What are the skills or competencies required for a CSR role today?

This is often quite a difficult task to define the skills or competences required to become a CSR professional due to the diverse roles and range of disciplines involved, and the relative nascent stage of the CSR field itself, which is continuously evolving.

I have written about this topic some time ago already, but I found the diagram below very interesting as it shows the three core groups of knowledge areas that CSR pros need to nurture and expand today.

• Stakeholder Dialogue and Comns: Stakeholder engagement is the bedrock of CSR/Sustainability. Especially today as social media and digital platforms are pushing organizations to consider two-way dialogue and active relationships with their stakeholders (i.e. collaboration, co-creation) From internal comns and reporting to community engagement or consumer engagement…listening, conversation and influence skills are key! In the diagram below, they represent up to 47% of all knowledge/skills areas.

• Strategy and Business Management: ‘We can only manage what we can measure’ as the saying goes. I would also add that ‘we can only manage what we understand first’! CSR and Sustainability are first and foremost about business and strategy. It is about understanding/setting business goals and strategies, balancing risks and opportunities, measuring performance and progress, etc. It is also mostly about critical thinking and finding solutions to any types of issues any organization might face within the larger context of the ’stakeholder society’.
  

• CSR Trends and Core Issues: As I said earlier, CSR/Sustainability is an ever-changing field – in a perpetual state of beta. Keeping up with the core CSR and Sustainability issues (i.e. energy/climate, water, compliance/governance, labor relations/diversity, etc.), both in your market and globally is crucial. Staying up to date with regards to best practices, new standards and regulations, latest developments and trends is a must, not only for consultant jobs, but also for in-house positions.

This definitely reflects what I have seen lately in terms of jobs offers and requirements.