ISO 26000: A Vital Vector in Interconnecting the Human Resource Management Standards

Abstract

Social responsibility of organizations is a business philosophy that emphasizes the need for organizations to look beyond their ultimate goal (customer satisfaction in order to maximize the profit that will be distributed to equity holders), and to pay attention to other stakeholder categories in order to minimize the negative impact which these corporations could have on the environment or society in general. Social responsibility is a broad field that includes many subjects that address issues and interests of different stakeholders, but the relationship with employees must be considered a prerequisite for implementing a social responsibility program. If an organization does not treat employees with the utmost responsibility, it is unlikely that they will want to get involved in responsible actions of the organization that target the interests of other stakeholders. Starting from the importance of the employees in the elaboration and especially in the implementation of the organization’s social responsibility strategy, within this chapter we aim to analyze how to implement a socially responsible human resource management, using as a case study the standards ISO in these areas. On the basis of this research, we will build an integrated model of human resource management using ISO human resource standards and using ISO 26000:2010 as an integrator vector, since one of its core subjects is human resources and employee representation as a key stakeholder in implementing strategies in the area of social responsibility and human resources.