The Elephant Catchers by Bagchi Subroto

Author:Bagchi, Subroto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette India
Published: 2017-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

14THE FORCE OF GOOD

CSR initiatives don’t just make businesses credible. They have greater benefits. They awaken the power of inclusion and volunteerism among employees, which rub off on the way they approach their work.

ON THE THIRD SATURDAY of every month, a bus leaves Mindtree’s office in Bengaluru in the morning, picking up volunteers from designated points in the city. It makes three stops: one at a children’s home, another at a home for the destitute and, finally, at a centre for patients suffering from HIV/AIDS. The three homes are run by the Missionaries of Charity. The objective of the occupants of the bus is to give the Charity’s sisters a few hours’ break from their routine. They carry food and help clean up the place. Sometimes they give the inmates a haircut, or play music for them, and sometimes they take along small items like bangles and trinkets and new clothes. For these software engineers, it is not about doing good. It is about being good. When we thought of starting Mindtree, we had envisioned a company with a social conscience. The monthly bus trip and a dozen other activities that we engage in around the world are a part of this idea. Voluntary work with schools, civic bodies and not-for-profit organizations keeps us connected with larger social issues beyond the everyday lives at the workplace.

In post-independence India, corporate social responsibility (CSR) was an amalgam of what industrialists like Ghanshyam Das Birla, Jamsetji Tata, Lala Shri Ram, Gujarmal Modi and others like them typified. They built temples, dharamshalas and educational institutions, sponsored artists and music festivals. Some got into active community development with specific focus on areas like adult education and family planning, like the well-known Tata initiatives in Jharkhand’s tribal belts. Most such work that was traditionally done in India had distinct characteristics. First, such activities did not flow from an overall, articulated corporate mission that bound everyone in the organization. Usually, CSR was about what the owner engaged with and seldom galvanized the collective power of people to make a larger social impact or gave employees an opportunity to view the workplace as a unit of society. Second, the Indian model had little to do with governance. For example, a company could be getting raided for income tax or excise duty evasion and at the same time be known for building dharamshalas as a contribution to society. Third, the concept of CSR had an angle of ‘charity’ as against building an organizational culture of volunteerism. Finally, CSR as a concept had nothing to do with the organization’s philosophy towards its customers. A company in a protected economy could be building schools and colleges but continue to create poor products and services because the customer had no choice but to buy it. An automobile company, for instance, could be doing great charity work while its products continue to not meet emission standards.

Today, CSR has come to mean something else entirely and it is imperative for organizations to adopt it.

Many companies the world over have made CSR a part of their mission, vision and values.

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