By Christopher Van Mossevelde

Post-recession, the practice of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), alternatively known as responsible or sustainable business, will play a huge part in employer branding work in 2010.

Valérie Gauthier, associate dean at HEC Paris MBA programme, introduced in her article, published in the FT about the recruitment of MBA students and the need to re-think how we educate future leaders, that, “In many respects the recent economic crisis has stemmed from a failure of leadership and corporate responsibility”.

If employers wish to grow and maintain a sustainable business and a strong employer brand, they will now need to demonstrate more than ever before their commitment to consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere, not to mention the environment as well. These are the employers who will be best positioned to attract top talent.

Universum asked approximately 2,300 business students, during the first quarter of 2009, what they associated with their choice of ideal employers. Based on the percentage of business students that related “high-level of CSR” to their ideal employer, an image ranking was produced (see below). This shows which employers are perceived to have a high-level of CSR in the UK.

From an employer branding perspective, corporate responsibly to employees will most certainly be in check this year, as will the level of loyalty employers engender amongst their workers. Joanna Higgins, editor of BNET UK, the UK intelligence website for managerial professionals, in her blog post “Do you practice ‘safe’ loyalty?” rightly points out, “Companies that showed little loyalty to their employees during the downturn may face a goodwill deficit within the business, let alone among potential hires.”

The systemic problems of undermining costs and privatising gains, which lead to business mismanagement and market aberrations prior to the economic downturn, has resulted in a lack of public confidence in big enterprises. The consequences of this ‘disloyalty’ are still to be experienced and employers just might consider how to regain public trust in forthcoming CSR strategies – to be continued!

Source: Universum UK Student Survey 2009.