Behind the Scenes: Our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Committee

At JeffreyM Consulting, we are constantly evaluating and strategizing on how we can be better, and do better – with our Clients and employees, within our communities, and with our environmental impact. While these initiatives have always been at our core and a topic HR brings to the table within every staff meeting, in 2019 we put together our official Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Committee. The formation of this committee reflects our commitment to learning about the impact we make to our environment and within our society, our commitment to finding solutions and ways to improve upon that impact, and our commitment to share this information publicly. We understand even the simplest effort can impact social change, and our CSR Committee helps us recognize and act upon these opportunities. As Committee Chair, ensuring we provide transparency into these efforts and declaring our commitment to continued and measured progress – with the overall goal of simply making a difference – is a priority, and we invite you to join us on this journey and take a look behind the scenes. 

Our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) committee was created to set guidance and direction and oversee policies and progress on JeffreyM Consulting’s social, ethical, environmental and community issues, as well as company culture.  

With the creation of our CSR Committee, we immediately saw the impact even a company like ours can have, who operate with a small staff in leased office space within Seattle (though currently 100% remote), and provide services only to our Clients. Simply creating the CSR Committee led to awareness, meaningful discussions and improvements that we were able to implement immediately. We were able to collaborate and publish our CSR Report publicly on our website, showcasing the accomplishments of the past year. Following that, 2020 has brought about significant shifts in our world, bringing new ideas, priorities and issues to the forefront. In reaction to this, we have restructured our CSR Committee to consist of four focused sub-committees: Diversity & Inclusion, Climate Change: Environment & Sustainable Procurement, Labor Practices & Fair Business Practices and Community: Volunteerism & Philanthropy. These committees meet quarterly to review initiatives, track progress and proposed improvements, and prepare materials to be presented at bi-annual CSR Committee meetings.  

Our CSR Committee is responsible for monitoring and updating our public CSR report accordingly to be published on our website, allowing transparency into our efforts for our employees, Clients, partners and community. Allowing transparency into our goals of reducing our carbon footprint within the buildings/home we occupy, and ensuring Clients and Suppliers we partner and work with are similarly aligned in the environmental beliefs and efforts of ours. Allowing transparency into our commitment to embed CSR responsibilities within our HR department to ensure day-to-day operations and employee engagement are impacted – this includes writing and upholding internal policies that govern our actions, modifying or updating when necessary. Allowing transparency into our commitment to train JeffreyM employees on our CSR efforts and therefore impact their day-to-day decisions and actions with our Clients, and investing in the community through community events and employee volunteer hours. 

We are opening these committees up to employees on a voluntary basis, as involving both staff and employees in our CSR efforts creates a best place to work. Ensuring a good mix of staff members and employees, and others as needed, is going to be a powerful force to drive engagement. We are launching a company-wide survey this month, creating open lines of communication with our employees, as well as providing an outlet for employees to voice their opinions and the causes they care about.    

CSR is here to stay – whether you call it CSR efforts or not, companies participate in some sort of CSR efforts in their daily operations. Recognizing this and putting focused efforts in behind it is only going to benefit the company, the employees and the environment. Therefore, JeffreyM Consulting commits to making our CSR committee a permanent structure. Our deducted CSR Committee has made positive and purposeful impacts, but the opportunity to do more is so great. We look forward to sharing these rewarding opportunities with you, and look forward to hearing from you if you are interested in contributing in any way.  

Please feel free to reach out to me directly at [email protected] with any questions.