ESG initiatives have faced recent scrutiny, sparking debates over their true impact versus serving investor interests. This isn’t new for the industry, as measuring impact remains complex and hard to standardize, particularly in social aspects. Critics argue for skipping social impact measurement due to its difficulty in comparability and the burden it places on businesses. Current methods often focus on company intent rather than engaging with the beneficiaries directly. Speaking with beneficiaries is deemed costly and leads to data silos that can’t be compared across companies.
Understanding impact as a gradual process is crucial; it’s not a quick fix but rather a journey. Just as people don’t escape poverty in a short time, impact measurement takes years, evolving with changes in people, products, and the world. The author suggests a more nuanced approach, drawing on their experience using financial diary methods to study vulnerable populations worldwide and gain insights into their financial behaviors.
When face-to-face interviews became challenging due to COVID, we turned to technology-driven approaches in our research, such as Natural Language Processing (NLP). We’ve discovered that these methods excel at monitoring social results because they can capture subtle responses more efficiently and affordably.
We collaborate with companies worldwide, monitoring their impact on vulnerable populations. Each of these companies engages in vastly different activities and generates diverse social outcomes.
However, we found that companies often had unintended impacts that exceeded their initial expectations. A prime example is our collaboration with an Indian food manufacturer that implements a model aimed at altering social norms by employing women from conservative backgrounds. Not only do they hire, train, and compensate these women, but they also actively strive to shift the gender perceptions of these individuals. Consequently, these women convey their empowered perspectives to their families and communities upon returning home.
Through open-ended inquiries with employees, we uncovered that the company’s influence on its workforce extended significantly across various metrics. Yet, the most notable finding was the correlation between tenure at the company and the degree of gender empowerment experienced by employees. Those who had been exposed to this empowerment for longer periods were more adept at advocating for themselves, particularly in the challenging task of requesting assistance with household chores from their families.
This revelation has prompted the company to intensify its efforts by organizing workshops where women can share their experiences and strategies for engaging their family members in alleviating their dual workload at home and outside.
By scrutinizing unstructured feedback from those affected, we can unveil outcomes that would have otherwise been overlooked in a conventional survey approach. By delving into the subtleties of responses, companies can enhance their social impact by ensuring that their initiatives yield the intended results.
Tran Dung/ATES GLOBAL
Source: Fortune
