A 2 minute lesson on employee engagement for sustainability ... that will make you smile

Everyone knows that getting employees engaged in sustainability initiatives is tough. This fun little video shows why so many efforts go wrong and how "green jujitsu" offers green champions a better way forward. It's not saying anything new to anyone that has been in the field a while, but it gets the message across really well in less than two minutes ... and its great advice for getting started in employment engagement. As Gareth Kane from Terra Infirma, who put the video together says, "It's deliberately lightweight, but it carries an important message - ditch the eco-cliches and put yourself in your colleagues' shoes."

 


 Here's the original link on Youtube which tells you a little more about the green jujitsu approach - essentially using your employees strengths, habits and interests as an opportunity rather than a threat.  

Down-under, are things upside down?

Last week we talked about executive pay and bonuses. If you read or watch the news today in Australia you will come across an entirely different story though. In a time when bankers have to be told off by governments to stuff their pockets, CEOs get stripped of royal titles for their reckless actions or presidential hopefuls turn out to be ruthless maximizers of personal wealth – this story sounds like a fairytale.

Ken Grenda, the owner of a bus operating and manufacturing company in Melbourne has given all his staff a AUD 15 million bonus (US$ 15.3m), averaging $8,500 per employee with some receiving as much as $30,000! The background of the payout is a sale of the family-owned company which netted Ken some $400m. His rationale:

"A business is only as good as its people, and our people are fantastic. This is to recognise that. We have had people here who are second generation, and one fellow in the same job for 52 years. We have grown from just four bus routes ... in 1945 to operating 1300 buses in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. You only get there if you have good people."

Now that’s exceptional. And good on Ken and his family – sure enough. The facebook page of the event is full of praise, amazement and disbelief. It is indeed a gesture which is rare, if not unprecedented in today’s economic climate.

It makes you think though. Ken’s rationale, above, is perfectly sound. Especially in a service company, the personnel at the customer interface, such as bus drivers, can make all the difference. In a time, when bonuses have become a common instrument for people at the top, there is no good reason to exclude workers from the same thinking.

Recently, The Guardian has published a piece on the intellectual heritage of the current situation of excessive bonuses. It is really hard to understand why Michael Jensen and his colleagues, when suggesting share-price related remunerations for top management, never thought to include the lower ranks.

The real question here though seems to be why those performance related elements have to be just this discretionary, pseudo-feudal benevolence of a rich guy. It’s a great gesture of philanthropy, as some bloggers say, but if employees are really so vital to a company’s performance why not make it a right of the employee? After all, $15m of $400m is not all that much. What would be a fair share? And who should decide about that?

As we have commented earlier in this blog, there is a funny bifurcation in the debate on CSR and industrial relations.  From a CSR perspective we should praise the Grenda family; but from an industrial relations perspective we might ask the question why – if what Ken Grenda says above is true – the employees should not have a right to their share in the growth of the company’s value to begin with?

It all points to the role of worker’s representation and collective bargaining. These used to be the classic tools to make sure that workers participate in a company’s overall prosperity. But Australia and New Zealand have seen the highest declines in trade union membership over the last two decades, between roughly 30 to 50%. In that sense then, Australian industrial relations are pretty similar to the rest of the world and Grenda's example more a one-off than something of a rule. Other solutions might be share ownership of employees, which apart from examples such as John Lewis (department stores, UK), Westjet (airline, Canada) or W.L. Gore (Gore-Tex, US) have remained exceptions.

In as much as gestures such as that of Ken Grenda deserve praise and respect as a single incident – they also raise these more general question of how sustainable this approach is. As critics in the Australian blogosphere point out, is this just the final golden handshake, before the new Brazilian owners of Grenda take over and expose workers to an entirely new game to make their new investment pay off?

Picture by Natinaal Archief, reproduced under the Creative Commons License.

Corporate disaster relief in Japan: going beyond charity?

With global attention focusing on the rapid escalation of conflict in Libya and desperate efforts to contain the nuclear threat in Japan, it is easy for the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the wake of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami to recede from view. But with reports of the death toll now edging past 18,000, and nearly 500,000 people still living in shelters, the country is still certainly in dire need of support and assistance - and will be for some time to come. A report from the World Bank has estimated that the damage inflicted by the disaster will cost somewhere between $123bn and $235bn, the equivalent of some 2.5% to 4% of the country's GDP. Recovery could take up to 5 years, the report suggests.

Business in Japan has been significantly damaged by the quake and its aftermath. The automotive and electronics supply chain, in particular, appear to have been severely disrupted, leading to delays and shutdowns in production. But as previous disasters have shown, business can also play a major role in rescue and relief operations, as well as in subsequent rebuilding efforts. Wal-Mart famously upstaged the US government in responding effectively to the floods in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In contrast, after the devastating 2008 cyclone in Burma, international companies were slow to offer assistance. Last year's Haitian earthquake generated a lot of corporate donations, as well as a fair deal of controversy around the role of companies in economic redevelopment and rebuilding projects.

Corporate involvement in disaster relief in Japan has yet to hit the headlines in any major way, primarily, as far as we can tell, because companies have been rather conservative in their responses. That's not to say that companies haven't helped raise a lot of money for the cause, because they have. According to the US Chamber of Commerce's, Global Aid Tracker, which does a pretty impressive job of keeping tabs on such things, global corporate assistance for the Japan crisis has now exceeded $158 million.  This includes 100m Yen (about US $1.2m) each from companies such as Bayer, BP, Hyundai, LG, Nikon, and others. Even higher sums - up to 5 times as much in fact - have been committed by the likes of Canon, Citigroup, Dow, GE, Mitsubishi, Nintendo, Sony, and Wal-Mart. As you can see, it's not just Japanese companies either, but global companies, especially those operating in Japan doing the giving. The Japanese Red Cross, however, appears to be the most favoured recipient.

Some companies have linked up their corporate donations with employee giving, often by matching employee donations, as a way of engaging workers in CSR initiatives. An interesting development here has been the tie-up between the CSR services company AngelPoints and Network for Good to provide a free on-line giving platform to the firm's clients. As the firm's press release puts it:

From now until the end of April, two million employees from companies such as Newell-Rubbermaid and Sterling Savings Bank will have access to a centralized online donation platform that will facilitate the immediate transfer of funds to organizations in Japan that need it most.

In fact, the on-line world has probably seen some of the more innovative responses to the disaster from the corporate community. Whilst some, such as iTunes and LivingSocial have simply enabled users to readily make donations through their sites, various Japanese gaming companies have developed cause-related game tie-ins to engage their users in contributing to relief efforts. The gaming demographic is notoriously difficult to enlist in social programmes, so it is certainly a positive sign that gaming companies are using their core products to reach out in this way. Zinga, the US company behind the hugely popular Facebook games, Farmville and Mafia Wars has followed up its Haiti giving initiative with a Farmville in-app donation vehicle which enables users to donate by buying virtual goods within the game - in this case, a daikon crop. Launched within 24 hrs of the disaster, online gamers reportedly went on to help Zinga contribute more than US $1m in just a few days. For a company with a tagline of 'connecting the world through games' (and already drawing fire for its addictive effect on young players), Zinga's ability to use social media to connect gamers around the world with major social problems is a surefire winner.

Elsewhere, there has been a disappointing lack of innovation among the corporate community in the Japan disaster relief. Providing money and in-kind goods is one thing, but what really can make humanitarian aid efforts stand out are when they leverage core corporate capabilities. Japanese manufacturing companies, with their decades of experience in just-in-time management and lean manufacturing practices, could be deploying their logistics and supply chain prowess to relief efforts. Law firms and financial services companies could be putting their skills towards helping displaced families, many of which lack earthquake insurance, sort out the legal and financial mess they have found themselves in rather than simply donating cash.  The list goes on. Short-term charity is fine as far as it goes, but companies should know that a more strategic approach to corporate responsibility has the potential to add considerably more value both to the stricken Japanese people and to themselves.

Should companies police for child pornography

Few issues arouse as much public condemnation as child pornography. As a visual record of child sexual abuse, its production and dissemination scars innocent lives forever. It is illegal in virtually all developed countries to produce, distribute, and receive child pornography. So despite a criminal online trade in child pornography worth billions of dollars, no legitimate company would knowingly go anywhere near the practice. But should companies play a larger role in actively stamping out child pornography? And if so, how far should they go?

Read more on our blog posting over at CSR Wire 


Photo by Za3tOoOr!. Reproduced under Creative Commons licence.

Ethics in the fashion industry

Most of the stuff that gets written about ethics in the fashion industry tends to focus either on fur, or on its effects on consumers, and especially the damage it can do to the self-esteem and body image of young girls. Those who work in the industry tend to get pretty ignored by the ethics community. Outside of the well-publicised supermodel tantrum, or the occasional rumour of drug taking, the working lives of models are essentially off-stage and out of sight. Most of us probably assume that the fantastic clothes, the famous faces, the glamorous locations, and the stratospheric salaries make modelling one of the best jobs in the world.

However, the release of the documentary Picture Me, which is just hitting the festival circuit now, looks set to lift the lid on the darker side of the modelling world. Made by Sarah Ziff, a model turned documentary maker, and co-director Ole Schell, the film chronicles the high pressure, exploitative, and sometimes abusive environment faced by professional models. It also, perhaps more controversially, provides us with a glimpse into the highly sexualized, predatory pressures that models experience, even as young teenagers. The film is already getting noticed, probably because its maker is already a familiar face in the fashion industry. The UK's Observer newspaper ran a feature on it a couple of weeks ago which ended up on the cover of their magazine. The doc also won best film and best fashion film at the Milan International Film festival recently.

Ziff is clearly a true industry insider, having been discovered on the street by a photographer when she was 14, and then going on to become the face of numerous global brands such as Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Dolce & Gabbana and Gap. In her time, she has worked for all the top designers including Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Chanel. Along the way, she obviously made a huge amount of money. But these experiences also provided her with extraordinary access to life behind the scenes of the fashion industry.... and an opportunity to tell the story of what goes on backstage in all its warts and all glory. By putting cameras in the hands of the models themselves, she was also able to give voice to those who, as the film’s myspace page puts it, ‘are often seen, but rarely heard’. As such, the film presents a sincere and engaging look inside the working life of models, documenting both the rewards and sacrifices that young women have to make.

In addition to Ziff and her fellow models, the film also features appearances and in-depth interviews with noted photographers and designers. By stitching these various accounts together Ziff and Schell create a frank account of various ethical issues confronting the industry such as age, anorexia, working conditions … and of course the exorbitant salaries earned by top models. It also brings to light the surprising lack of regulation and protection governing the industry.

In fact, the film itself is part of a nascent attempt by some models to bring greater visibility and protection into modelling. As the Observer article mentions, a handful have started writing behind-the-scene blogs chronicling their daily lives in intimate detail. A successful 2007 campaign by two models, Victoria Keon-Cohen and Dunja Knezevic, also led to the opening up of the actor’s union Equity to catwalk and photographic models for the first time.

We're hoping the film makes it and gets a wider release - it certainly should do given some of the star power behind it, even if it was made on a shoestring budget. It's not so much that no one knew there was all kinds of dodgy stuff going on in the modelling industry. But by putting it up there on the screen in such an honest and intimate way, Ziff looks to be making a valuable contribution to the debate.

And the Oscar for best business ethics movie goes to....

Those of you that have noticed the "Ethics on Screen" feature in our business ethics book, or that have come across the film series, Doing the Business that we were involved in starting up at Nottingham, will be well aware of our interests in exploring corporate responsibility issues at the movies. With the awards season in full swing, and Oscar night less than a week away, we thought we would reflect on a few of the films that have been released in the last year that have addressed business ethics issues in one way or another. Here, for starters, are four of our favourites...

There Will Be Blood
First up, and top of many people's list come Oscar time, is this quirky epic about the early days of the oil industry in the US. Tracing the fortunes of the oil man Daniel Plainview (played by Daniel Day-Lewis), the film provides a fascinating account of the emergent social compact wrangled out between industry and the local community. Day-Lewis plays a hard-grafting, hard bargaining, and ultimately hard headed prospector who pushes the ethical line in his somewhat underhand negotiations for drilling rights. But in an early manifestation of what some might recognise now as a shaky form of CSR, albeit of a decidely self-interested variety, Plainview's investment in the community sees one small town start to flourish as a result of its oil reserves, with a new church and other infrastructure coming to the once impoverished community. Most notable here is the battle between capitalism and religion that frames the film, as Plainview fights against the local preacher for power, control, and for the rich rewards from the precious resources that we are still fighting over today. In the end, it has to be said that the film's message, if it has one, about corporate responsibility is rather opaque. But there is lots of fun to be had poring over some of the allegories, especially at a time when companies such as ExxonMobil and Shell are breaking profitability records on both sides of the Atlantic, and when issues of oil, religion, and capitalism continue to dominate the debate about the war in Iraq.

Michael Clayton
Another Oscar nominated feature, this time staring George Clooney as a fixer in a corporate law firm. Here's what Warner Brothers say this one is about - as you can see, it is classic business ethics territory:

"...Michael Clayton is an in-house fixer at one of the largest corporate law firms in New York. A former criminal prosecutor, Clayton takes care of Kenner, Bach, & Ledeen's dirtiest work at the behest of the firm's co-founder, Marty Bach. Though burned out and hardly content with his job as a fixer, his divorce, a failed business venture, and mounting debt have left Clayton inextricably tied to the firm. At U/North, meanwhile, the career of litigator Karen Crowder rests on the multi-million dollar settlement of a class-action suit that Clayton's firm is leading to a seemingly successful conclusion. But when Kenner Bach's brilliant and guilt-ridden attorney Arthur Edens sabotages the U/North case, Clayton faces the biggest challenge of his career and his life...."

Like many films before it, including movies such as The Insider, Boiler Room,and Glengarry Glen Ross, Michael Clayton is all about how our personal ethics intertwine with the harsh realities of corporate ethics, and the choices we sometimes have to make in navigating between them.

Up the Yangtze
When programming the 'Doing the Business' series, we always struggled to find good quality Asian movies that dealt seriously with business ethics issues. With rapid economic transformations in India, China, and elsewhere though, a number of excellent movies have started to come out that chart some of these developments. Up the Yangtze is one of these - a sharly observed documentary about a luxury tour boat on the famous Chinese river that provides us with a unique view of the massive Three Gorges megadam project. The film traces the experiences of one of the workers on the boat and her role in the Chinese 'economic miracle'. Assembling insights from villages flooded by the dam project, the burgeoning tourist trade, and the brash urban elite, the movies provides a kaleidescopic view of a country undergoing enormous social and economic transformation - and the ethical issues and problems that inevitably come in their wake.


It's a Free World
Many of Ken Loach's films have provided a harsh but realistic picture of those at the bottom of the economic pile - the immigrant cleaners (Bread and Roses), railworkers (The Navigators) and others that are invariably the losers in the casino of capitalism. His latest, It's a Free World, explores the underworld of migrant workers in London, and the firms that recruit them. It focuses on Angie, a hardworking and determined recruiter who has suffered some some of the injustices of the flexible labour market herself, and is now to prove a point by starting up on her own. As Loach's film production company, Sixteen Films, puts it:

"... Angie sets up a recruitment agency with her flat-mate Rose, working in a twilight zone between gangmasters, employment agencies and the migrant workers they place. This is a tale set against the reality of the Anglo Saxon miracle of flexible labour, globalisation, double shifts and lots of happy, happy, happy consumers: Us."

It is not, it has to be said, a happy film. But as a gritty, realistic, and clear sighted view of a slice of the labour market that most of us rarely catch much of a glimpse of, it is hard to beat.