“Get ready for more reporting regulation” says the international consulting firm KPMG in their most recent Survey of Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting.
Why? Because there is a clear business case to develop a strong corporate social responsibility framework. So compelling that countries around the world are establishing regulations moving corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting from a good business practice to government mandated reporting. Keeping up with these regulations could prove costly if your tracking system is not ready.
A spreadsheet is a logical starting point when tracking volunteer hours for CSR reporting. A little upkeep and a couple formulas bring overall numbers into view. But, there is a cost to manually logging and verifying hours on a static spreadsheet. A cost which will only increase as the public appetite for CSR increases and additional regulations are considered. Factoring in the time spent manually logging hours, verifying attendance and the loss of ability to accomplish other tasks - what is the real cost of maintaining a “free” spreadsheet?
The basic equation:
[Time Spent Documenting Per Employee] x [Number of Employees] x [Number of Events] x [Value of Manger’s Time]
Most of the equation is straight forward but a quick glimpse at valuing the manager’s time includes: $____ annual salary for 124,800 minutes of work (52 weeks x 40 hours per week x 60 minutes per hour).
Here’s a quick reference:
$40,000 a year is $0.32 per minute
$50,000 a year is $0.40 per minute
$60,000 a year is $0.48 per minute
A manager making $75,000 a year with an employee base of 200, spending three minutes per employee, who volunteer just three times a year spends more than $1,000 to maintain a “free” spreadsheet. That assumes a very efficient manager and highly responsive employees to spend just three minutes to send an email, send a follow up, track down a paper ledger, log the hours and report out the results.
If protocol has the manager verify hours before reporting corporate social responsibility metrics, a simple addition of two minutes per employee increases has the cost of the spreadsheet nearing $2,000 annually.
|
Time Spent Per Employee (Minutes) |
Number of Employees |
Frequency of Hours Submitted (Annually) |
Value of Manager’s Time (Minutes) |
Cost |
|
3 |
200 |
3 Times |
$0.60 |
$1,080 |
|
5 |
200 |
3 Times |
$0.60 |
$1,800 |
And this is before the manger is asked to use a static spreadsheet to respond to evolving CSR reporting needs – both for marketing and potential government mandates.
For quite some time, the benefits of CSR have been largely as intangible as the costs. Smart companies are increasingly leveraging CSR for tangible results as public demand grows for corporate citizenship. Viewing CSR as a corporate strategy means defining input costs as clearly as corporate benefits. Costs that can be crippling if left unmanaged.
MobileServe is committed to removing the challenges that come with volunteer hour tracking, verification and reporting. It is possible to lower costs and improve reporting to fully maximize a CSR strategy. Visit www.mobileserve.orgto learn more.
