We were lucky enough to be able to contribute to Craft Brewing Business a second time. For this piece, we discussed how breweries can use five steps for starting or reorganizing its corporate social responsibility.

You can read the article here: http://www.craftbrewingbusiness.com/business-marketing/brewery-corporate-social-responsibility/

Although it comes from a brewery perspective, the same principles can be used for all businesses. Here is an outline of our five step model:

In our first installment of this series, we looked at four of the top 250 Private Businesses in Colorado and their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. This time, we thought it would be interesting to find the "worst companies to work for" and see what CSR practices they conduct, if any.

We found an article by 24/7 Wall St and Time from June 25, 2014, titled "America's Worst Companies to Work For." 24/7 analyzed ratings by employees from the site Glassdoor.com and looked at the lowest eleven public companies. The companies in the lowest were rated for a variety of reasons that we will explore below.

We are going to look at the four lowest rated companies. In particular, we will pay close attention to employee engagement practices like volunteering or matching employee donations as these have several benefits like improving company morale and increasing retention rates. 

Hypothesis: 

• If a company has a poor Glassdoor.com rating, then they most likely do not have any employee engagement activities, as we believe a company missing these activities is not listening to employees' needs today. 

We do recognize there are other aspects of employee engagement besides those that incorporate CSR activities but for our purposes, we will focus on CSR related activities.

4. Jos A. Bank Clothiers
Glassdoor.com Rating: 2.3 (317 reviews)
Common employee complaints: long hours, complicated commission system, constant price changes in products. 
Online evidence: The company does not list any community connection pieces on their website, but we were able to find a few charitable contributions through some digging:

• Since 1995, they have raised money for Hopkin's Children's Center working with pediatric patients to create unique ties that they then sell and are under the "Miracle Collection." They currently only have one style of Miracle Tie available for sale online.
• Free suits to veterans in 2013 (partnering with the Gary Sinise Foundation)
• An article from Carroll Magazine in 2011 states several initiatives Jos A. Bank does in the community, including giving a turkey to every employee. The employee can choose to donate to Hampstead Food Bank.

On their employee benefits site, they do not mention the program of giving employees turkeys or anything in regards to volunteering or connecting with the community. We reached out to Jos A. Bank and have not received a reply.

Recommendation to Improve Employee Engagement:  With the community involvement Jos A Bank does, better promotion of these activities and services so they are more visible is important for employees and customers.

The definition of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the activities it encompasses varies from company to company. For some companies, is the "do good" activities with the belief that the costs associated with these activities are too great and that resources would be better utilized on core operations.

In reality, these activities are more than "doing good." They are unique ways to market your brand and improve operations. CSR can help a business succeed. These activities influence all business interactions with the environment and its stakeholders -> its community. 

From this, let's define CSR as the impacts a business has on its community. Thus, every business performs CSR functions in some capacity. The overall goal is to have the business succeed and use CSR to minimize negative impacts on the community and increase the positive.