A career in corporate responsibility need no longer mean playing the poor relation to your executive peers

If pay scales are anything to go by, corporate responsibility is gradually inching its way up the decision-making ladder.

The average salary for CR managers in the UK now stands at £56,360, according to a new joint report by Acre, Acona, Ethical Performance and Flag. That’s up from £49,600 three years ago. For the US it’s even higher, with the median salary hitting the equivalent of £69,000.

The proportion of CR managers in the top pay brackets is increasing too. About a quarter (24%) of the 847 practitioners who comprise the report’s research base collect £80,000 a year. In 2010, the ratio was closer to one-sixth (17%).

The old adage about more pay meaning more responsibility appears to be holding true for the CR profession. Across the sample, CR practitioners identify developing and implementing strategy as their top task. Admittedly, that’s CR strategy, not business strategy, although the lines between the two are beginning to merge.

Board-level management is increasingly recognising CR as “one of the key lenses” through which to analyse and execute corporate strategy, argues Marie Sigsworth, group CR director at insurance firm Aviva.

“This means that CR managers are influencing the way businesses operate, working closely with corporate strategy teams and feeding into the corporate planning process,” she says.

Some high-profile entries into the CR field over recent years give credence to these claims. Take Gail Klintworth, Unilever’s new chief sustainability officer. Her CV includes a stint as chairman of Unilever in South Africa.

Steve Howard at Ikea, Niall Dunn at BT and Anthony Henshaw at Vedanta Resources represent similar-calibre appointees into top CR jobs.

Make the big bucks

CR practitioners with an eye on their own careers will notice in this report the close relationship between remuneration and risk. CR professionals in the extractive sector and other high-risk, heavy industries have salaries that average more than £90,000.

Charlotte Wolff, general manager for corporate responsibility at steel giant ArcelorMittal, argues that the size of salary in these sectors reflects the level of specialisation required –overseeing health and safety, for example, or remediating old mines.

“Employers look for seasoned professionals with a strong track record of relevant exposure and a good knowledge of how to implement international standards under challenging circumstances,” she says.

Go-getting CR professionals will no doubt spot the link between company size and pay packets, too. Those in the highest salary brackets all work for companies with more than 1,000 employees.

Andrew Cartland, founder of recruitment specialist Acre and co-author of the report, puts it bluntly: “If you want to receive the highest salary, you want to join as large a corporate as possible.”

CR practitioners wanting to hit the big bucks should think about further education as well. More than half (55%) of respondents have masters-equivalent degrees, of which three-fifths are in sustainability-related disciplines.

Get some time in a corporation under your belt too. On average, CR professionals have 14 years’ work experience, with more than half of this time (9.5 years) spent in a CR function. 

One thing that’s difficult to change is your gender. At the top level, men (55%) are still more likely to be CR directors than women (45%). Some things change only slowly.



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