Would there be a need for the creation of so-called “CSR” programs if we were simply empowering our employees to fulfill a role many of them are actively seeking? Aren’t these same employees the best representatives of the communities we purport to want to help? Are we in this so-called “decision makers” forum the people best placed to make the call on where the help is most needed? For what purpose are we engaging in CSR? Altruistic reasons? Business with a heart? To defuse popular opinion that we are self serving one-track-minded profiteers?
Harsh? Perhaps, but let’s start with reality and work our way back. What follows is my story written in my words. It’s only one opinion based on my experiences but I hope it provides food for thought to perhaps open an honest discussion. I start by congratulating everyone who made time today, whatever their personal motivation, in order to participate in making our society a fairer, more thoughtful place for everyone.
So without further ado, my story:
I work for a multinational company that has resources and budgets set for these programs, but for some reason in my eleven years of working for them I never heard of such a thing or even a department that ran this program. All I ever knew was that I can bring any suggestion to help to the table and they can either accept or decline.
It started with a simple question to my general manager: could we help a family in dire need? From that day on I didn’t hold back and thankfully neither did my employers.
When the July 2006 War started we had many staff members who were living in Beirut’s southern suburbs and other heavily affected areas. All I knew was that the company moved them with their families to a couple of hotels in Jounieh and we were fully supporting them. A week into the war I was approached by a good friend to help him import some milk from Jordan for some 30 families in need. I remember walking into our 200 square meter office in Jal al-Dib where about 80 out of our 120 employees were trying to keep the business going. I walked in to call our operations manager in Jordan to find the milk and send it on the next truck, hopefully making it to Lebanon safely.
We managed to get the boxes of milk and I felt great. Our commercial manager asked me to see what else they needed. I called my friend back and said to him, “Bring me a list of what you need other than the milk and let’s see what we can do.” I have a daughter and know the importance of milk for a child. Little did I know that this one action was to be the start of many wonderfully satisfying and fulfilling charity-based accomplishments with my company, colleagues and, to my great surprise, customers!
I had to move to Beit Mery a week later when things got really bad and there our country manager and commercial manager started asking where else we could help. Little did we know there were about 2,000 displaced refugees coming from all over Lebanon and being housed and taken care of by the Beit Mery Foundation, who seriously needed the help since the Red Cross was overwhelmed. These 2,000 displaced were in urgent need for food and medicine. When we passed by to see first hand the conditions these people were being subjected to I knew we had to do something.
We started the next morning emailing anyone and everyone we knew from Saudi Arabia to Africa, the US and elsewhere. We raised $240,000 that fed these families until the last day of the war. And then we still had enough to buy books for 3,000 children in the South, split evenly among each religious group. The whole company was involved; every colleague who knew anyone who could help came in without us even asking them to.
What I know now, and what became ever clearer to me throughout this process, is that my fellow colleagues and I have a significant role to play in this area. My company clearly understood, and has made me understand, that we do not need any formal program to know that our responsibilities as a company extend to our civil society. We are, after all, members of that greater society. We don’t live in a bubble. And only through collective and sustained effort led by us in civil society — representatives of our communities and empowered and entrusted with funds and resources from our employers — can we really make the investment in the necessary changes to make a better future for all. This is the most self-serving and fundamentally sound long term business investment any of us will make. How, you ask? These same people we put through school, these families we lift from poverty, these people with no hope today but given hope for tomorrow are our future customers, employees, managers and potentially business owners and allies.
What we are tackling here today as companies and employees is social justice. Every child we educate and take off the street and every student we put in a university will be a potential buyer or user of our services, generating future profits for our corporations. It doesn’t matter if it is $100 or one million — everything that we do today will ensure a future that maybe, if we had a magic wand, we would all have created in an instant. But of course there is no magic wand … there is only us and what we decide to do today.
Have faith in the general good of people, trust your employees, make available the funds and work collectively to get the help to where it is needed most. Call it whatever you want but get on it and do it and involve your employees and customers. You will be surprised at just how satisfying giving really is and how many wonderful people work for you and your organization.
As we sow, so shall we reap…
Mariana Wehbe Alem is direct sales manager of DHL Express at Rafic Hariri International Airport
