Corporate Social Responsibility
25
Where to focus energies to
sustain jobs and healthy triple bottom-lines
Human resources executives and managers have a crucial contribution to the socioeconomic status that prevails in a country. Think no further than the Ginicoefficient.
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f we think of CSR and Corporate Citizenship in terms of painting a creche wall or delivering a soccer kit, we ought to think again. While these are great cheer-givers, corporates can do more to ensure that the cheer lingers beyond a Mandela Day campaign. We need to create a lasting social cheer at policy level, and hold hands with like-minded organisations to deliver it at strategic level. No one said these times would be easy, so we can gear ourselves for tough from here on. Today, it can’t be hard to imagine a day when we have all the money but we have to throw it to the streets because there’s nothing to buy with it. It is not too difficult to imagine a day when we will be on permanent self-imposed lockdown because the streets are swarming with desperate, hungry people that will do anything to feed their destitute families. For those who are not real South African it may be easy enough – a flight will do, literally and figuratively. But for those who are real to South Africa and to the world for that matter – born here or not, corporate or private citizens, the window to entertain vulgar wealth for two, when two thousand other humans outside the perimeter wall or estate go without, is closing. For business leadership and HR, it is time to carefully look at the gap between executive pay and the brown/blue-collar wage
and decide what to do about it, while it can still be ‘an executive decision’. At corporate citizenship level, we need to look at how we can make a contribution to a national strategy that will see the country empowering citizens – not by giving hand-outs, but creating jobs that sustain their existence, wellbeing and even happiness. Of course, we want technology. No, we need it. It helps us to be efficient, safe, and creative. But if that is achieved with no concern for humans who are displaced by technology, we might as well pack our bags right now and hitch the flight. Of course, government has to do its part, that’s the job. Yes, it should clean up its act, that’s the commitment. But, as corporates, our job is not to hemorrhage human resources for profit that sustains only a few. If we are in charge of resources, our job is to upgrade or re-skill them using the very technology infrastructure, to re-purpose them for continued economic contribution within our organisations or outside, as productive entreor sociopreneurs. So here comes inspiration… Just think on these words:
“A good economy meets everyone’s basic needs. It means people are healthy and happy with life. It avoids storing up potential sources of long-term trouble, such as extreme inequality. OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE IPM
