How self-interest can hurt corporate business

LISA ANN JOSEPH

At the start of these difficult economic times, Ali Hilton-Clarke, then president of the Employers Consultative Association warned “that there will be no sheltered place,” no place to hide from the destructive winds that were forming and threatening the world economy.

That reading of the tea leaves has proven to be an insightful one.

No one, not prime minister, president, great sportsmen and women, movie stars, nor medical experts tending to those with the covid19 has had their status and power protect them against contracting the virus and suffering the consequences. The reality of leaders of major industrial countries contracting the virus has alerted us all to our individual and collective vulnerability.

The reality is no corporate institution can remain on the sidelines and not become meaningfully involved in a proactive manner, to at least attempt to ameliorate the blow of the virus on themselves and their business operations. If large numbers of the trained and experienced staff of corporations are out of circulation having contracted the virus, the operations and profitability of the business slide.

In attempting to counter the most damaging of societal issues, the reality is corporate involvement is really about “self-interest.” That is a principle which drives individual, group, country and corporate involvement in large and small projects. So powerful the need for corporate involvement in the day-to-day affairs of city, town, village and individual has become, that when corporations and others adopt the role of disinterested bystander, it is noticed by many if not all pockets in which the corporations trade.

The fact of the ubiquity of public communications means that corporate bodies cannot mask their non-involvement in public causes. Governments are increasingly demanding, and in instances, making it the law that the manufacturers of vaccines and treatments to counter the coronavirus, have a public responsibility to research, manufacture and distribute vaccines and treatments to assist populations to overcome the worst of the virus.

The World Health Organization, through the Covax operation, is collaborating with a number of agencies and corporations to provide assistance to countries and societies which do not have the capacity to produce vaccines.

Such an initiative was implemented during the period when the HIV virus and the contraction of Aids by tens of millions around the world. Then, large corporations were persuaded to sell their cocktail of drugs to counter HIV at 10 per cent of the cost to governments who in turn made the drugs freely available to their citizens.

Such life-saving measures ranging over a variety of involvements by large, medium-sized and small corporations are required even more so in this time of a far more easily transmissible virus.

New evidence shows that corporations which have a high profile in altruistic and helpful people-oriented matters today are gaining respect and support for their efforts. Simultaneously, corporations which sit on the sidelines doing nothing lose respect and support for failing to demonstrate a caring social conscience. Which side of the fence does your corporation occupy?

What is certain is that many companies which seek to dupe the public with “fake” interest in becoming involved in the affairs of the society receive public rebuke for feigning such interest. For their insincerity, or even ignorance, such companies have received their just dues.

The experience of the covid19 period of the last year has also indicated that greater attention is being exerted on corporations to similarly take a side on damaging issues such as racism, political and social injustice. Corporations which ignore their responsibility to be upfront on such human rights have paid large costs for living in the past.

“Talk cheap,” as is said in Trini parlance. Discernible and genuine action is what is required by corporations if over the short, medium and long term they avoid cheap, insincere ole talk. There has never been a time like the present where so many genuine needs, which can attract the attention and involvement of corporate bodies, exist and are yearning for attention.

There has been some involvement by corporate bodies and individuals in providing devices for a few of the 60 per cent of children of school age who do not have access to devices and internet to keep up with classes. The education and health experts have been predicting that there will be large groups of students who will be left behind because they cannot participate in online classes.

Large, medium-sized and small corporations must also reach the realisation that the greater, and more fundamental, their involvement in assisting the country to emerge with few scars from the covid19 pandemic, the quicker and better will their businesses return to some semblance of normalcy.

Lisa-Ann Joseph is the founder and managing director of Reputation Management Caribbean Ltd.