Christian Ippolito. But who is Christian Ippolito ? 

                          Ok Let me introduce you this innovative guy!

CHRISTIAN IPPOLITO is a PHD in Commodity Science from University of Rome - La Sapienza into the fields of “Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Production” and “Ethical Business Management”  . He is also a Teaching Assistant at Roma Tre University for Environmental Management Systems in the courses of “Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Production” and “Ethical Business Management”. Graduated Cum Laude in Economics, as hobby he loves to do Surf!  You can find more about him here on his Linkedin Profile.

CHRISTIAN  for us decided to blog about Employer Branding and Corporate Social Responsability!! here down in a post named...

THE SINERGIES BETWEEN EMPLOYER BRANDING and CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSABILITY: 

" Corporate social responsibility has long been – and partly still is – considered a scarcely important topic for an enterprise’s success. Rather, hardcore, neoclassical-inspired economists such as Friedman (whose ideas on this subject are well known) have harshly criticized those who maintained that the role of corporations within society cannot be limited to profit maximization.

The recent financial crisis and more generally a series of scandals that have hit and sometimes disrupted big companies such as BP, Enron, Mattel, Nike and many more, have however shown that, in the long term, the lack of interest for social issues can lead to considerable image damage, the more so in a world where information is being exchanged in real time between potential customers.

In the perspective of employer branding we obviously consider potential recruits, not customers. Irresponsible or scarcely transparent behavior can hence negatively affect also the pool of job seekers that might be interested in working for a company.

The more widespread consciousness of citizens and therefore of potential recruits thus amplifies the importance of CSR for EB and vice versa.

For those firms that seek to attract qualified human resources, it is fundamental to make their EB strategy a part of a wider CSR and sustainability strategy.

This however is more easily said than done as true integration of CSR at the strategic level is still a widely unresolved problem, even in many big corporations that are quite ahead in the CSR consciousness path. On the other hand, this should not discourage top management as this would lead to an incomplete exploitation of the CSR investments made. 

Where to start from to maximize the synergies between CSR and EB then?

Setting up a management system that is tailored on the enterprise’s characteristics is certainly the first step to be taken. This means that the top management will have to radically rethink the social role of the firm, understanding that it is an open system which interacts with society through a complex network of links and that its prosperity depends on the quality of the relationships it is able to create. It therefore appears dangerously short-sighted to maintain that the corporate world should not worry about its social role.

The integration of CSR in a company’s strategy is hence an important move to attract the “best” job seekers. However it won’t be sufficient to simply emphasize the enterprise’s focus on sustainability. In other words, CSR and EB cannot be limited to PR and advertising.

The reason being that, even though potential recruits are certainly interested in working for companies with a strong social commitment – which can be an indicator for particular attention to people’s needs, it should not be forgotten that it is crucial to move the focus of all EB-oriented sustainability initiatives onto the job seekers and on the role they can play inside the company as change agents, stressing the possibility they are being offered to make a difference in the firm’s social and environmental sustainability.

Only this way the management can hope to attract the most dynamic and ambitious candidates, those that will be able to support sustainable value creation in the long term. "

The CHRISTIAN IPPOLITO'S POST about Employer Branding and Corporate Social Responsability for Davide Scialpi - The Employer Branding Blogger - http://davidescialpi.posterous.com