The Social Enterprise is hot! Two decades ago, as a company you were ‘kicking corporate social responsibility’ if you printed on both sides of the paper. Nowadays, an organization needs to share her vision on sustainability and justify her impact on society.
A Social Enterprise combines revenue growth and profit-making with the need to respect and support its enviroment and stakeholders. Acting both inside and outside the company like a good citizen. This includes stimulating diversity, collaboration and (income)equality. Jobs are designed in a way that organizational goals fuel personal development as much as possible. Technology and data are shared in an ethical and transparant manner.
In addition to the moral aspect, social entrepreneurship proves more and more to be crucial when it comes to recruiting the right people mensen. Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends report shows that over 67% of the respondents struggles with filling vacancies. The same report states that employees either choose or leave a job depending on the room for development they get. Generation X’ers and Millennials don’t even consider getting out of bed for a job that has no ‘meaning’. They are not looking to (individually) outperformance, but want to make an impact as an employee. And, naturally the job is only considered if the company itself is clear about her contribution to society. ‘Meaning’ appears to be magic word if you don’t want to entirely lose the War on Talent.
Last Thursday I saw the statistics from the Deloitte report come to life. As a proud ‘sugar mommy’ to Laura Derksen I witnessed the birth of a new generation marketers. The very first graduates from the Marketing of Social Business bachelor program, graduated in the heart of Rotterdam. All of them eager to turn every company into a Social Enterprise. To all employers the fair job of offering them a meaningful position!