Firms forge ahead with Business in the Community
RECESSION, like any adversity within society, forces people to take new positions and challenge the way things have been done in the past.
Sometimes the effect, in spite of the hardship, is a net benefit for a society and two recent events have handsomely reflected the aspirations of corporate social responsibility (CSR).
The first was the death of entrepreneur and philanthropist Sir Allen McClay, who made no secret of his commitment, not only to developing business in the Province, but supporting the family at his company Almac. The expression of sadness at his death and admiration for his principled outlook are testimony to his stance.
Similarly, the threat to Cadbury posed by the proposed takeover of the firm by US-owned Kraft has thrown into relief the charitable stance taken more than 100 years ago by Joseph Rowntree who built the Bournville factory as an exercise in CSR, providing his workforce with good housing and a healthy environment in return for their labour.
Which could be why, as it begins to celebrate its 21st year in operation, Business in the Community Northern Ireland (BITC) has seen a rise in membership and a growing commitment from companies keen to contribute something to their workforce and the wider community from where they draw their custom.
The format is straightforward if diverse, embracing four main sectors, environment, the economy, social impact and workplace; each offering an opportunity for firms to help develop the community and their staff.
Helen Bowman is Communications Manager in the Belfast office and has spent her first year in the job watching the recession unfold with somewhat unlikely results.
“We have lost a number of companies from membership, but those that we have lost, we have replaced and more,” she says.
“We have recruited 22 new companies last year and we lost just nine.
“People are really going back to the drawing board in terms of their values. The recession hasn’t been good for anybody but, in a way, it has helped people to stop think and regroup. They are looking at where their funds are going, how they operate and how they can do things better and whenever people start to think that way then CSR is like an easy fit that goes in there.
“That’s exactly what it’s helping them to do; to look at all aspects of their working world and how they can do those things better and more responsibly.
They’re finding out what their values are and they are sticking to them and it’s a really good thing to see.”
Business in the Community is a national organisation with regional bases throughout the UK.
Within that framework Northern Ireland retains the autonomy to ‘do its own thing’ but also has the benefit of being able to tap into the UK resources.
The flow is far from being all one way however after a recent visit to Belfast the national Chairman Sir Stuart Rose is eager to see an educational initiative begun by PwC adopted across the UK.
Northern Ireland also enjoys an unusually high membership compared to the rest of the country.
“At the minute there are over 800 members of Business in the Community and 230 of those are actually here in Northern Ireland so we have quite a high ratio of members in the Province,” says Bowman.
The membership within Northern Ireland is, she says, fairly evenly spread across traditional sectors such as manufacturing and construction and newer fields such IT.
“The construction sector obviously is under a huge amount of pressure, but it is still with us. They still see value in the things that we’re doing because, ultimately, we are trying to help them too.
“Even if they’re struggling, we’re trying to look for ways to help them which in turn helps the community so there is that circle and it’s really heartwarming to see that people are not giving up on their core values.”
In terms of its operation, the organisation offers three levels of membership and operates across four main areas.
“People who come in at [the top] platinum level basically want us to develop a whole CSR strategy for them that then feeds into their whole business strategy.
“For others who come in on a standard level, they want to get involved straight away with some of the programmes that we are doing and they can then start to build that into their own operations.
“We have four jigsaw pieces that fit together and that works across the environment, the economy, social impact and workplace.
“Basically, what happens when somebody decides to come into membership is they have a dedicated relationship manager who will work through an action plan with them and talk about all the things that we do. Then we’ll work with them to see the things that they want to get involved in and plan ahead for the next six months.
“That manager will follow up with them with information as it comes through of a new event or a programme that might be interested in. It’s like a business; you’re account managing with them and dealing with their concerns and queries.”
One of the best known elements of the environmental strategy is the annual benchmarking of the top 200 companies in Northern Ireland in terms of not only their environmental systems but how they are employing that through their organisation.
“Businesses are interested in doing this because the environment is a buzzword and climate change has become a huge issue for people and what the benchmarking does is identifies how well companies are actually doing.”
Elsewhere, a Sustainable Communities programme is designed to allow community or voluntary groups who don’t have the ability or the means to access some of this environmental information to get access.
Within the economy category there’s a business mentoring scheme that allows firms with less than 50 employees avail of a mentor from larger or more experienced companies.
On the ground within the social impact category, the Pro-Help Project enables community and voluntary groups to seek assistance.
“Usually it’s a 20 hour commitment from a company so it could be the likes of a voluntary group wanting to set up a new website to promote who they are and what they do.
“We will try and help to match them with a web designer who is willing to give that time and so the commitment through Pro Help helps them to do something that they didn’t otherwise have the funding to do.”
Another example of hands on work is simply the experience of employees devoting time with the endorsement of the firm to do a range of individual and team activities.
Time To Read sees people visiting schools to read to young children, while a new initiative ths year Be A Saint will involve teams from within firms commited to a community project to be completed in a day.
“The benefit is very obvious for the community but, for the business, they find that they see huge benefits as well in terms of personal development. As a result some firms are building in volunteering as part of their core personal development.
“CSR covers all of that. If people are able to implement a good CSR policy then it should have what we call the triple bottom line people, planet and profit and we are finding that companies are experiencing that which is great.”
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Monday 13 February 2012
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