Responding to emergencies

The Tsunami at the end of last year provided an opportunity for CSR to show itself. Hurricane Katrina provided a second opportunity and unfortunately it seems Hurricane Rita wil provide a third.

There will surely be more, and if business can continue to develop plans and strategies as to how they can most effectively contribute this will be CSR at its best. It will evidently depend on leadership: from those who can advise businesses, those who can guide them and those within the businesses.

After the Tsunami the IBLF launched a guide for what business should do and then set up the Tsunami Business Task Force to review what ways are most effective for business support and business skills, to provide timely advice to companies and tourism industry on future spending and engagement and to ensure that valuable lessons are learned for the future. US based Business for Social Responsibility has also provided guidance as a response to hurricane Katrina. Other organisations are encouraging similar responses (eg. US Chamber of Commerce).

They focus on the 3 stages of the recovery: Short-term/Rescue (mostly requiring money for immediate short-term medical care), Medium-term/Relief (helping with coordination and distribution of aid collected) and Longer-term/Recovery (creating employment, rebuilding).

Business Roundtable is a similar US organisation and their website provides an interesting read. In particular their page lists all the contributions of their member businesses after hurricane Katrina. As well as the financial contributions it also shows you which companies donated their own products/services.

Evidently one role of business is to do what it does best: thus logistics companies provide logistics advice or transportation for free, medical companies provide free health care equipment, water companies provide drinks etc. The other role is much more complex and that depends on what operations and influence the business has in the affected area. A hotel chain for example will need to look after its employees and their families (and if they lived at the hotel, they may now be homeless if it was destroyed).

This internal analysis also requires a risk assessment: how will the business be affected and how can in continue to operate and then how can the business provide help (can employees be given paid leave to volunteer -is this in the company's best interests short or long-term?)

There requires strong leadership to provide a suitable response and the willingness to change and try new things; to be brave and have a belief in what can be done. At the same time the company must not overreach itself. The job of a business is to do business -going out of business will help nobody! The responsible leader will need to give the occasion due attention, support and resources. They should inspire their business to do what is right and understand the huge impact they can have.

Now through learning lessons, business can be prepared for the future and so they can not only most benefit those in need, but they can benefit as well; be it from employee motivation or pride, employee development from direct involvement, increased sales from branding or so on. The responsible leader thinks about others, but never forgets to think about themselves too. As always, its a matter of balance and choices. What is the right balance and what are the right choices?