Friday, March 28, 2014

Companies that put people first gain the most

Children play at Safaricom’s day care centre in Nairobi. Photo/FILE

Children play at Safaricom’s day care centre in Nairobi. Photo/FILE 
By Scott Bellows
In Summary
  • Businesses with focus on environment, society and employees reap benefits beyond profits.

Naisola languished in her job as a marketing executive in one of Kenya’s leading deposit taking microfinance (DTM) institutions. She completed her MBA in 2010 and expected that the degree would launch her into a more meaningful career.


Naisola desired to change the world and impact society. She felt that microfinance might help boost the working poor into the middle class.

However, following four years in microfinance, Naisola saw the DTM upscaling away from serving its original mission. The DTM found it cheaper and more profitable to provide salary loans instead of financing mama mbogas to emerge out of poverty.

Salary loans did not appeal to Naisola. She did not feel the passion behind helping those who already attained a salary. What Naisola desired was a more purely social business with deeper impact.
Now, many readers might advise Naisola to go work for an NGO. A civil society group, in theory, should focus exclusively on its social mission and helping society. However, she felt that NGOs did not posses sustainability.
Naisola’s dilemma revolves around the debate about the extent of social mission should exist in companies.

A “social” corporation focuses on three factors of success: people, planet, and profits. Many firms just utilise some corporate social responsibility (CSR) through funding a few initiatives and gaining public relations mileage, but not focusing their core products on items that change the world. Also, many companies obsess over CSR for public relations, but treat their own employees poorly.
An extreme opposite of NGOs, we think of a tobacco firm making cigarettes. The cigarettes kill their clients, so people are not a focus of such a firm.

The cigarettes pollute the environment, so the planet does not concern a tobacco company. But, instead, the tobacco firm cares exclusively about profits.

 
In the middle of the spectrum, Safaricom’s development of mobile money helped positively change how every person in Kenya may pay for products and services, save money, and send money in safer easier ways.

However, Safaricom famously does not only focus on the people outside its firm, but also on recruiting and rewarding its own employees.

Safaricom exists as one of the few firms in Kenya that actively recruit people with physical disabilities to work in the company. Many blind employees work at the Safaricom call centre who might find it difficult to find work unless another open-minded employer recruits.
On the complete other side of the spectrum from tobacco firms, Namaste Solar in Colorado might arguably exist as the most socially conscious business in the world.

The company saves the planet by reducing reliance on fossil fuels and pollution through the proliferation of solar energy. So, Namaste Solar’s whole product line helps the world.
Further, Namaste Solar makes significant profits and experiences solid growth. The firm covers a planet and a profits focus. However, what makes Namaste Solar stand out revolves around how it treats its people.

No comments :

Post a Comment