Importance Of Community And Social Responsibility In The Construction Industry

To succeed against the competition, the UK construction industry must deliver quality products and services at acceptable costs as a matter of course. But increasingly its stakeholders all those it does business with or who are affected by its operations expect more from the industry in terms of how it operates and its overall impact on society.

To help meet these expectations the construction industry needs to address issues of community and social responsibility to build trust in its clients, build and retain the best possible workforce and build business success overall.

What a business produces, how it affects the environment, how it recruits, trains and develops its workforce, how it invests in the community and respects the rights of

To succeed, companies need to attract the best people to work for them. Respect for people, their diversity and their need to achieve a good worklife balance is an important aspect of socially responsible business practice. Firms that fail to improve their attitude and performance towards respecting people will fail to recruit and retain the best talent and business partners.

The construction industry has a generally poor record on employment issues and under-performs on diversity issues. Large sections of the population particularly women and ethnic minorities are under-represented. The industry needs to demonstrate that it values all their workforce, their health and safety, their working environment, training and personal development and diversity, and that it maintains an active commitment to an equal opportunities policy. For this reason, the industrys own Movement for Innovation recommended that firms of all kinds and sizes should commit to achieving the standard of Investors in People as the most effective and most systematic means of developing and demonstrating respect for

A successful company needs to operate with honesty and openness to create trust in its relationships with all its stakeholders.

Although there is no legislative requirement to report on social responsibility, companies that do so tend to be better perceived by their stakeholders. Reporting and communicating their impact on society can help to demonstrate openness and transparency about their operations, a willingness to be accountable for their actions and their seriousness of intent with regard to community and social responsibility, thus developing confidence in their business.

Reporting is, however, not an end in itself. The public will see through cynical reporting and attempts to be politically correct for its own sake. Companies need to demonstrate their commitment is real and produces real results.

Getting started

The principles of community and social responsibility need to be embedded into the overall business conduct of a company and become part of its core values and objectives. A badly targeted approach will be ineffective and companies need to identify the actions that will have most impact for them, manage them in a professional way and communicate to their stakeholders what they are doing. Without effective communication, no-one will be aware of their work. Without awareness, there will be no benefits to business standing or