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Women & Leadership Australia eNewsletterJuly 2010
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How to give something back, easily
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| In recent years culture commentators have identified the workplace as the last frontier of the notion of ‘physical community’. That is, a place where people gather in a geographically common space with a common purpose or interest. With the steady deconstruction, if not demise, of institutions such as religion and family, the workplace may very well stand alone in this regard. | "Corporate social responsibility is a hard-edged business decision. Not because it is a nice thing to do or because people are forcing us to do it ... because it is good for our business" – Niall Fitzerald, Former CEO, Unilever |
As such, what we do in the workplace really does matter. And no workplace is an island. It reaches out and impacts upon the wider society in myriad ways. With the IT revolution well and truly upon us, this reach is now practically limitless.
Increasingly, a key defining feature of this reach is what is often described as ‘corporate responsibility’. In part, it defines how a company or organisation gives something positive back to the community. It rests on the historical assumption that corporations have operated by taking away more value from
the wider world than what they give back – a difference that largely translates as profit margin.
Redressing the imbalance
What you can do to give back to the community depends on whether you’re a general staff member, a line manager, a HR Manager or a CEO. Organising to have a donation box set up at work (such as a charity-aligned sweets box) is a simple idea that can be set up by most any employee. A nother idea is to send out Oxfam Christmas cards to clients, so instead of supporting an organisation’s bottom line, the proceeds from the sale of the cards are going to charity. |
"In my view the successful companies of the future will be those that integrate business and employees' personal values. The best people want to do work that contributes to society with a company whose values they share, where their actions count and their views matter." – Jeroen van der Veer, Committee of Managing Directors (Shell) |
There are more involved ideas, like hosting a Pink Ribbon breakfast in support of the National Breast Cancer Foundation, or organising a fun day (such as casual Fridays) to raise proceeds for a nominated charity. Or if the services you provide can be of benefit to someone in need, donating a nominated amount of time to specific community groups is a great way to give back.
If you have the power to implement changes in the workplace, setting up a workplace giving program allows employees to donate to their favourite charity while receiving a tax benefit, which also means the charity receives the full pre-tax donation.
Workplace giving is recognised by the ATO and more information is available here (see more here). If you are a medium sized business, there are models like Volunteer Leave, which allocates paid time off, similar to a holiday day, to employees to volunteer in their community; therefore, giving them the satisfaction of being supported to give back. Fortunately, whilst an organisation might only have one way (or a very limited few ways ) of doing business, there are almost boundless ways of giving back. More ideas for giving back to the community are:
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"To my mind, you cannot speak about the need for leadership within our communities without being prepared to take on responsibility yourself. It’s not enough to point the finger at those who have let us down and to expect others to come forward and fix our problems. Nor can anyone afford to call themselves a leader unless they truly have the interests of our community at heart. Too many people like to think they are leaders and too many are identified by the media as leaders who are not really leaders at all." – Dr Jackie Huggins, Aboriginal Rights Activist, Indigenous Australian Author and historian |
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