AMD's 2010 Annual Corporate Responsibility Report -The Process And Aftermath
AMD’s 16th annual Corporate Responsibility Report has now been published. While this is a significant milestone for AMD, for me personally it was a plunge into the corporate responsibility (CR) world after many years of working in environmental management.
The environmental field is largely controlled by regulations, and a significant part of my career was focused on compliance with these regulations. This work is very disciplined and based on well understood mandates, standards and management systems. While there are a few regulations focused on CR – certain countries have different levels of mandatory CR reporting requirements for labor, social and environmental issues – CR is currently largely voluntary and driven by the companies themselves.
AMD is a company with a long history of “doing the right thing.” Because of this culture and my history with the company, the transition to my new role in corporate responsibility was a little easier. What was most challenging was gaining fluency across diverse areas of the organization and seeking to bring them together with a common purpose. This role requires education on almost every aspect of the business and called on me to communicate – or translate – our CR message into the particular language of each group.
For example, the goals for the supply management team might be to procure the best quality material, at the lowest cost, from a consistent and reliable supplier who can meet our complex specifications. So, when I propose adding a few more criteria for CR, the first response may be “what does this have to do with me?” That’s when the education process kicks-in: defining CR in terms supply management understands, such as the potential for supply interruption due to conflict minerals concerns or labor issues.
The next response from the supply manager is, “okay, I know what you mean now and I understand why it is important to me, but I do not have a process in place to manage this.” Now to the process development portion of my new job; collaborating with subject matter experts to determine what existing systems may already be in place and could be extended to meet the CR challenge, or if new systems are required. Lastly, the conversation may go this way: “okay, I know what you mean, I can see how to do this, but it will require X number of full time people to implement, plus the supplier will incur an additional cost that will be passed on to AMD.”
At this point it might feel really good to say “too bad, just do it.” While corporate responsibility has support from the highest management level at AMD, such a response is not appropriate and counter to our corporate culture. To be effective, CR must be a shared value and implementation should be managed by the appropriate business units throughout our company. Unlike environmental regulations that come with a mandate, we must come together to articulate the business value and design the most efficient process for our company. As I have quickly learned, sometimes this may come down to a simple realization that the goals are “in-line with our company values,” which can be loosely translated into the often overused phrase “it is the right thing to do.”
Here are my top takeaways from this year’s CR reporting experience.
1. While the CR practitioner may have executive support, they typically have little direct control or authority in the areas they must represent. Nonetheless, the job is to lead through influence. This makes the tactical work of implementing needed processes more difficult, but ultimately more effective.
2. Corporate responsibility spans every area of AMD’s operations – from research and development (energy efficiency focus), government relations (ethics and fair and open competition), HR (diversity, labor issues, employee relations), training (CR training and recruiting), supply management (conflict minerals, electronics industry code of conduct) and the list goes on. To be effective in this role, a CR practitioner needs to be curious, flexible and able to learn and adapt quickly!
3. Many of the results are intangible. Environmental management is far more objective and can be measured in terms of compliance or emissions. Because corporate responsibility is so broad, it can be harder to measure.
4. Success in CR takes passion and a culture of communication and collaboration. While some companies may invest lots of money in CR and achieve noticeable recognition, to truly reap the benefits of CR, key business units must be committed and employees must be engaged.
So what’s next? Now that the report is published, I will turn my attention to educating our employees about its content. Do they know that their colleague Randall Pinney helps build schools and water wells in Afghanistan and Nicaragua? Do they know that the AMD Foundation donated well over a million dollars to preserve open spaces and funds the AMD Changing the Game initiative which teaches important STEM skills to young people? Do they know that AMD provides the opportunity for assistance related to eldercare, childcare, and other work/life balance issues to each and every employee? And lastly but certainly not least important, how does every AMD employee’s day-to-day work feed AMD’s culture of CR, and how can they extend that into their lives outside the office? I can tell every AMD employee worldwide with confidence from my own experience that living our CR values can enrich their lives, at work, at home, and wherever their adventures take them.
Heather O’Cleirigh is the Corporate Responsibility Manager at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies, or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.
http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/2010_CRR.pdf
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