The View from the Boardroom - UNDP Trinidad and Tobago

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 4Managing Human Capital through CSR – The Business Case for Corporate VolunteeringManaging Human Capital throughCSR – The Business Case forCorporate VolunteeringCHAPTER 4The field of corporate volunteering and employee engagement has gainedincreasing popularity among CSR managers and sustainability advocates inrecent years. Many corporations in larger markets are placing more and moreemphasis on the mobilization of their employees for social outreach activitiesand environmental conservation programmes and some multinational companieslike IBM or pharmaceutical giant Novartis have even gone as far as undertakingproject-type development work on a global scale sending their staff into remotecorners of the world to utilise their skills outside the domestic corporateframework. 32 CEOs in leading manufacturing hubs and large consumer marketshave increasingly begun to see employees as their companies’ personified socialconscience and it is through corporate volunteers that the business communitycontinues to explore new and more pro-active forms of corporate social outreachdifferent from conventional forms of private sector contributions to society suchas charitable giving.The idea of corporate citizenship haswidened its appeal in many parts ofthe global marketplace and manycompany leaders have begun to realisethat the mobilization of staff forvolunteer projects could sustainablyaddress social needs while paying acommercial dividend in the mediumtolong-term. In the words of CSRscholar Kenn Allen: “Businesses getcredit for what they are contributingto the community and for theopportunities for fulfilment andpersonal development they areoffering their workers while there isalso acceptance that businesses canfairly expect a ‘return on investment’from this commitment. 33In this win-win situation, the benefits ofcorporate volunteerism to communitylife are considerable and it has longbeen recognised that employeevolunteers have the potential to makea significant contribution towardssocial development on communitylevel and therefore to the achievementof national development objectives.The principles and guidelinesenshrined in the 2002 World Summiton Sustainable Development andin the Millennium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs) campaign have beenproviding universal frameworksfor corporate responsibility and, inparticular, the activities of corporatevolunteers. Little disagreement existswith respect to the business benefitsof corporate volunteering. The mosttangible gains are usually being madewithin the company thus formingpart of what is commonly referred toas ‘Internal CSR’. Benefits range fromincreased level of individual motivationof staff to higher rates of retention, agreater degree of innovative practices,strengthened corporate reputationand improved customer relations.In the words of A. Norman Sabga,Chairman and CEO of the AnsaMcAl Group of Companies: “If one ofour organisations, for instance Abeladopted an orphanage in Chaguanas,32 See ‘Big-Hearted Blue’, The Economist, 28th October 2010.33 Kenn Allen, ‘The social case for corporate volunteering’, Australian Journal on Volunteering, Vol.8, No.1, 2003, p.58.57