Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a vice president, corporate social responsibility and sustainability and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.

The Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability is responsible for defining and developing various strategies that underlines the company's objective of social responsibility. They conduct research and develop ideas and policies that help build productive relationships with other organizations to achieve the objective of the corporate social responsibility of the company.

In addition to that, they also perform functions like; developing marketing and publicity initiatives for the company, raising awareness of the company's commitment towards achieving its corporate social responsibilities and training junior staff members. In general, he/she is the internal and external brand ambassador of the company when it comes to corporate social responsibilities.

Core Skills Required to be a Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability

Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.

Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.

A vice president, corporate social responsibility and sustainability should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.

Public Speaking:

Public Speaking though closely related to presenting differs in that it is the process of performing a speech before a live audience with the purpose of informing, persuading or entertaining.

A Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability must be equipped with good public speaking skills to be able to address an audience through presentations or talks to drive the point home and create a reputable record.

Knowledge of Company Processes:

Knowledge of Company Processes is the in-depth understanding of a collection of related, structured activities that serve a particular goal for a group of customers or clients who are valuable to the enterprise.

A Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability ought to maintain consistency across the daily processed while keeping a keen eye on the overall plan of the organization by ensuring the company processes are performed and followed.

Decision Making:

Decision Making is the art of making choices by identifying a decision, gathering information and assessing alternative resolutions before settling on one.

A Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability cannot afford to make poor decisions, that's why he ought to develop a systematic approach to decision making that allows him to make every decision with skill, confidence, and wisdom producing a final choice of competence in the workplace.

Strategic Planning:

Strategic Planning is organizational management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations while guaranteeing that employees and other stakeholders are working towards common goals.

A Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability should be liable to develop the systematic tools to be used in the organization's processes that coordinate and align resources and actions with the mission, vision, and strategy throughout the organization.

Emotion Management:

Emotion Management is the ability to realize, readily accept and successfully control feelings on oneself and sometimes in others around you by being in complete authority over your thoughts and feelings that are generated whenever your values are touched.

A Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability must be able to manage his emotions as well as assist the staff to control their emotions to ensure that the professional reputation, the efficiency, and productivity is not compromised.

Emotional Intelligence:

Emotional Intelligence is the capability to identify your emotions, understand what they are telling me and realize how the feelings are affecting you and the people around you.

A Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability should be wise to handle different personalities that carry different emotions presented in the workplace while ensuring relationships are managed more efficiently by respecting your perception and the employee's as well.

Practical Thinking:

Practical Thinking is the skill to think creatively about projects or work that requires your full attention to be completed and to bring great results.

A Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability must ensure the decisions he makes are well sought after using professional characteristics for employees with high-level responsibilities to feel included and to allow growth for everyone in a constantly changing world that requires creativity.

Managing Details:

Managing Details is the skill of paying close attention to details of every element of your job performance to ensure nothing is overlooked.

A Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability should be keen to handle every detail using strategic planning and organizational techniques that make it easy to keep track of everything that is happening in the organization consistently desiring to improve their knowledge and skills.

Project Management:

Project Management is structuring a to-do list for your project or company containing tasks and responsibilities as well as creating a roadmap for the execution of those duties promptly.

A Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability must place emphasis on the application of the project management methodologies and principles by the staff in the daily functions and responsibilities to foster efficiently as well as create a competitive advantage in the heavily competitive business space.

Scheduling:

Scheduling is creating daily workflow charts that the employees are supposed to follow when working and submitting their projects.

A Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability must be dedicated to establishing and maintaining the schedule using either manual or technology methods to ensure it is always updated according to the tasks, the employees responsible or the time allocated to each task without fail or delay.

Hard Skills Required to be a Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability

Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.

Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.

A vice president, corporate social responsibility and sustainability should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.

Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability: Hard skills list

Accounting
Administration and Management
Building and Construction
Business Development
Business Strategy
Commercial Understanding
Communications
Customer and Personal Service
Design
English Language
Environmental
Environmental Law
Environmental Management
Finance
Financial Operations and Budgeting
Green Business Administration
Health and Safety
Investor Relations
Law
Legal Affairs
LEAN
Marketing
Microsoft Outlook or Email software
Microsoft Access (Data base user interface and query software)
Microsoft Excel (Spreadsheet software)
Microsoft Great Plains software (Enterprise resource planning ERP software)
Microsoft Office software (Office suite software)
Organizational Management
Operations Management
Organizational or Administrative Management
Policy Engagement
Presentations
Public Relations
Public Speaking
Research
Strategic
Strategic Planning
Public administration
Six-Sigma
Social Sciences
Writing

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