CSR for the community

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KUCHING: Corporations near and far believe that giving back to the community is an important portion of a company’s responsibility as it does business.

Aside from achieving KPIs, generating profits and delivering dividends, companies believe it is utmost important to engage with the local community and provide assistance when needed.

This is especially the case if the company’s business activities affect the local community at large, at which point these entities will then take it upon themselves to come up with sustainable and viable solutions as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) to resolve such problems.

One such player here is power giant Sarawak Energy Bhd (Sarawak Energy), which provides the state with the power it needs.

According to social investment manager for corporate social responsibility, Joanne Tan, every company defines CSR in a different way. In Sarawak Energy’s case, the group manages its business with the aim of minimising negative impact to both environment and community.

“We know that in any operation, there are bound to be some negative impact but we must know how to mitigate and reduce the negative impact and maximise the positive impact such as how much you can do for the communities,” Tan told BizHive Weekly in an interview recently.

Being the sole provider of electricity to the state of Sarawak, the group acknowledges and respects all its customers and the communities present here.

“This is why the CSR was set up in 2011, to contribute to the well-being of the community.

“We believe in working with the community especially in the areas and regions where we operate our business,” she added.

 

Developing one’s brand

Other players in the state such as Naim Group of Companies (Naim) observes that a company does not exist alone as it operates within the community and the environment.

Adopting this line of reasoning, Naim believes that CSR efforts, if properly structured and monitored, will yield direct benefits.

Naim’s deputy managing director Christina Wong said for example, such efforts will help an organisation’s brand management efforts and a good reputation also makes it easier to recruit talent.

Wong added that reducing resource use, waste and emissions does not merely help the environment – it saves money too.

“Employees who are encouraged to volunteer for CSR activities more often have a higher sense of satisfaction in their jobs, leading to lower employee attrition, higher motivation and higher productivity,” she said.

Furthermore, Naim noted that structured community-related CSR efforts will help foster good relationship with the community, which may lead to stronger customer loyalty.

On this note, BizHive Weekly looks into the various CSR programmes that prominent companies in Sarawak have undertaken which have made a big impact on the communities here.

Sarawak Energy

When it comes to environmental impact, all eyes are on Sarawak Energy.

To note, the group has many CSR activities to ensure the communities affected by the Murum Hydropower Electric Project (HEP) can smoothly adapt to their new life in  new resettlement areas.

One such example is its partnership with the Society for the Advancement of Women and the Family Sarawak (SAWF) to create the Murum Penan Literacy Programme.

The Murum HEP, which affected six Penan and one Kenyah longhouses, led to the relocation of the families at Tegulang and Metalun.

According to Sarawak Energy’s Tan, literacy rate in Murum had been very low prior to the programme, at less than 10 per cent.

A ‘Contemporary Ethnography’ survey conducted by the state government’s consultants in 2009 had identified that out of 550 education-aged Penans in six villages of Murum, 517 were not attending school. The Murum Penan Literacy Programme was thus created to close this gap.

“We feel that being literate is very important. Before you can introduce anything to them, I think being literate is the most fundamental requirement,” Tan said.

Working closely with the SAWF, the programme caters for all interested participants in the six affected communities. Literacy classes were set up in seven Penan longhouses, with six in Murum and one in Sungai Asap.

Sarawak Energy and SAWF initially focused on Penan women for the literacy programme because they felt that women needed the skills more, in addition to being at home more often as they were always taking care of kids while the men went to the farm or went hunting.

However, at the start of the literacy programme at Sungai Asap, Sarawak Energy and SAWF noticed that the Penan men actually came out and supported the women for joining this programme.

With such support and interest from everyone in the programme, the partners thus altered the program to cater for all interested participants in Murum.

While the programme was supposed to last for a year, Sarawak Energy felt that because the participants needed a longer time to learn, compared to other indigenous rural communities, it thus extended the duration of the programme.

“As long as they have that type of learning behaviour, we are quite grateful,” Tan said.

As part of the Murum Penan Literacy Programme, they started training some of the Penans who have been to school but dropped out mid-way, to be facilitators. These included those who studied up to either Primary Six or until Form Three or Five.

Following the training course by Sarawak Energy, these facilitators then went back to their longhouses and set up the classes to start teaching interested students.

As a facilitator, they teach 10 to 20 of their students three times a week. In addition, these facilitators are paid RM5 for each two-hour session. Teaching materials and books for the students have also been provided.

Tan explained that the literacy programme is not like the education that is typically received in school because the Penans already know how to speak fluent Bahasa Melayu. The only thing was that back then, they did not recognise or read words.

After having participated in this literacy programme, she said that they know how to read and recognise words such as ‘Sarawak’.

This is particularly useful especially since previously, when the Penans went to the clinic and doctors gave prescriptions, they could not even recognise the figures for the dosages. As such, all this basic literacy has become very useful for the participants.

The following year 2013 saw the introduction of stage two of Sarawak Energy’s partnership with SAWF which aimed to ensure continuous learning and developoment of the community.

The second stage of the literacy programme also aims to complement the livelihood restoration in the Resettlement Action Plan and at the same time, to promote economic empowerment of the community so that they are able to grow their own food for enhanced food security and earn extra income from farming or employed jobs to enable livelihood sustainability.

Stage two saw participants learning about personal development, health and hygiene. The first module of personal development consisted of five topics – motivation, vision, values, communication and change. The second module involved teaching the participants that good health begins at home and that maintaining their hygiene is important.

Family welfare of the women in contributing to their families and community development were also covered in stage two.

Last year, 341 Penans completed stage two of the literacy programme based on an assessment conducted by SAWF. The graduates were issued a certificate of participation for their attendance and assessment which deemed that they were able to do basic reading, writing and calculations with confidence.

Tan noted that Sarawak Energy initially thought that teaching them how to read, write, do some basic calculations and recognise figures would be good enough. However, the group felt that it could not just leave them as they were just starting and felt that it still has to continuously be with them and educate them in other areas of livelihood sustainability.

This led to stage three which focuses on ensuring continuous learning and developoment of the community. The third stage covered home economics on the skill of saving, spending and attitude towards money for youths, parents and especially women.

More specifically, participants were given training on basic mathematics, good personal finance, basic accounting and starting up an organisation.

For stage three, youths and parents will also be attending parenting workshops.

While the literacy programme is now in its fourth year, Tan acknowledged that they cannot be there forever guiding the Penans in their livelihood. She believes that after the program, they should be self-sustainable.

That said, Sarawak Energy is going into other programmes such as handicraft development and perhaps in the future, they may even go into IT programmes.

In line with their belief that education is important for the younger generation, Sarawak Energy’s other initiative was the construction of two primary schools SK Tegulang and SK Metalun situated in the Murum resettlement areas.

Sarawak Energy is also providing transportation for the students whereby it pays the local villagers who have transport to bring the youngsters to and from school. The Penans have been asked by the group to handle this and are paid on a monthly basis.

Overall, the group sees the improvement in literacy rate and school attendance now because the school is nearer and it has provided transportation and seen to their needs.

The Penans have more confidence in interaction, speak very well and are positive in attitude. In addition, she noted that there has been increasing entrepreneurship amongst them whereby they are always encouraging visitors to buy their handicrafts and other products.

“They are encouraged and we feel there is motivation there,” she said.

CMS

Cahya Mata Sarawak Bhd (CMS) first embarked on its ‘Doing Good’ philosophy back in 2011, whereby it incorporates the values of the company – to operate for its four stakeholders.

According to managing director Datuk Richard Curtis, one of the four stakeholders is the community in which CMS operates in, and they want to contribute back to the people that grew with them in the journey for the betterment of the State.

“The act of giving is not restricted to the conventional method of physical providence, but it also means contributing our effort to building homes, which have been razed by fire, travelling into rural areas to assist with any physical labour and providing emotional support to families and homes which need them,” he said.

Gone are the days when companies used to indulge in cheque philanthropy, and consider that an act of corporate social responsibility.

In the years to come, Curtis said that CSR has evolved into a much more refined concept, where the responsibility does not translate into mere activities, but how the companies’ values resonate with their actions.

“When it becomes part of the company’s DNA, even through difficult times, CMS believes that you cannot simply shed off this piece of your identity as you have been abiding with it.

“This is the truth with CMS’s direction – we drive/promote employee volunteerism instead of handing out cheques, as we believe in taking that extra step to reach out to the community,” Curtis said.

“Focusing on sustainable projects and activities, CMS does not pick and choose what it wants to do,   but rather, the group considers the needs of the community before it acts,” he added.

Employee participation in its CSR programmes is encouraged as CMS is always trying to involve its employees in any way it can while the company gives in monetary form.

Curtis explained that every employee within CMS are required, as per their key performance indicators (KPIs), to undertake a minimum of three days of community work during the year which is subsequently translated into the number of man-hours achieved.

As of 2014, CMS employees clocked a total of 52,781 man-hours for CSR activities such as fundraising charity sales, rebuilding communities, jog-a-thons, gotong-royong and many more.

“Our caring employees volunteered their time on weekends to ‘Doing Good’ for the community and raised a total of RM107,597 in 2014,” he enthused.

The funds were donated to various charitable organisations, places of worship, homes for the aged, children’s homes and sports bodies to assist them in carrying out their annual activities.

Under the fundraising activities segment in 2014, CMS employees had raised RM33,955 for Go Bald 6.0 for the Sarawak Children’s Cancer Society and RM16,498.30 for Hope Place Kuching to aid the fire victims of Rumah Ngumbang, Batang Ai, Sri Aman.

The other fundraising activities were setting of stalls at the sale-of-work events organised by PERKATA Special School, Kuching Autistic Association and Sarawak Cheshire Home.

Last year, CMS employees also took part in six home-build programmes organised by Habitat for Humanity Malaysia in 2014.

CMS sponsored building materials worth RM200,000 for Habitat’s Borneo Blitz Build with CMS employees volunteering alongside international volunteers from Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US to complete 14 houses within a period of one week.

CMS has also held many gotong-royong activities, with Curtis noting that when there is an opportunity to combine strengths to give back to the community, the group’s employees are always eager to lend a hand.

“Numerous ‘gotong-royong’ activities were carried out at schools, villages and places of worships throughout Sarawak including our road maintenance crews who went beyond their duties to assist villages or areas affected by road collapse, landslide or floods throughout the State,” he said.

In addition, regular blood donation drives were organised throughout the group. Many CMS employees are regular donors.

Aside from the above, CMS also promotes healthy living amongst its employees through its ‘Work-Life Balance’ programme.

As running events are on the rise in Kuching and other cities and towns, more and more CMS employees are taking part in these activities such as the Colour Rush, Road Share Run, Rat Race Run, The Spring’s Live Active Run, Charity Night Run, Kuching Marathon, The Animazing Race, Monster Dash, MRCS Charity Jog-a-thon, Maju Sarawak Run (Bintulu), Energizer Night Race (KL), to name a few.

“The highlight this year was our CMS Charity Run series which were held in Kuching, Betong, Sibu, Bintulu and Miri.

“Proceeds from the runs were also donated to Hope Place Kuching,” Curtis added.

Ultimately, the good experience that exudes from the gathering of CMS employees to ‘Do Good’, to work as a team, showing compassion while improving the livelihood of the less fortunate, gives joy to the contributors as well.

All in, CMS has a dedicated division for CSR activities that does not just take into account the various corporate philanthropic activities that have taken place, but the purpose and integration of this effort into the company’s identity.

“We ensure that the ‘Doing Good’ message rings throughout the year and will continue to do so, so that we live and operate in a safe and conducive environment,” Curtis said.

Shell

In light of the government’s call to attract more people into vocational or technical education more than two decades ago, Shell Malaysia formed a partnership with local institute Miri Vocational College back in 1989 to fulfill this demand.

Speaking at a Shell event in Malaysia last year, Datu Len Talif Salleh, the Sarawak Assistant Minister of Promotion of Technical Education said that Malaysia’s youth need to have bigger ambitions and to achieve this, they need to be technically educated.

“There is plenty of hope in the technical world for teenagers who may not be very inclined in the academic sense, and in fact, they usually end up earning more than those with paper qualification,” he added.

This year marks the 26th year of the partnership between Shell Malaysia and Miri Vocational College, which over the years has helped to address the need for highly-skilled welders in Malaysia.

Iain Lo, Shell Malaysia chairman noted that before 1989, most welders employed in the local oil and gas industry were non-Malaysians and the majority were from the neighbouring Asean countries, thus giving a negative impression on the quality of the local vocational school graduates.

Aside from working with the college to identify areas for improvement in the welding curriculum to help ensure employability of the graduates, as well as helping to upgrade the welding workshop with financial and technical assistance, Shell has in recent years worked with its partner to develop ProjekLINK.

ProjekLINK is a fast-track programme to train welders in accordance with the highest industry standards. Through ProjekLINK, Lo said that Miri Vocational College has trained more than 800 coded welders from across the country and expanded the programme to Bintulu, Malaysia.

“Today, Malaysian welders are in high demand,” he added.

Shell plays an active role in supporting the programme by providing both teachers and students with ongoing guidance, motivation and learning materials. In celebration of the 25th anniversary, last year Shell presented the college with a new welding machine worth more than RM110,000.

Seeing the positive outcomes of ProjekLINK, the Malaysian government has also over the years contributed to the programme in a number of ways.  Increasing the power supply to the college’s workshop was one such contribution and this made a profound difference to the number of practical hours the students could log during the course.

In 2013, ProjekLINK was extended to Bintulu, a coastal city south of Miri, and as part of the 11th Malaysian Economic Plan, the programme is set for expansion across Malaysia.

Shell will continue to support ProjekLINK by providing training to instructors to ensure they are up-to-date on industry standards, and by continuing to make improvements to the college’s workshop.

Aside from ProjekLINK, Shell has also constantly promoted the development of local capabilities with its Asia Pacific Wells Learning Hub in Miri, Sarawak which had first opened in September 2013 and also, bringing innovation to Wells Training Programme as the first in the region to use advanced simulators.

According to Lo, this learning hub aims to train wells staff in the Asia Pacific region to the highest standards on a regular basis and improve their professional and safety competencies.

Shell invested in setting up the Asia Pacific Wells Training Hub in Miri, with the objective to become the most practical and hands-on well control school available to the industry in the Asia Pacific region.

The school is Shell’s desire to provide quality Wells training which reflects the rapidly changing and growing environment in South East Asia, complimented with the use of the most advanced simulator systems available worldwide.

Shell noted that the simulators are capable of handling actual well data to mimic possible downhole conditions – recreating all types of operational difficulties – to test the candidates and contractors ability to resolve each unique situation and avoid a well blowout in the most realistic settings.

In addition, the trainers can also utilize case histories of blowouts and other well control events to teach prevention and control.

This all part of Shell’s aim to “Better” the well control capabilities of staff, contractors and partners and build a reputation as the “Best” Well control training facility in the Asia Pacific Region.

Overall, Shell sees the training facilities as beneficial to the local community where schools, colleges and universities are invited to observe the simulators working and experience the simulated Wells operations, thereby encouraging young students to consider a future career in Wells.

 MLNG

As the saying goes, ‘Today’s youth are our future leaders”. It is for that reason that numerous companies are focusing on creating CSR programmes which will help to develop and educate the younger generation to achieve higher. Malaysia LNG Group of Companies (MLNG) is no exception, with its MLNG Choral Speaking Competition and Program Sentuhan Ilmu Petronas.

MLNG, in collaboration with the Bintulu District Education Office, has been organising the MLNG Choral Speaking Competition since 2012.

This competition is one of the organisation’s signature Corporate Social Investment (CSI) programme aimed at helping to nurture a love for the English language among the students of Bintulu.

MLNG Choral Speaking Competition provides a platform for Bintulu students to learn the English language in a fun manner outside the classroom setting.

In the three years, Bintulu schools have achieved increasingly better results in the state level Choral Speaking Competitions.

In 2012, while Bintulu was not represented in the Primary School levels, SMK Baru did get seventh placing. The following year 2013 saw SK Agama (MIS) Bintulu achieve fourth place in the Primary School category while SMK Baru advanced to sixth placing in the Secondary levels.

Last year, in 2014, SMK Agama (MIS) were the runners-up and also grabbed the Best Conductor Award for the Primary School Category while SMK Bintulu placed third among the Secondary schools.

This year, some 20 primary schools and eight secondary schools participated in the competition, bringing the total number of students involved to approximately 980. The event was witnessed by Abdul Muin B Hj Abdul Kassim, education officer of Bintulu District.

“Having operated in Bintulu for 37 years, MLNG has always been passionate about the welfare and wellbeing of the local people.

“So, imagine our delight when we were given the opportunity to make a difference in our children through Education,” Wan Mohd Muzani B Wan Muda, MLNG general manager of Technical Services, said in his speech at the ceremony.

Muzani further added that in the years that MLNG has been involved in this competition, they have observed a steady improvement in the standings of Bintulu schools at the state-level competitions.

“This upward trend is an encouraging sign that Bintulu schools and its students are an emerging force to be reckoned with.

“It is also a testament to the abilities of the boys and girls who performed for us right here in Bintulu,” he said.

This year’s Primary School champion was SK Agama (MIS) Bintulu while SMK Baru was crowned the Secondary School champions.

Aside from the Choral Speaking Competitions, MLNG was involved with Program Sentuhan Ilmu Petronas – a CSI spearheaded by the parent company – whereby the group has adopted SK Sungai Tisang in Bintulu.

The initiative saw Petronas Operating Units adopt underprivileged students with borderline results and provide monetary support, organise weekly tuition classes as well as experiential learnings activities to motivate and inspire them to improve their results.

Under this programme, MLNG adopted 40 children from Primary 2 and 3. The monthly experiential learning activities are facilitated and led by MLNG staff volunteers from various departments and backgrounds.

The activities follow a specific module developed by Petronas that would help students develop themselves beyond just classroom knowledge.

The activities are centralised around several constructive topics such as ‘Knowing Oneself’, ‘Knowing Others’ and ‘My Ambition’ among others. There were also other educational topics such as the multiplication table and the English language.

Overall, these programmes are part of MLNG and Petronas’ focus on sustainable development with the intention of bringing the conventional CSR programmes to a more advance level known internally as CSI.

“We are looking at making contributions that can sustain into the future and give longer lasting impact instead of a touch-and-go effort,” Norazibah Md Rabu, head of public affairs, MLNG said.

Naim

Naim believes that building a strong business and creating a better world are essential ingredients for long-term success. As such, it endeavours to integrate its role as a corporate citizen with its day-to-day business.

Some of Naim’s key performance indicators (KPIs) in relation to CSR are social, community and environment conservation investment, employee volunteerism and health and safety.

In fact, in recognition of the group’s efforts in CSR, Naim was granted the winner of the Asia Responsible Entrepreneurship Awards in the Social Empowerment category in 2014.

According to Christina Wong, Naim’s deputy managing director, there are two critical factors in ensuring sustainable CSR efforts which are leadership and formulation of the ‘CSR Culture’ among the workforce through communication.

In terms of leadership, Wong said that there are a few statements which the group believes would need to be present to facilitate sustainable CSR such as the fact that leaders need to believe that building a better world is crucial to organisational success, now and in the future.

She added that leaders should also possess a focused commitment to long-term strategic thinking, planning and action in relation to CSR.

“Leaders with such long-term vision would need to have the ability to communicate this vision, so that they can influence others to adopt this vision,” Wong said.

Furthermore, Naim believes that leaders not only provide the vision – they, together with their organisations, should engage in sustainability efforts that focus on communities and environmental conservation programmes.

“In other words, the leaders and their leadership styles must demonstrate that they model the ‘CSR sustainability’ culture, both professionally and personally – they need to lead by example,” she said.

Once the above are present, Wong said that the next layer would involve communicating or cascading this to the rest of the workforce – the objective here is to inculcate a ‘CSR Culture’ among staff.

This, she noted, can be done via on-boarding or new staff orientation programmes, standard operation procedures in relation to formulation and implementation of CSR efforts, creation of CSR-related KPIs and formulation of yearly CSR plan (the activities of which would be available for staff participation).

“It can also be done through the creation of CSR Committee within the organisation to propose and oversee the implementation of such activities, regular emphasis on the importance and role of CSR in scheduled sessions such as town hall meetings, training  days and management sharing sessions and lastly, recognition accorded to staff demonstrating good practices such as high level of volunteerism, promoting health and safety at work.”

In a potential scenario in which times get harder and the economy is a bit tigher, Naim believes that companies should not abandon CSR altogether or charitable initiatives until times become better.

“What we are saying is that CSR needs to adapt to the circumstances, and leaders need to pin down CSR’s place among the organisation’s priorities during bad times,” Wong said.

For instance, Naim noted that CSR can come in many forms, be it contributions in cash or in kind to charities or the deserving, community involvement such as internship opportunities for students, environmental clean-ups or even training opportunities for communities in specific areas and even integrating CSR into products and services such as incorporating ‘green’ elements into them.

When times are good, the group believes that organisations normally would embark on all of the above, but when times are bad, organisations need to decide which CSR strategy they would like to pursue – maybe instead of contributing financially to a range of charities, think about contributing to a few selected ones, or encouraging staff to be more involved in community-related activities.

“There are two tough realities here – firstly, even during challenging times, CSR belongs in every company, and secondly, organisations need to make money and survive first, before they can contribute towards CSR, be it financially or in kind.

“So, we feel that CSR is here and here to stay,” Wong said.

Overall, in this day and age, Naim noted that businesses are required to pay attention on aspects of business which are beyond their financial results ie CSR.

“Increased globalisation and usage of information technology, and future generations whom are more educated, aware and informed will undoubtedly require businesses to accord more focus towards CSR- call it an evolution if you must.

“Our group will increase its efforts in implementing sustainable initiatives, providing equal focus on community-related initiatives and environment conservation ones,” Wong said.

One of the aspects Naim is looking into is ways to enhance the integration of ‘green’ elements into its products, something which the group is very excited about.