The good effect affects corporate reputation

25 June 2013

The good effect affects corporate reputation

Reputation has never been more important in business, and today in Auckland, our largest companies are meeting to discuss ways in which reputations can be protected and bolstered by 'good works' in the modern marketplace.

The country's first inaugural Corporate Citizenship conference, organised by the Social Good Foundation, will see corporates learn how to more effectively bring about 'The Good Effect' - the point at which business sees tangible returns for an investment in areas such as employee wellbeing, workplace giving and social responsibility.

'Doing Strategic Good' is the name of the conference, with 'doing good is good for business' as the tagline. And it's no empty phrase, according to David Living, trustee of the Social Good Foundation and one of the conference's prime movers.

"Where once upon a time employee loyalty or brand allegiance alone may have secured a business' future, these days not only customers but employees and in fact anyone invested in a business in any way has a much higher expectation about the way that business behaves," he says.

"With easy access to the information about what a business is or isn't doing, people are able to swiftly change allegiances much more quickly if they do not like or approve of what they see - and in some ways New Zealand companies are still coming up to speed with the implications of that."

The Doing Strategic Good conference will examine four specific programme areas that need attention within a business - organisational health, employee wellbeing, workplace giving and corporate social responsibility.

"These areas must all have secure budgets allocated to them, and senior managers must be invested in the outcomes of these budgets, for these areas to be consistently working as well as they should and reaping benefits for the business," says David.

Conference-goers will have plenty of opportunity to see best practise in action, as the country's top corporate reputation holders will also be revealed at the event.

AMR Research in partnership with the Reputation Institute has announced the reputation rankings of New Zealand’s top 25 companies in seven different reputation dimensions - Products, Innovation, Workplace, Citizenship, Governance, Leadership and Performance.

The overall ranking winner in 2013 is Toyota New Zealand.

Overseas speakers will discuss the nuts and bolts of best practice in Reputation Management, Leadership & Culture, Employee Wellbeing, Workplace Giving and Corporate Volunteering, while local companies will outline their community partnership strategies and how they are Doing Strategic Good through their CSR and Corporate Citizenship programmes.

The Telecom Foundation and Goodman Fielder Cares are two such partnerships.

David Living says the event is an important one for New Zealand. "We can't afford to be complacent about this area of business any more - and things have moved on substantially from the days when Corporate Social Responsibility was just a buzz-word."

"People are now looking for tangible actions that prove a company is a good corporate citizen - but for that investment, corporates are finding there are plenty of benefits for them as well."

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