Talk to anyone about the social responsibility of a company and some of the first images that come to mind are the rainforest in Brazil, with the associated need for conservation, and the sweatshops in the Far East, where little boys make T-shirts. for the West. . In other words, things away from home; the big multinationals, the sins of globalization that the warriors of Seattle fight by burning down the McDonalds franchises. Partnership is a good concept that, while a bit vague, a bit idealistic, and a bit moral, fits well into company mission statements. After all, imagine the alternative. Do you know of any company that admits to wanting to pollute the environment, destroy social relationships, or run workplaces like concentration camps?
The problem with global social responsibility is that it distracts from what’s happening next door or below. Companies that are ‘socially responsible’ – according to the stereotyped standards of no pollution-no child labour- may, in fact, apply socially irresponsible policies that affect their own staff. Sumantra Ghoshal, a professor at the London Business School in the UK, refers to the environment in some companies as ‘Calcutta in summer’, a suffocating environment. Such companies may have mission statements that espouse their commitment to social responsibility: promising not to pollute rivers, while ignoring the daily pollution in the minds of their workforce.
Let’s face it, Ghoshal is right. Some work environments are not pleasant! High levels of internal politics and personal wars, disregard for employee lives that are just numbers on a spreadsheet, and unreasonable ‘contingency policies’ (hire fast/fire fast) can lead to a workplace of ‘Calcutta in summer’, even if the company swears it will never dump a chemical into the nearby river.
Social responsibility, like charity, begins at home: in the manager’s office next door and downstairs in the human resources department and the laboratories. It has to do with understanding that people spend a large part of their daily lives working for organizations and that the company -whether it wants to recognize it or not- has a ‘social responsibility’ towards them. A responsibility that implies the duty to provide an environment that respects the individual, improves the human condition and values the employee. Surely, if it’s good for trees, it must be good for humans.
Those who think this is a fairy tale are no different from those who think the pollution of the river by the chemical plant is a necessary evil for the business to achieve its goals. Years ago, these people got away with it because the population was largely ignorant of the issue, or silent or insensitive. Today, such practices make headlines that backfire on the company in a way it cannot afford. Probably, in a few years’ time, Calcutta’s summer workplaces will make similar headlines, with similar consequences.
As a self-confessed green novice, who still needs to be reminded what a recycling bin is for, it might seem strange that you should use ‘green examples’. I do not bring you here as an expert professional, but to compare and expose the double standards of the so-called social responsibility.
The circadian mind of a manager
One of the behaviors one finds in a less than socially responsible environment is a kind of managerial schizophrenia. Outside the office, a manager can be a friendly, civilized human being and perhaps a churchgoer. In the office, you can transform into a sloppy nine-to-five manager who, frankly, may not give a shit about the “work environment” as long as “the numbers are hit” (and your bonus is secure). Perfectly reasonable human beings become highly unreasonable managers by walking into the office as if affected by some kind of toxic gas. Once in the office, toxic management takes over. It is as circadian as night and day.
A company’s obvious need for policies and procedures is a perfect excuse for toxic managers. They say, “Sorry, it’s not me, I have to do this, it’s company policy” Prayed “If it were up to me, I would allow it, but I don’t make the rules.“; Prayed “I can’t let you do that, because then everyone will expect the same thing.And the employee is denied a small privilege that wouldn’t have made any difference to running the business, but perhaps could have made all the difference to a working mom, like a little flexibility in her work hours.
Managers who hide behind company policies—”I don’t make the rules” or “I have to treat everyone the same”—often are simply lying. In many cases, they have the power and ability to interpret company policy. They could grant an exception to the rule and give the individual a special concession because common sense says that the rule was not invented to make life difficult.
One of the best defenses of the toxic coach in the Calcutta environment is the use of ‘internal fairness’ as an argument for all seasons. “We must see the equity aspects of this issue in the organization,” a manager or HR leader will say, “We can’t give this to Smith or it will set a precedent for others“.
That kind of argument assumes a lot of things, but the one that has always puzzled me is that it assumes that the entire organization may want the same thing as Smith. This is not true in most cases. For example, I did an MBA sponsored by my employer. As I recall, there were no rigid criteria as to who could do it. I met a couple of colleagues like me who were sponsored. My boss didn’t have a long line of people in his office wanting to do an MBA! In fact, it was hard work that some of us did on top of our normal workload. In another organization, such an opportunity would not have been available because (here it comes):”It would not be fair in terms of internal equity!”
Justice, the greatest parapet
Equity is a word that can be used with a lot of semantic discretion. Many managers, and many human resources departments, seem obsessed with upholding fairness. And yet, under this parapet, they exhibit the greatest injustice of all, that of homogenization. Justice, dictated and interpreted unilaterally, may boost the manager’s moral ego but impress no one else. Salary differences between staff, executive privileges, boards driven by personal gain, are unfair, but they are part of daily life.
At this point, you can be convinced that I am determined to paint a dark picture of corporate life. Let me be clear: I know that business life can be very rewarding and enlightening. I also appreciate that much of the work is carried out in non-Calcutta settings. But the cynical way corporations deal with so-called social responsibility should not be whitewashed. The company is socially irresponsible, despite all its ‘caring for the environment’ policies, when all it achieves is a good track record of clean rivers, but it is a place not worth working in, as pollution internal mental only replaces the external contamination. Blame it on my lack of environmental education, but I can’t stand those environmentalists who worry about recycling their memos, who dispose of cans in special containers and who use the same hotel towel every day to save water, while polluting the environment of work of the people who work for them. Maybe we should have green painted offices or cubicles for those managers.
pending revolutions
The customer revolution took place in the 1980s with a proliferation of customer service departments. Today, these are the baseline; they no longer raise admiring eyebrows. Companies are supposed to have them. The Quality movement focused on quality as the ultimate goal, today, that is the starting point. Years from now, you won’t see an ISO logo on company letterhead or company van.
Now, as the shareholder revolution is starting to take off, the actions of boards and management are coming under increasing scrutiny. The next big revolution will be the employee revolution. At that point, toxic management will be discovered and companies that are internally socially irresponsible will be in the headlines. Those companies that are brave enough to look in the mirror and identify socially irresponsible internal practices, and then also brave enough to do something about it, will win the game.
You and I know of companies full of ‘good people’. In many cases, however, it is as if we were saying: “Individually, we’re all basically good guys. Collectively, we can be a group of arrogant people who use the excuse of rules dictated by another place to exercise power and control.If a work environment can produce and nurture summer Calcutta managers who are otherwise ‘individual good guys’, this environment is toxic; you should avoid it if you can. And that’s the problem: the ‘if you can ‘ After all, a few million people live in Calcutta.
Social responsibility is not simply a green issue or an ethical corporate governance approach that positions itself on not polluting rivers and not cutting down trees in Brazil. It must start at home. That is, in the next office, the manufacturing plant or the project team. Yet none of this is taught in business schools.