RIYADH, 1 July 2007 — Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) should go beyond donations for a humanitarian cause and address issues in the current context, a member of the Shoura Council has observed.
Speaking to Arab News on the occasion of the 4th CSR summit that takes place in Dubai today, Usama Al-Kurdi, member of the Shoura Council, called for the establishment of a separate entity to promote the CSR concept in the Kingdom.
He said member organizations of the chambers of commerce should similarly make institutional arrangements dedicated to the CSR program.
Al-Kurdi said that while providing job opportunities for Saudis was part of the employer’s social responsibility, its scope should be expanded to ensure that they become marketable as well. “To this end, we have to work with educational institutions to see to it that Saudi graduates entering the job market are employable too.”
A cross-section of opinion from the private sector feels that while the Ministry of Labor is pressing the employers to absorb Saudis, no attention is being paid to make them a productive work force. The issue goes beyond setting up training programs, they point out.
“There is a world of difference between Saudis working in the multinational companies (MNCs) and those employed in national organizations. The former are more productive and have a stronger work ethics than the employees of Saudi companies. This is because the MNCs have a system in place that contributes to an employee’s productivity. Saudi organizations generally lack such a system for monitoring their performance and rewarding those who are productive,” said an executive of an MNC who wished to remain anonymous.
The Dubai CSR summit will discuss the issues and challenges facing the society and how they could be tackled by the private sector.
In the Kingdom’s context, the business community has discharged its corporate responsibility in one of the following ways — donating for the welfare of disabled children, assisting charitable organizations, promoting environmental clean-up campaigns, creating traffic safety awareness, funding the drive against diabetes and smoking, sponsoring training programs for Saudis or partnering with the government in organizing seminars with economic agenda.
While these are legitimate areas of concern, other pressing issues remain on the backburner.
For instance, the laidback attitude of employees in the private sector should be a matter of concern given the fact that more than 75 percent of the members of the chambers of commerce belong to small and medium enterprises.
Other issues that could be covered under the CSR program are the low level of employees’ motivation in the private sector, how to make Saudization program sustainable in the private sector, improving the Saudi image abroad, launching productivity movement in the Kingdom which lags behind other Gulf states in this respect, educating share dealers on how to make informed judgment in the stock market, teaching students how to be time-conscious and utilize their summer vacation usefully.
A survey of the CSR movement abroad shows that in the US, the CSR program seeks to boost the company’s productivity instead of channeling funds for a charitable cause. The idea behind it is that when a company prospers, it will create more job opportunities, thus benefiting a larger segment of the society.
In Japan, the CSR program seeks to develop their employees’ skill to help them make a meaningful contribution to the society.
Other priorities under this program are empowerment of women, employees’ satisfaction surveys, fair trade practices movement, etc.
In Taiwan, a survey has disclosed that 21.1 percent of the companies there have already in place specialized CSR staff or department, while 54.3 percent of companies which have yet to put in place CSR staff or department will do so in the near future. As many as 91.7 percent of respondents are interested in learning more about CSR and 87.9 percent of companies have included CSR as a part of their long- term development strategy.
