Doing good and doing good free of charge and driven only by free ill becomes increasingly ‘fashionable’ in the corridors of corporate Trinidad and Tobago. Throughout 2009, issues of corporate ethics and companies’ social and environmental commitment have risen to greater prominence in Trinidad and Tobago. While the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) held the Caribbean’s first ever Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Conference in October 2009, the Energy Chambers’ CSR Awards 2009, the TTCIC CSR X-Change event series and the Ministry for Planning, Housing and the Environment’s (MPHE) involvement in the organization of the Inter-American Bank’s 8th International CSR Conference have all contributed towards keeping the issue of social investment by corporate actors in the national spotlight. Closely related to the thematic area of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) - the ’smaller twin’ as it were— is the issue of Workplace, Employee or Corporate Employee Volunteerism (CV). Unlike CSR, however, CV in T&T’s private sector remains still in its infancy and while the deficits of utilizing the concept more effectively have become apparent to an increasing number of business leaders, a recent meeting of CSR stakeholders convened jointly by the Energy Chamber and the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business concluded that “volunteer resources for activities were difficult to sustain over the long-term”.
Minority Activity
According to a recently concluded Survey on Corporate Volunteerism conducted by the United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV), only 24 % of all privately-owned companies in Trinidad and Tobago operate a formal in-house program for staff volunteers. While the preparedness to voluntarily serve communities, to contribute towards protecting the environment and to reach out to the needy, disadvantaged, sick and less privileged does exist in some quarters of the national community, many local private sector companies in Trinidad and Tobago are yet to discover the human as well as corporate value and of workplace volunteerism in support and as a manifestation of their Corporate Social Responsibility.
Corporate Culture
From a normative perspective, honoring employees’ volunteer initiatives and fostering a service mentality in the interest and support of the public common good should be integral part of any company’s corporate culture. From a commercial perspective, an increasing number of managers in markets around the world have already realized that what is good for society as a whole can also be good for sound business practices and be in the strategic interests of their enterprises. U.S.-based social entrepreneur and volunteerism expert Susan Ellis insists that “efforts at developing a workplace volunteer program only make sense as a logical extension of a company’s culture” and that volunteerism projects need to be therefore aligned to a company’s core business mission with its volunteer activities directly affecting fence-line communities and tangibly involving a companies’ senior management.
Benefits
The benefits of an active volunteerism scheme are numerous. On the one hand, making an effort and showing dedication to the concerns, needs and aspirations of individuals and communities beyond the fence line helps to build corporate reputation and solidifies an organizational image of care, social responsibility and good corporate citizenship. Furthermore, contributing to the material and emotional wellbeing of others generates personal satisfaction, a sense of purpose and an ethos of corporate loyalty that helps to substantially boost staff morale. Rather than spending significant amounts of money on costly team-building exercises, organizing projects that are voluntarily supported by company employees helps to develop a corporate environment in which workplace ‘togetherness’ can be greatly and lastingly strengthened. As such, corporate volunteerism initiatives have become useful tools for human resource development helping to sharpen and develop strategic focus and governance structures as part of the corporate ’habitat’.
Soft and Hard Skills
Staff volunteerism helps employees to develop new skills that can effectively supplement official corporate training programs. And newly acquired skills do not have to necessarily fall into the ‘soft’ category of professional qualifications. While team-building and social competency can be seen as obvious results of corporate volunteerism, the acquisition or improvement of technical capabilities such as project management, budgeting, planning, staff and time management as well as Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) are additional ‘hard’ by-product of voluntary engagement. Those employees that become involved in volunteerism projects will soon ‘wear two hats’ namely that of ‘corporate ambassador’ introducing the company as a partner for communities as well as that of ‘social development advocate’ carrying the message of social change and the importance of voluntary action back into their corporate environments. In both of these roles, the criterion of emotional fulfillment is hugely important and the thoughts of one recently interviewed Trinidadian corporate volunteer reflect the thinking on the minds of many. “Are we leaving a legacy for the generations coming after us? Can’t we enjoy life, consumption and sound business practices while also support communities in need?” In her opinion, volunteerism provides “direction for one’s own purpose in life”.
Growing Awareness
Companies in Trinidad and Tobago have already started to realize the business benefits of employee volunteering even though they may not always have an official volunteerism programme in place. In the already mentioned UNV Survey on Corporate Volunteerism, 77% of all private sector respondents who currently do not operate a volunteerism expressed their interest to introduce and establish such a workplace volunteer program. Such overwhelming interest should be interpreted both an expression of corporate confidence in the potential of employee volunteers to bring about a ‘return on investment’ and to support the company’s bottom line through reputation building and skill development. Such widespread interest also signals that companies could well be the provider of operational frameworks for societal engagement of individuals notwithstanding the fact that their primary raison d’être is that of profit maximization.
Voluntary Partnerships
Not always do companies create their own volunteerism projects from scratch and the search for project partners, themes, locations and agendas is often a challenging part of the internal planning process. In many instances, companies will seek to team up with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to forge issue-specific partnerships in which the corporate part will provide the human resources necessary for NGOs to achieve their mission. Operating in the area of social service delivery, companies and their staff volunteers depend on the environmental versatility and operational ‘street smartness’ of NGOs. The latter’s access to communities and their niche expertise in poverty eradication, youth activities and environmental protection to name just a few presents a pool of resources that companies find increasingly important to tap into.
Where from Here?
Over the coming years, Corporate Volunteerism has the potential to become a major contributor to the building of social capital in Trinidad and Tobago based on the twin pillars of communal trust and local networking. The voluntary engagement of employees in community projects fosters social connectivity, increases the density of interpersonal relations in support of improvements to the ‘public square’ and reminds stakeholders that in a people-focused modern market economy wealth creation goes hand in hand with an increased corporate responsibility for the public common good. Workplace volunteers help companies to honor that responsibility and give meaning to the idea of ‘good corporate citizenship.
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