Recently, I have had several discussions with students, young graduates and professionals about starting a career in sustainability & CSR, and more especially, about how to become a professional involved in CSR communications and stakeholder engagement activities.
The most frequent question asked is always “what are the skills and competencies required?“, therefore I have put together a list of what I believe are the core attributes each CSR/Sustainability communications professional needs in today’s marketplace, whether in consultancy/agency position or in-house, as CSR manager, Stakeholder/Community Relationships manager, etc.:
People skills are vital – Relationship skills are vital in order to communicate more effectively with other people, i.e. colleagues, clients or peers. It starts with the ability to listen to people and understand their needs and priorities. And then, it goes with being able to ‘educate‘ people about CSR/Sustainability in their own terms.
Communications skills, you’d better have some! – Well.. you might of course think ” this is a communicator’s job”. Here I mean ’small c’ communications here rather than the ‘big C’ (i.e. writing skills, etc.). Being a strong communicator also means being able to translate complex scientific jargon (i.e. climate change-related) into accessible and engaging communications that employees, consumers and others will understand, embrace and take action upon.
Integrated view of CSR/Sustainability – A proper understanding of an organization’s stakeholders is all but optional. It is important to bring a thorough understanding of stakeholders’ expectations, attitudes and behaviors around social and environmental issues in a true holistic approach.
Digital, social media, digital! - The burgeoning online world is injecting dynamic ways into effectively communicating with and engaging stakeholders in two-ways conversations, at a time of increased & immediate transparency. The ability to understand the online interactions at play, their impact on organizations’ ecosystems is extremely valuable. Learning by doing and by becoming part of the conversations themselves is a the best way to get there , whether by blogging, micro-blogging, social networking, etc.
Business-savvy people wanted – By this I mean competencies in strategic management: successful communications & engagement campaigns are integrated into core business development, and drive your organization’s performance. Social and environmental issues are increasingly seen as new business opportunities, rather than risks to be mitigated: translating this knowledge into practical business plans is critical. This leads to my next point…
Critical thinking – a must. On almost a daily basis, CSR professionals (whether in house or not) are presented with challenges and issues that need to get resolved or fixed. It can be a reputation issue, worse a crisis with different stakeholders, etc…, or just a budget constraint (and this may happen very often). The ability to dissect a problem, carefully think about potential solutions or opportunities, consider other points of view, think about consequences and then arrive at a decision or a proposed solution that makes sense in both sustainability and business terms, is a MUST.
Leaders needed! – Making things happen is not easy, and it does require a great deal of leadership skills. You need to be both an entrepreneur and an intrapreneur (being entrepreneurial from within the system), to scale your solutions and generate new ways of working with others.
Creativity and innovation – Developing stimulating ideas, concepts, offering fresh approaches to CSR/Sustainability, developing smart campaigns is essential as 1) it is hard to cut through the cutter as almost everybody is getting on the sustainability bandwagon, 2) eco-fatigue and greenwashing-induced skepticism are quite common across most of your audiences.
Ethical values, to draw the line – Everyone has their own lines & limits when it comes to ethics. Know where yours are and how you feel about issues like greenwashing, window-dressing and other common ethical issues in CSR & Sustainability. Once you get your foot there, it can get slippery… very very quickly.
We always say sustainability is a journey – this is also the case for Sustainability/CSR communicators themselves. It takes time to learn and build skills, especially as the field is a very new discipline that is evolving very quickly. I am still learning, and hope it will always be the case. You might be stronger in some of these areas than others. So, stop a minute and figure out which areas are your weakest, and work on them.
I am sure I missed few skills here – CSR & Sustainability practitioners (communicators or not), what would you add?
Great post Perrine,
You definitely covered a lot of the core competencies that it takes to be a CSR communications professional, as it requires a multitude of skills and abilities.
One definite asset that I would mention is project management skills and knowledge. While you don’t need to be a project management professional, some basic knowledge will help with stakeholder mapping, engagement, and support building. It will also provide you with some tools to stay disciplined and achieve your goals.
Besides that, maybe some culture change management, group facilitation, and interviewing and surveying skills and knowledge.
While we cover some slightly different ground, you might be interested in checking out Provictus Consulting’s free upcoming webinar, “The Eight Behaviours of a Socially Responsible Leader” (www.provictus.ca)
Regards,
Tom Snell
Thank you Tom!
You add great insights, I will include them in the post as “updates”.
Research and interviewing skills are extremely important, as stakeholder insights should help a company define and deploy its own CSR strategy.
Thanks again,
Perrine